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

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.

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.