Slashdot Mirror
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".
The U.S. is not, has never been, and was never designed to be even a representative democracy. It is, always has been, and was designed to be a constitutional republic with institutions ranging from appointive to fully democratic, and has increased its democratic content over the years through amendment.
For example, state-set property qualifications to vote are still constitutional; the State of Washington could legally limit the right to vote for members of the more numerous branch of its state legislature to persons with assets of at least $1,000,000,000. If it did so, the same property qualifications would also apply to all Congressional elections held in the state. The state can also set whatever method it likes for choosing electors for the Electoral College; it could limit their election to the same persons.
But let's get even more narrow. Can a government be called democratic if the people of Wyoming have votes that count 60 times more than those of Californians and infinitely more times than those of the people of Washington D.C.? Because that's what the Senate does...
A much more realistic attack model for a small country would be to put the nuke in a truck or a shipping container and drive or sail across the border to a major city. If they need extra security, they can always pack the stuff in drugs and smuggling it across the border is no problem at all....
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Has America ever done something that isnt in their own self interest?
I'm a technologist, not a historian, but has any country ever used military force when it wasn't (knowingly) in their self interest?
I'm not talking about taking action that ultimately turned out to be a bad idea (i.e., Japan attacking Pearl Harbor, the US putting troops in Vietnam and Cambodia, etc). I'm wondering if any country ever said, "well, this is not in our self interest, but we'll do it anyway."
We get all this bashing, from ourselves, too, because the government is, thank God, very active in pursuing our interests everywhere. Unfortunately, as Hart said, the requirements of strategy are directly opposed to those of morality. So we don't like it. Hate it, in fact. And don't do anything about it- because while most of us vehemently hate an aspect or two about what the government does for us, we know that we need the wole package.
Conflict is a part of the human condition. We can't avoid it, but we can work hard to adjust it. As long as there is going to be fighting in the streets somewhere, I would rather it be somewhere else. I'm sorry, but I'll stick to that. It's a lot cheaper to maintain the most capable military machine we can than it would be to rebuild just one of our cities.
I spent a year in Iraq looking for WMD and all I found was this lousy sig.
what will really happen with the Son of Star Wars programme
Shouldn't that be Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones? Thanks to George Lucas for blowing the whistle on what Dubya is really up to -- building a army of clones.
The Comprehensive Test Ban treaty, or CTBT, wasn't ratified by the US, who, incidentally were the first signatories, because the Republicans were so consumed with their hatred of Clinton that they couldn't see straight to give in to even the slightest notion of a 'victory' to him. Partisan and short-sighted politics thereby diminished the US in the eyes of the world (once again), and severely reduced the level of security in the world. Realize that the US stands to benefit greatly from the CTBT; having already tested its weapons to a great degree, they would only become more secure when Pakistan, India, et al voluntarily gave up the ability to test (and thereby develop) their own deadly creations.
Between that, the Kyoto protocol, NMD, and now this discovery that we have been 'in error' on our satellite orbits (is Russia truthful about thiers?), our prestige in the world is reduced to that of a big bully with an attitude problem, rather than the shining beacon of democratic promise and economic prosperity through principled administration of a higher ideal. Plus the fact that W is arrogantly and defiantly ignorant of the issues, and needs Condo Rice to tell him that Mexico is part of North America...
slightly ot, but it puts it all in perspective, ya think?
SDMI: Finally! Music that won't rip or burn! Brought to you by the fine folks at RIAA.
"And I'm not saything this from necessarily an American standpoint - I fully respect the rights of all other countries to do the same thing."
Uh huh. So you wouldn't mind if some country assasinated Bush and supported a puppet dicator... Or maybe funded the Canadians to terrorize and wage a guerrila war against the US... Just because they don't like our method of government.
I mean, sure you'd be sad if your side lost, but you fully respect their right to do that sort of thing, eh?
Oh, and the Iridium satellites are the brightest objects in the sky, if you happen to catch a flare.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
It's heavens-above.com with a dash. I accidentally hit "submit" instead of "preview".
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
Well...if I remember correctly...
In 1997, the council approved the issuance of $336 million in bonds on behalf of the Washington State Major League Baseball Public Facilities District (PFD) for construction of Safeco Field. State and county law require that all excess revenue from the authorized taxes be distributed in the following manner of priority.
The funds for the PDF came after a 1996 Seattle Metro area ballet initiative was passed.
But there were cost over runs...that is true.
Clueless America bashers. Did you read the article? Did anyone bother to actually read the convention?
t .h tm
From the article:
"Unfortunately, the UN registry relies on a treaty that allows long delays in providing data, and does not require nations to give final orbits. "In fact, they mostly provide only the initial orbit," said Petr Lala, research chief for the UN office, which is aware of McDowell's findings."
There is no deadline for registering orbits, and no stipulation that FINAL orbits (or CHANGED orbits, as spy sats CHANGE orbits) must be reported.
Now, go read the Convention:
http://www.oosa.unvienna.org/SORegister/registx
The Convention states that each launching State will maintain its own register of orbits, and "The contents of each registry and the conditions under which it is maintained shall be determined by the State of registry concerned." That information is then communicated to the UN Register. In other words, when and what gets registered is at the DISCRETION OF THE LAUNCHING STATE.
This treaty is meant to determine responsibility in the event of a space collision. NOT as a means to track objects in space for safety of orbits.
The ignorance and disinformation that gets spewed on Slashdot can get burdensome, I swear.
Derek
Well, spy satellites are spottable by amateur astronomers... so we should count on that the rest of the world have calculated their orbits themselves.
The danger as I see it is the spy satellites crashing into important scientific satellites or even commercial ones like TV satellites. I would be really pissed of if I couldn't watch TV because of the stupid US government! The NSA,FBI and CIA reading my mail I don't care about, but when they start interfering with what TV channels I can watch, I get mad!
Well, perhaps they do already through sensorship already? Through sensoring sensorship, sensorship can be hold secret.
The USA think they can do whatever they want - and they can. They got most nukes, even though I bet Russia and China got enough aswell.
Find nice cocktail recipes @ www.spitzy.net
On the other hand, since it lets us know its bias straight-off, we can dismiss it without having to wade through the crap that follows.
Look Mr Harvard-Liberal-Academic-Kennedy-Wannabe, we all know you hate Bush. But are you really that naive to think that any nation capable of putting a satellite in space wouldn't be able to make the same kinds of observations you did? I have a feeling most nations understand that spy satellites are, well, for spying, and that unless they want to start a war they'll let us have ours and we let them have theirs. The U.S. Space Command is more than capable of keeping track of all man-made satellites in earth-orbit, so arguments about collisions are irrelevant. And the fact is that the treaty says that contents of each country's satellite registry is comnpletely up to that country, so the U.S. is not in violation of the treaty.The only way I can explain this article is that this "respected space analyst" is either extremely arrogant and naive, or (more likely) an anti-Bush liberal democrat. The other thing to remember is that New Scientist is based in Europe (in G.B. I believe), and to fill a weekly magazine with "cutting-edge scientific journalism" they have to choose a few dodgy topics as filler, the more controversial, the better.
The real unitron has Slashdot ID 5733, and needs to change his sig.
Does this really come as that big of a shock? They are spy satellites. I, for one, would be more alarmed if they were being honest about it.
On the other hand, it really does say something about our country. Not only do we not trust our government, apparantly they don't trust us.
I would bet money that's the only time that has ever happened (aside from collisions during takeoff and landing, when the plane's location is very constrained) in 100 years of aerospace technology and hundreds of millions of flights.
(Of course, evidence of more midair collisions is welcome...)
Why is it that political or foreign-relations stories get all the responses with Bush-bashing and America-bashing?
You're right, we should have that in all the stories!
First, the choice of orbit isn't random; some orbits are better than others (land or sea coverage springs to mind). These orbits will tend to crowd faster than others (there is a real shortage of geostationary orbits by now, for example). Second, they'd be circling in similar orbits for years.
:-) ), and toss marbles. This time, however, we toss them in similar directions. Also, we do another toss about every fifty minutes for the next ten years (or around 100.000 times).
OK, let's stand on random point on a cricket field (though I'd prefer an icehockey rink, but whatever
/Janne
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
You normally do not see satelites in the sky. But when you lie outside in the gras for some hours at night, you start seeing more and more. We did this a few times and we could see satelites almost all 10 minutes. they do not blink or something, they are just very dimm stars moving a constant high speed from ost to west.
What's next, a slow moving propeller driven spy plane taking down a faster, more maneuverable fighter jet ?
What happens when such "accidents" occur just while some hostile nation is amassing large amounts of troops and tanks on neighbor's border ?
Using the 'an accident might happen' line of reasoning, wouldn't the U.S. also then be compelled to disclose the locations of submarines, ships, armored vehicles and planes so they also don't collide with commercial vessels ?
Other nations hate it, but then they're inclined to hold disdain for any super power. It's the nature of power politics and warfare to be suspicious of the guy with the big gun. It's their purgative to try and get the information, just at it is the U.S.'s to say NUTS.
healyourchurchwebsite.com - WWJB?
Have you heard of the Marshall plan?
It could be argued that the Marshall plan was selfish, but that argument could be made about any action ever taken by anyone.
Even a seemingly totally selfless act like sacrificing your life or health for others can be for your pride.
WRT - WWII, even though the US public was quite isolationist, we were involved through lend-lease.
Please get your facts straight before spouting off about what big jerks the US gov't is.
Thank you.
Regards,
Anomaly
Dang.
I hate it when I craft a response and _then_ realize that an AC posted the original message!
There's a reason that "coward" is a part of the AC moniker.
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
Even unlikely events happen from time to time.
I remember quite well that a few years ago a German an an US plane collided west of Namibia over the south atlantic because the German plane flew at the wrong altitude.
Imagine that: They were probably the only two planes in an area of 1000s of square miles - and they collided.
Tell you what - you get in a plane, and I'll get in a plane. We'll ground all other planes and birds for, say, ten years. You take off from somewhere on the planet, and I'll take off from somewhere else on the planet. We'll fly around randomly and see how long it takes to collide.
Or maybe we'll do a much more realistic example - we'll get two marbles, and stand at two random points around a cricket field. We'll both toss them in a random direction across the field at the same time and see if they hit. Of course, it's *much* more likely that the marbles would collide than two satellites...
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
Those are state issues, not Federal issues, BIG difference.
Now I'm from Portland, and I remeber clearly that the Seattle Metro area voted Yes on the new Seahawks stadium in...98 was it?
Now here in Portland when we vote yes on things like North-South Light Rail, stupid Tri-Met makes us vote again so that they don't get the money.
And don't forget how many times doctor assisted suicide or anti-gay rights bills get on the ballot.
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.
SDMI: Finally! Music that won't rip or burn! Brought to you by the fine folks at RIAA.
What's unamerican about spying? Congress allocates a large budget for it each year, the Learning Channel and PBS do all sorts of neat documentaries on our spy agencies all the time with their full cooperation, and the NSA has a website and physical museum.
I don't think it's exactly a secret that all countries able to do so, spy on each other.
The for example that incident with the Chinese - that was ourely an accident.
[sarcasm mode enabled]
No, it was considered in depth and several people signed off on it. It was planned for months, and is now standard operating procedure to collide our spyplanes into border patrols and then land a planeful of high tech and classified equipment and military personnel in another country.
[sarcasm mode disengaged]
And if you're talking about the mere fact that the flight occured, yes, we routinely fly spy missions - that's why the chinese pilots were there and expecting us. We intercept and fly border patrol around our airspace as well. The Soviets were happily buzzing around our airspace up until their government collapsed.
It's been pointed out that Americans have spent billions on spy satellites and reconnisance planes like the U2, SR-71 and now, presumably, the Aurora, all in order to snap pictures of other countries like China. Whereas any Chinese military officer can come over here to America and pay $50 to a small plane pilot to fly over whatever he wants and snap as many pictures as he wants. Then walk into KMart and get them developed in an hour, and mail them via US Mail back to Beijing.
Or now, you can just hit (the misnamed) Terraserver...
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
These aren't the satellites you're looking for. Move along.
spoo
David Hastings' SIGINT satellite page
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
The Spy satellites orbits were computed using an array of pentium I's, which were then submitted to the UN. Ofcourse due to the high accuracy required they used Floating Point numbers.....
I think that's where we lose sight of our (I'm an American btw) strength. We can impose econmoic sanctions on countries, and they do hurt! These countries signed on to the CTBT voluntarily, in the interests of not only lessening the tensions in the world and making it a safer place, but also so they could divert some of their revenue to better use.
It's easy to verify a *** kiloton explosion, btw, with seismic detectors, so verification is easy. Plus I think you can detect the radiation from space, not sure. Maybe with the very same spy satellites we are talking about. Howzat for gettin back on topic!
SDMI: Finally! Music that won't rip or burn! Brought to you by the fine folks at RIAA.
Satellite nerd: OK sir, we're ready to register the exact position of this here spy satellite with the UN.
Colonel Korn: (twirls moustache) That's top secret info. Classify it and "spill coffee" all over the UN paperwork.
Satellite Nerd: But you realize that any third grader with binoculars will instantly find out? How can we keep the brightest thing in the sky secret?
Colonel Korn: Hmf. Well, it'll at least be secret from all the second graders, and thats enough for me! Make it so!
Actually, since the USA sits on the UN Security Council as one of five permanent members, the US has the right to do whatever it wants with atomic weapons, first and foremost.
Any nation that has atomic weapons and doesn't have one of the five spots...is a "rogue nation."
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!"
Inventor of the LOLbalrog meme.
Why is it that political or foreign-relations stories get all the responses with Bush-bashing and America-bashing?
I would like to have an accurate poll as to how many of these 'informed' slashdot posters actually voted. After all, I have found that the ones who complain the most do so since they didn't voice their opinion at the appropriate place and time; i.e. the polls.
p.s. 'i didnt like either candidate' is not a valid excuse; try again.
Are you awake yet? This has not a thing to do with war, nothing to do with pointing fingers or guns at whoever the media conspires to call the bad guy this week. This has to do with you being a willing, gullible toady of a patriot and failing to rub two brain cells together to check facts, read between lines, or think critically about what they're saying and why they're saying it.
Fact check: the satellites aren't hidden at all. From a few weeks of observation or perhaps even less, you can calculate the orbital elements and track the movement for as long as you like or until the orbit changes again. The orbital elements of these satellites are public knowledge anyway, so why is the US lying? From recent experience, it's because that's all it does well.You don't have any idea what you're talking about. Shut up and listen for a change.
Maybe you'll get lucky and see the NOSS satellites, there are 3 flying in formation. I've only seen them twice.
SuperID
That is why we also have a House of Representatives. The founders couldn't decide whether to have proportionate or equal representation, so they put in both.
Erwin (http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20010812 ) can make a good use of those satellites... :)
Spy sats change their orbits from time to time.
Do you have any appreciation for how valuable the fuel in those satellites is? Satellite orbits decay. The cost of fuel for re orbiting a satellite is tens of millions of dollars since it is going to shorten the service life of the satellite by years, and the other side is going to notice. Moving the sat will give you a couple days at most of adjusted intel. If they're paying enough, they'll get the updated orbits within hours.
Now let's look at some alternative mechanisms:
However, what this completely misses is that this notion of amateur astronomers being able to track the sats is nonsense. Wouldn't it make sense for the intel sats to be difficult to spot? Say by making sure that any surface which might reflect sunshine to earth was painted a matte black? I'm sure there are many intelligence sats that are easy to spot, but I am also sure there is a whole constellation of them which are stealthy.
Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
Edward Everett (1794 - 1865)
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.
"Not my manner of thinking but the manner of thinking of others has been the source of my unhappiness." - M
Ok, who modded that stinking piece of pro-American b.s. up to five? Go out, check your IQ, and verify that it is indeed smaller than your shoe size.
While I agree with the technical parts of the argument (after all, how useful is a spy sat if they (the opponents) know where it is), there's a great deal to be said about the rest of the nonsense.
Let's use an example... Say we're monitoring Iraq's ballistic missile development. They've bought orbital intel from the Chinese or Russians or whomever, on American and British spy-sats.
Let's start with the automatic assumption that China and Russia are the fountainheads of evil, and that America and Britain are the epitomies of good. Britain and American....let's see...these are the same countries that have done their best to divest their citizens of any thin shred of privacy, right? These are the oh-so-respectful of human rights more advanced nations that routinely exploit those third-world [countries]...with imperialist tendencies economically? (And if you think paying someone $10 a month for work that your own country's citizens wouldn't do for $10/hour *isn't* economic imperialism, you need to read a few econ books.) These are the same countries that have shuffled off all of their environmentally dirty industries to the same third-world countries, right?
To be honest, I'm shoked that you have the gall to complain about third world countries....with imperialist tendencies. Does Philippines, Panama, Hawaii, California mean anything to you? Study your own history first, before mouthing off about imperialism. Or is what Americans did in those territories ok because it was so long ago?
You're wrong about the other thing, too. Much of the world DID learn alot from WWI and WWII. It was America that DIDN'T.
This is one of those cases where they can't be allowed to learn them the hard way, no matter how much they complain.
And, I suppose, you think that America is just the country to do that, don't you? The good-old world-policeman ruse. And, naturally, to do your job well, you need good equipment, like....oh I don't know....lots of spy satellites? Echelon maybe? Need I go on?
Any country with the puritanical self-righteousness to assume that they know exactly what to do to solve all of the world's problems, will inevitably, and in short order, be proven wrong. This is known as a system controlled by positive reinforcement. The only possible outcome for such a system, is a disbalance that destroyes it. And next time, kindly keep your pro-American nonsense off the threads, or at least temper it to whatever meager extent you are able with intelligence and facts.
I'm American and I don't desperatly want to hate the Chinese.
But since I follow geo-political issues I know that the Communist Chinese Government want to invade a soverign nation (Taiwan), which could cause huge damages in lost lives, destroyed infrastructure and lost envestments. I also know that the Chinese government wants to take the Spratly Islands, which are a loooong way from China and that will cause problems with the Phillipines, Vietnam and Malasya.
In short, many of the things that the Chinese Government claims are the same things that Japan claimed in the late 30s and early 40s.
Oh, and the Chinese are exporting missile and nuclear technology, despite treaties and agreements not to do that.
For the 8,015,604th time, the US Orion was in INTERNATIONAL AIRSPACE. Legally. But it's always the Americans that are in the wrong.
Geez...I know this is Slashdot and all...but PERL Harbor? What the hell? Come up for air now and then...can't think code all the time.
"That's Tron. He fights for the Users."
And clueless slashdot posters... Spy sats change their orbits from time to time. These changes are obviously made to support a particular observational project. It would be foolish to routinely publish this information, as it can give away the goal or target the change was made for. This is called operational data, and its classified, hence not released to the public.
Let's use an example... Say we're monitoring Iraq's ballistic missile development. They've bought orbital intel from the Chinese or Russians or whomever, on American and British spy-sats. They know when they're overhead, and can plan their activities accordingly. When the spy-sats are overhead, they park mobile launchers in hangars, keep everyone indoors, and generally try and make a place look uninteresting. So, in order to avoid this rouse a subtle change in the orbit of a spy-sat might be made, to invalidate their intel over a period of time and increase the odds of catching them off gaurd. A larger change might be made to bring a close pass in range of the cameras/radars within an orbit or two, in order to catch some interesting event.
The end result is, whatever orbit data is available on the spy-sats, it's virtually always out of date. It's intentional, and actually a requirement for the spy-sats to get their job done. Get over it.
To be honest, I'm really shocked at the amount of Euro "anti-american" crap flying around here. We share much of this data with your countries. The people in the UN complaining about this are the third-world represenatives who's countries can't track the spy-sats themselves, and are sick of having their own imperialist tendancies thwarted by the bigger more advanced nations. Much of the world didn't learn the lessons of WW1 and WW2. This is one of those cases where they can't be allowed to learn them the hard way, no matter how much they complain.
Temkin
Of course, it's *much* more likely that the marbles would collide than two satellites...
Actually, to properly simulate things, we get 100 people to each throw a bag of marbles continuously for a few years. Sure, the odds of any 2 colliding on any given throw are miniscule, but as more people join the game and throw more marbles, the odds of an eventual collision rise considerably.
Chinese, Soviet, Indian, French, British, hell...Israeli spy sats have been floating over the planet for decades. If you don't think other nations don't spy on the US, and it's just the big bad Americans that spy...you are ignorant.
If there are snapshots of Area-51 on the Federation of American Scientists webpage, you can bet your ass there are some in Russian, North Korean and Chinese bunkers somewhere.
http://www.fas.org/irp/overhead/groom.htm
Boom. Area 51. Doesn't get more secret than that.
As for other bases, say a big nuclear bomber base like Ellsworth AFB in South Dakota, well the glide path into Rapid City Regional Airport offers great views of the flight line and nuclear weapon "igloos". So I agree with the earlier posters that a "Chinese military officer can come over here to America and pay $50 to a small plane pilot to fly over whatever he wants and snap as many pictures as he wants. Then walk into KMart and get them developed in an hour, and mail them via US Mail back to Beijing."
Sure as hell it does. Millions of people trying to get in direct contradiction to your bullcrap
They're trying to get in because America has jobs, not because they fantasize daily about the ideals of freedom. In American TV shows they always depict foreigners dying to get into America spouting some crap about wanting to be in "the land of the free", "american dream", blah blah blah. The truth is more like, "our country is poor, we have no jobs and no money, in America there is only 4% unemployment, they have jobs and money, lets go". We also have many people trying to get in here in South Africa, but nobody here is making bogus claims that those people long for the ideals of freedom and liberty - these people want one thing - JOBS. (South Africa is not a rich country by any means, but its a lot wealthier than most of the surrounding countries.)
Any satellite moving slower than 18,000 miles per hour isn't going to be up there for long. Any satellite moving faster than 25,000 miles per hour isn't going to be in the vicinity of Earth for long. Within that range of orbital speeds, it really does not matter how small and maneuverable your satellite is. Evasive action is not possible. By the time you notice a collision might be imminent, it has happened.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
Using the words of George Carlin: "how can it be a spy satellite, when on the news they say it's a spy satellite?" The point being, of course, that spy satellites naturally are supposed to spy on people, and it's not very productive to spy on people if they know exactly where you are and what you are seeing. So, of course the owner of a spy satellite will try to conceal it's whereabouts. In case of war, shooting down a satellite you know where is is also a hell of alot easier than if you didn't know.
If you still think the US are evil here, think about how successfull a real, human spy would be if he walked around with a big sign saying "I'm a spy!" That wouldn't work very well, now would it? In fact, it would simply be silly, not to say stupid, right? It's the same thing with satellites (of course not completely, but the analogy is sound).
If anyone is worried about bias, I'm Danish, not American.
Bjarke Roune
What's the point of having a global treaty like Kyoto, if several countries are exempted from it because they are classified as 'developing'? All that is going to do is encourage heavy industries that produce a lot of pollution to move to those nations. Kyoto needs to be changed to apply to all nations.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
"The need for (railroad) signalling arises the very second that the railroad gets it's second locomotive"... - Cuthbert Hamilton Ellis
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 reason you want _everybody_ to tell where their satellites are is of course that you don't want any accidents. Having a satellite 'hidden' by placing it in a secret orbit defeats that. Sooner otr later some commercial or scientific satellite is going to get too close, and we will have a _very_ expensive incident - and if my memory doesn't fail me, according to international law, US would be solely responsible and would be obliged to pick up the tab.
Worse, if one state feels they can do this with impunity, other states will do so as well. If two reconnaisance satellites from different countries where to destroy each other, it would lead to a lot of tension as both sides would try to determine whether the incident was an accident or deliberate on either part. Having misunderstandings over this kind of thing is not good...
/Janne
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Actually, it's perfectly legal to spy outside of the 12 mile limit.
That's what the US Navy plane was doing when it got body checked.
Chinese and Russian trawlers do it all the time off the US coast. The US and the Soviets had treaties that made it clear it was OK to send planes over eachother's country. They could be shot down, but it wasn't an act of war to be flying there or to be shot down. Soviet Bear bombers and recce aircraft were herded away from the US, Canada, UK, Norway all the time during the Cold War. US RB-47s, U-2s, helicopters and British Lincoln bombers were shot down by the Soviets, East Germans, and Chinese numerous times during the Cold War.
the so-called retaliation (it's called 'terrorism' when perpetrated by the other side)
Funny, I don't see the Israeli's DELIBERATELY setting out to blow up young children, babies, teenagers and other civilians. Seems to me they at least attempt to attack military targets. When last did you hear an Israeli saying on television that they would deliberately keep blowing up Palestinian children and babies? Answer: its never happened. Yet it seems every time we hear about the latest suicide bombing, there is another Palestinian terrorist on the screen saying "its not enough, we will keep sending more". The father of a suicide bomber was interviewed and he was saying how proud he was of his son, that he wished it had been him that did it. How do you fight that peacefully? How do you get rid of such zealotry by peaceful means? I don't see how myself. I hate the idea of war and violence, but as far as I can tell, the only way to get rid of a zealot like that is to drop a rocket on his head. Only problem is, there is no shortage of new recruits being brainwashed - you need to destroy the leaders of the organizations. Anyway, this is quite off-topic.
By not being compliant.. the US seems to have all moral authority to enforce various test ban treaties. Pathetic.
"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.
-- sigs are like parking spaces - all the good ones are occupied
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.
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
Shame on the US! But then again.. if they are all registered they wouldn't be "spy" satellites.. would they?
So are you refering to ww2, when america ignored the hell everyone else was in untill it landed on their doorstep (perl harbour) and they had to defend themselves
I don't see why the USA should feel any obligation to help other countries. The only exception to this might be if they have may have caused harm to countries in the past. I sure as hell don't feel that South Africa should go running to get involved with the problems in Zimbabwe or Congo or anywhere else for that matter, quite the opposite.
What I do have a problem with is them refusing to clean up problems it causes that directly harm other countries (for example 'worlds biggest producer of greenhouse gasses' ..).