Spy Satellites? What Spy Satellites?

mutantcamel writes: "This story at Yahoo says that the actual orbits of US spy satellites are not the same as the ones that the UN thinks that they are. The errors include a launch of a satellite that was never registered, and only two of the last ten satellites have been correctly registered. The errors are bound to cast doubts on what will really happen with the Son of Star Wars programme." Heh, "errors".

Comments

Re:Look harder

[Bluesee]

Looking away a few degrees is the best way to view stars because the fovea, a concentrated bundle of cones, is located right at the center of the field of view. Whilst its great for seeing color, it isn't as good for seeing dim objects; you need more rods for that. So the best way to look at stars is to look slightly askance at them.

antisatellite weapons

[4thAce]

If today's satellite orbits cannot be trusted, opponents reason, how will we verify the numbers of future space-based anti-missile lasers and anti-satellite weapons?

I don't get it. If we start having weapons in space, the only way the other countries plan to verify the numbers will be based on the information the owner of those weapons plans to give out? What happened to "trust, but verify?"

I think the Pentagon is thinking that as long as it is the only one putting up antisat weapons, they can program them with the correct orbital elements for their own classified satellites, not the erroneous UN-registered elements. It's like a business keeping double ledgers.

I wonder what would happen if some state the US has antagonistic relations with were to put up a satellite in the exact same orbit as the unregistered 1989-72A, saying "that wasn't supposed to be there!"

Look harder

[superid]

I have *very* poor vision and I live in the light polluted southern New England. I have no problem picking out satellites. In fact, its a rare (cloudless) evening that I don't see one. Granted, they are dim and they move pretty fast. Sometimes it helps if you don't quite stare right at them, look away a few degrees.

Maybe you'll get lucky and see the NOSS satellites, there are 3 flying in formation. I've only seen them twice.

SuperID

But who will do something?

[ConsumedByTV]

America is the rouge nuclear state it is trying to "protect" it self from. The irony is that no one can force it to do anything it doesnt want to. The UN might have power, but the US will use its power in ways that wont even be directly tied to it other then a bennifit.
See about the cia and the killing sprees they have had. America had a great ideal, but its time has passed because it can no longer be held true with out money. I am an american.

Re:American version of history

[Anonymous Coward]

What country ever does anything that isn't in its own self interest?

The answer, of course, is none.

It was in America's (and American citizens - Flying Tigers) best interest to help China fight Japan even before America declared war on Japan for Pearl Harbor.

It was in America's best interest to put Japan on a democratic footing after WW2, and to help fund the rebuilding of her cities and industries, and to become her best market for the goods she produced.

It was in America's best interest to put England and Europe back on it's feet using the Marshal Plan following WW2, and to forgive billions in loans even though we would be competing against them economically in the future.

It has been in America's best interests to send a flood of CARE packages, food, and other relief to all countries in need during the last 5 decades. Most recently to North Korea, who starves its citizens so it can maintain a military force it cannot afford in the 'hope' of finding an opportunity to attack South Korea.

In fact, America has redistributed more of her wealth than all the combined wealth redistributed by Marxist-socialist countries since 1917. The simple fact is no other country in the world had the capacity for the sustained production of food, clothing and medicine, at the levels required, to be able to export what we did and not run short here.

America is not the leader in redistributing armaments, though. That honor goes to the countries that manufacture and sell or give away AK-47s, symtex and the fuel and parts for nuclear weapons to 'United Liberation Fronts" around the world. You know the ULF's I'm refering to; the ones who shoot you or any other innocent civilians if you or they don't agree with ULF politics.

Wouldnt you ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm

Call me strange but if i was going to spend billions of dollars on a network or spy sattelites and then put them in orbit would i then wilingly tell the world just where they really are ?

Hey saddam theres a spy sattelite that passes over this point of Iraq at this time of the day so dont put that bio weapons plant there.

Isnt the point of having these tools that no-one knows where they are ?

Just a thought

(im not commenting on the US govt and its spying - thats not something i can do as i dont live in the US)

The brightest objects in the sky, yeeaah right.

[buglord]

"It's silly. These things are among the brightest objects in the sky," says John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a Washington-based policy group. He says the Pentagon has grown arrogant, believing "we won the cold war, we can do whatever we want".

The brightest objects in the sky, even with all the light pollution? Seriously, I've never seen a satellite other than SkyLab. And then, only because everybody in the neighborhood knew when it was to fly by!
Those things don't need navigation lights or bright colors. I'm afraid, Mr. Pike, that the Pentagon can do anything they want in this matter.

The UN

[CharlieG]

As others have pointed out, the US is deliberately not telling the UN the right orbits.

Hate to sound like a right wing wacko, but where does it say in the Constitution that the US listens to the UN? We can (not saying we should) tell the UN to pound sand. A significant number of Americans believe we should. Guess what, they vote that way, too.