Cold War Satellite Pics Declassified

wwwssabbsdotcom writes "Looks like 25 years ago, we were taking pretty good B&W pics of the rest of the world, interesting story. How about those Cuban Missile Crisis pics, do they have that roll available?"

Comments

one thing

[insomaniac]

its about time ;)

Cuban Pics

[Karamchand]

Though there are probably satellite pictures of those missile bases on Cuba they were discovered from a plane.

Re:Cuban Pics

[meringuoid]

Yes, the intelligence pics that proved the Soviets had missiles in Cuba were taken by U2 spy planes. They were published immediately - if you're trying to force the Russians to remove their missiles, you don't keep it a secret that you know about the missiles. You tell the world.

In the early sixties, satellite reconaissance was primitive - it was still at the stage of ejecting the film in a little capsule to be picked up on the ground :-) Planes were getting much better material then.

Re:Cuban Pics

[Orne]

The new International Spy Museum in Washington DC has a very nice walk-through of photos taken during the Cuban Missile Crisis... 3 foot tall pictures show the (before and after) construction of facilities on the island.

Combined with intelligence information about a shipment of material on route to Cuba made, they make a very telling case for why the blockade was ordered. My parents claim that the US was never closer to nuclear war than on that day, and the museum does a very good job of putting the story together. I'd definitely recommend a trip.

Re:Cuban Pics

[meringuoid]

Just like the missles we had pointed to them in Turkey?

Yes, very much like them. And not so very different from the ones in Britain and Germany, and in Canada pointing across the pole. Not that anyone ever had a double standard...

kodak instant moments?

[greechneb]

According to the article they were looking for "Kodak Instant Moments" - I wonder how they would use that in a commercial. "When want the best images of your enemies, use kodak film..." naah.

Re:kodak instant moments?

[cordsie]

Don't they mean Kruschev instant moments?

Whose looking in your window?

[Havoc'ing]

If you figure we can view a galaxy a bizzillion miles away through the hubble just imagine what we are capable of now right in our back yard. And the hubble aint even classified.

Re:Whose looking in your window?

[phil reed]

just imagine what we are capable of now right in our back yard.

Not as much as you might imagine. A Hubble-sized telescope in orbit at Hubble's altitude, pointed straight down, can resolve down to 15 centimeters. That would be enough to tell that you drive a Honda instead of a Surburban, but it couldn't tell much beyond that.

Re:Whose looking in your window?

[phil reed]

Well, my comment was based on the laws of physics. You can throw as much technology as you want at the problem, but it's physically impossible for a Hubble-sized mirror, looking straight down from Hubble's altitude, to read a newspaper headline. You would have a hard time even telling that you were looking at a newspaper.

We should avoid using spy movies as a basis for estimations on what our government is capable of.

Re:Whose looking in your window?

[Honorbound]

Indeed. Given that we can get one-meter or better spatial resolution panchromatic data from commercial sources now (http://www.digitalglobe.com/index.shtml and http://www.spaceimaging.com), one wonders what the government is up to. Now, when the multispectral resolution gets to below one-meter we'll have reason to be really excited.

Re:Whose looking in your window?

[ottffssent]

Or more than you might imagine. 1m resolution is fine enough to see the lines in parking lots and count full v. empty spaces and see opened doors (not sliding van doors). What do you think something 7 times as good will show? Make and model of car, all doors, how many people, whether and what they are carrying, and if they wear glasses. You can probably tell the make of shoe someone is wearing at that resolution.

And that's just from one frame. With multiple frames, you increase dramatically the information you have available, and you can interpolate down much finer than the camera resolution.

Re:Whose looking in your window?

[silas_moeckel]

Granted lets not talk about the hubble specificaly but as I used to work with Satalite GIS data trust me you can tell if somebody is reading a newspaper especialy if you have a few offset shots to interpalate. The russians sold us (for whatever reasons in the mid 90's US sat data was classified but the russians would shoot you just about anything for a few hundred bucks) good half meter res sat photos you could tell if the women sunbathing in there back yards had there bikini tops on or not (this is black and white remember) All of this was from russian declasified sat data so we would have to assume ther clasified ones are better (maybe not film has the problem of being consumable and having to be retrieved digital might not give the rez but a constant stream of pictures instead) Now we are 10 years later while I boubt they can head the newspaper over your head of if they would even want to but make and modle of your car not a problem.

Re:Whose looking in your window?

[phil reed]

Here's an older DejaView message on the topic. It addresses this very issue.

Undergraduate physics:

Resolving power R (resolution) of a diffraction limited telescope: R = wavelength/(2*diameter telescope)

This means for the HST (2.4 meter) and visual wavelenght (500nm) R = 500nm/4.8m = 1*10^(-7)

Since the Hubble is in orbit h = 680km (380 miles) high, this means it can theoretically resolve: Detail = R * h = 0.07. Thus 7cm (3 inch) details. Not enuff for reading license plates, even if someone would hold it up to the sky so we dont have inclination effects. Besides this, the best visual wavelength camera on board (the PC chip on the WFPC2 camera) UNDERsamples this signal by a factor of 2 giving an effective resolution of 14cm (1/2 feet).

This holds only if we ignore atmospheric turbulence effects (which certainly DONT average out), the pointing instability (up to about 10mas (micro-arcseconds)) and thermal breathing (up to 10mas). This degrades the image even further. (10mas translates to about 5cm as seen from the HST)

Furthermore, target acquisition is problematic. HST uses guide-stars, which need to be in the field of view, to lock on targets. Certainly no stars available on the face of the earth ;-p. Even then: A quote from the HST data hanbook: "It is also possible to take observations (primarily WFPC2 "snapshot" exposures) without guide stars, using only gyro pointing control. The absolute pointing accuracy using gyros is about 14" (one sigma), and the pointing drifts at a rate of 1.4 +/- 0.7 mas s**-1. "

So, we have a 66% chance of 14" (arcseconds) acquisition accuracy. This translates to about 1400 pixels offset (if we were well sampled) on a ccd camera or 100m inaccuracy on the ground.

Say we want a spy satellite with 1cm resolution (ignoring degrading affects) on orbit 300km high (if lower, atmospheric friction would cause it to fall back to the earth), then applying the same formulae as above we would need a telescope diameter of roughly 5 meters. (According the the space shuttle reference guide you would have to keep the payload doors open in flight to make it fit, hehehe)

Conclusion:

IMBO the NSA cant read license plates. The technology for space telescopes with this capability is only now being developed (look for NGST on the web) against HUGE costs, certainly not within the NSA's budget. Besides target acquisition is a severe limitation, and it's role becomes more important when the resolution increases.

just my $0.02

Re:Whose looking in your window?

[Buran]

One of the later Keyhole satellites -- 11 or 12, I'm not sure which and I haven't had the time to look into it since deciding to last week -- actually is based on the Hubble design. However, the optics are not the same -- they cannot be.

As others have said already, the primary mirror is not of the right design to look back at the Earth and actually yield the right kind of details. Hubble focuses to infinity and an earth-imaging satellite only has to focus to a distance of a few hundred miles -- the exact altitude depends on the satellite's orbit.

Furthermore, Hubble's optics are too sensitive to be pointed at the Earth or the Moon -- both are so bright that they'd blow out the sensors.

However, it is entirely possible for such a satellite to be launched by the Shuttle -- the size of the payload bay, don't forget, was set by a DoD request ("you set it up like this or we don't pay you to help develop it") and there were a bunch of DoD flights back in the 1980s and early 1990s. And Hubble is just about perfectly sized to fit in the bay -- it's the largest payload, physically, ever launched, I think.

So it'd make sense that the civilian version of the KH-1x satellite in question exactly fits -- because that's the payload the shuttle was designed for. (A set payload bay size then leads to the overall size of the orbiter, which leads to the wing design, which leads to the requirements for engines, fuel, boosters, etc...)

It also means that, since the Soviets copied the US shuttle design for Buran, ALL reusable space planes that have ever flown were designed to carry this mystery DoD payload! Even the one that's not ours! (I don't say "manned" because Buran carried no crew during its only flight.)

Re:Whose looking in your window?

[mesocyclone]

Problems with this analysis:

1) Id doesn't take into account any electronic processing of resulting signals or using multiple images taken seconds apart to achieve higher resolution.

2) Optical spy satellites are likely to use multiple mirrors, both to use adaptive optics to adjust for atmospheric turbulence, and to avoid the problem of fit in the shuttle payload.

I believe it is the Keck telescope (which has adaptive optics) that has resolution sufficient to read a license plate from much higher orbits (all other caveats apply).

A little tidbit... the Multiple-Mirror Telescope (MMT) on Mt. Hopkins, Arizona used to be (and may still be) owned by the airport. When it was built, it was built with an azimuth/elevation mount, rather than the usual polar mount, and used a computer steering system that was accurate enough to account for minute flexing in the very rigid metal frame.

The mirrors were Air-Force surplus from the spy satellite program.

The Air-Force used to "borrow" the scope from time to time. The Az-El mount was probably chosen to allow tracking of earth orbiting objects - Russian satellites.

The spook folks work with very impressive technology. They are bound by the laws of physics, but they probably have engineering tricks that the public world has not heard of. Tricks in signal processing, adaptive optics in space, ultra-precision pointing, etc.

Actually, if you just solve the problem of taking current earth borne adaptive optics telescopes into orbit, you can pretty well achieve the resolution you want.

And then, of course, there is synthetic aperture radar. Synthetic aperture is a mathematical technique for creating a synthetic (virtual) antenna of very long length (very high resolution in one dimension) along the motion of the radar. Simple radar has, of course, much lower resolution than optics for the same size antenna, due to the much longer wavelength. But when you extend the antenna for hundreds or thousands of meters through synthetic aperture magic, that resolution gets very good.

And then, of course, we can speculate about Lidar. I have no idea what the spooks may do with that.

I think the problem of resolution is no longer of significance to the spook business. The bigger problems are areal coverage, data reduction and storage, and concealment.

Re:Whose looking in your window?

[mesocyclone]

Sigh. This is what I get for posting before reviewing. The MMT was owned by the Air Force, not the airport!

Re:Whose looking in your window?

[MoneyT]

When it comes to military and government technology, the general rule of thumb that I have heard from most millitary people I talk to is take what the public is being told is hightech, and multiply it by a factor of 10.

Re:Whose looking in your window?

[packeteer]

I have heard that too... from bragging GI's. Talk to someone who has some real picutre of the situation and they will tell a differant story. They have horrible problems organization and getting use out of their technology. Some companies make it past them in what they can do because companies are in it for money. Money will drive people much harder than preotecting yourself. Sure the military does have VERY high tech secrets but most of the time they arent able to mass produce anything useble out of it and end up buying their tech from companies or modifying existing products.

Re:Whose looking in your window?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well you don't need the space shuttle to get something into low earth orbit. In fact many of the commercial remote sensing satellites are fired up on rockets developed by Lockheed Martin, Orbital, etc.

BTW, the U.S. government is currently allowing nonclassified LEO remote sensing sats of a .6 meter resolution. I would have to assume that the government has classified satellites with better resolutions.

Re:Whose looking in your window?

[ottffssent]

That would be "Who's", a contraction for "who is".

Whose is the posessive, as in "whose socks are those?" or "the one whose head is largest".

Silly Slashdotter. You probably use "alot" too, don't you?

Re:Whose looking in your window?

[alcohollins]

Not as much as you might imagine. A Hubble-sized telescope in orbit at Hubble's altitude, pointed straight down, can resolve down to 15 centimeters. That would be enough to tell that you drive a Honda instead of a Surburban, but it couldn't tell much beyond that.

Who needs the Hubble telescope? The government has the predator unmanned spy planes to take pics and send video feeds, and even shoot missiles at you. They fly high enough so you can't see them, and can't hear them. Sure, it doesn't offer the all the benefits of a satellite. But that's not the point... Plus, satellites can't launch missiles at you.

Re:Whose looking in your window?

[RapaNui]

Most probably using either LIDAR at a sufficiently small (non-visible) wavelength (quite susceptible to atmospheric effects), or RADAR -- _much_ smaller wavelength, therefore higher potential resolution. IIRC both these technologies are used to collect elevation info.

Re:Whose looking in your window?

[EMH_Mark3]

If I recall correctly, current military satellites have a resolution of about 10 cm (~4 inches). Compare that to commercial satellite that have resolutions varying between 1 and 10 meters.. (Although one satellite can acheive a 66cm resolution)

Re:Whose looking in your window?

[operagost]

Oceanographers could use this to track the movements of sea creatures, as well.

Picture it- sharks with FRICKIN' LASER BEAMS attached to their heads!

The Cuban Roll

[InvaderSkooge]

The Cuban roll is still embargoed, I'm afraid.

Re:The Cuban Roll

[BabyDave]

The Cuban roll is still embargoed

Darn, now what am I going to have for lunch?

Might as well say it....

[LittleGuy]

"I can see my house from here!!!"

Re:Might as well say it....

[CBackSlash]

Maybe you can already.

Oh good!!!

[Pig Hogger]

Will we finally be able to see Jackie Kennedy's pix while she was sunbathing on Onassis's yachts???

Here are the images you wanted

[ekrout]

http://www.jamesshuggins.com/h/u-2a/u-2_62_cuba_mi ssile_base.htm

Re:Here are the images you wanted

[CharlieG]

Part of the reason it's hard for us to understand is that a LOT of the analysis was (is?) done with stereo pairs.

The National Air and Space Museum had an exhibit on the a while back, and they shoed some stereo pairs - It's MUCH easier to figure out what things are

No Mozilla support?

[Whispers_in_the_dark]

Went to the link inside of the link (the USGS site itself) and it demands that I either use IE or Netscape -- Mozilla is not supported (apparently neither is Apple in any form). *sigh*

Re:No Mozilla support?

[LWATCDR]

So lets all use the out of data applet security model that only IE supports.
But wait you could install java2 on IE so everyone can use this. Dumb!

Re:No Mozilla support?

[operagost]

Try getting the prefbar from XULPlanet and setting your user agent to something they like.

Hello, this is the US, Israel's bitch.

[InvaderSkooge]

Contrary to earlier reports, NIMA is releasing virtually all of its imagery from these programs except for imagery of Israel.

Now, I could be all suspicious, and beleive that this not showing Israel is in part so that we don't betray the fact we always knew about the Israeli nuke program, even back in its nascent stages, and look more like chumps who let Israel push us around and do the very things we claim not to tolerate from Hussein, and are pissed at North Korea about; but to do so would be paranoid and probably get pegged by the IAO as an Israel/America hating terrorist, and if there's one thing that crimps my discourse, it's thinking that I might be thought of as anti-american. (Stupid America, we suck.)

Re:Hello, this is the US, Israel's bitch.

[CommieLib]

You're seriously going to tell me that North Korean / Iraqi Nukes = Israeli nukes? Do you really think that there's a good chance Israel would use its nukes against us?

Re:Hello, this is the US, Israel's bitch.

[Wyatt Earp]

US/UK/Israel/France all have an understanding.

Since all four nations have the ability or have had the ability to photograph one another's sensitive areas, they have all agreed not to publish this information in an accurate form civilians or foriegn governments can access.

Since Israel is a small nation with alot of military areas all over, it's one big excusion zone.

Now then, what is the difference between Israel's nuclear program and Iran/Iraq/Libya/North Korea's nuclear program?

Simple, Israel doesn't export nuclear technology. Israel and South Africa jointly developed atomic weapons and tested one in the South Indian Ocean (maybe). South Africa gave up it's weapons in the mid 90s and the Mossad was offing Nuclear Scientists in SA in 93-94.

But even if one doesn't listen to the Zionist News Agencies, tell me one nation or group Israel shares technology with other then the US?

They've done joint small-arms development with the Czechs. They's done armor and anti-tank work with Turkey. They've done MiG-21 upgrade work with Romania and other former WP MiG-21 operators. But no one, not even the most violent Israel haters has accused them of nuclear, chemical or bio weapon export.

Yet with Libya/Iran/Iraq/North Korea/Pakistan and to some extent France and China, it's all about nuclear technology transfers for weaponizing.

For everything Israel has done in the Middle East, or been accused of, they've not used chemical weapons. They've not fired nuclear capable ballistic missiles at 3 or 4 regional neighbors. They've not been running around trying to buy materials for nuclear devices or guns that shoot projectiles hundreds of miles.

Syria and Egypt back in the United Arab Republic days used chemical weapons in Yemen. Iraq used them in the Iran-Iraq war. Iraq tossed FROG and SCUDs at Iran, Isreal, and Saudi Arabia. North Korea has activly tried to take-over South Korea and destabalize Japan.

Israel doesn't have camps in the Negev for training Marxist/Republican/Maoist/Islamist/Anti-West terrorists like North Korea/Iran/Iraq/Libya have had or have.

Re:Hello, this is the US, Israel's bitch.

[lemkebeth]

You wrote:

Israel is quite fine with fighting, they took over Palestine, part of Egypt, the Golan Heights (they still occupy the Golan Heights and Palestine)

I feel compelled to point out that Britain gave Palestine for the new Israel. Palestine was British controlled

Re:Hello, this is the US, Israel's bitch.

[CommieLib]

Well, according to your definition, we're also the bitch of Britain, France, South Korea...the list goes on. Yes, you're correct; we do choose sides that we will defend, even when they're not any more perfect than we are.

You don't think that our alliance has anything to do with the fact that they are a democracy, or that maybe some people in this country think that the Jews should be allowed a homeland?

No, NK wouldn't use it against us. They might use it against South Korea, which is always the issue. They might also sell nukes to terrorists to prop up an aging communist dictatorship that can't feed its people. Best case scenario, they demand U.N. funds and programs in exchange for dismantling their nuke program. Does this make us South Korea's bitch?

Israel as the biggest threat to peace...I certainly hope I'm misunderstanding you. What I'm hearing is "we could only have world peace if we would sell out the Jews", which is all too familiar a refrain...

Re:Hello, this is the US, Israel's bitch.

[InvaderSkooge]

I feel compelled to note that's not completely accurate. The Palestine I'm talking about, the occupied palestine -- and I can see how you may have considered all of palestine, original Israel and all, sorry about that -- once belonged to local non-Israeli states (Jordan, Syria, Egypt and Lebanon(?) I think), and it was taken from them in the course of war. It does not matter whose land it really is. These questions that shape a lot of discourse on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict are not important besides in setting up the situation where we do our psycho-political profile of a nation, these morality assigning claims are not the issue.

Re:Hello, this is the US, Israel's bitch.

[neocon]

Umm, hello?

If you haven't noticed, we don't publish images of military facilities in any of our allies. Israel, being one of only two examples of a free, open democracy in it's part of the world, is very definitely one such ally.

But since you don't see any difference between a nation (like Israel or the US) which has had nukes for decades and never used them, and a nation like Iraq which has used every WMD it has ever gotten it's hands on, including against hundreds of thousands of its own people, I guess expecting you to think logically about the matter is a little much.

Re:Hello, this is the US, Israel's bitch.

[neocon]

Umm, no, you're the only one who said anything of the sort.

He's suggesting that a nation like Iraq, which has used every WMD it ever got it's hands on, including against it's own people, should do what they agreed to do at the end of the Gulf War -- disarm.

Re:Hello, this is the US, Israel's bitch.

[neocon]

And I say again -- there is nothing the least bit hypocritical in responding differently to a free, open democracy which has never used WMD on anyone than to a brutal dictatorship which has used every WMD it has ever gotten its hands on, including against its own people.

And international perception is not the key at all -- the responsibility of the US President is to do what protects and serves the US, not what is popular with third-world dictators and European appeasers.

Re:Hello, this is the US, Israel's bitch.

[pauleir]

Perhaps you've forgotten that the US has used nuclear weapons in warfare (remember WWII?). Or that the US, as recently as the Gulf War, has deployed Depleted Uranium weapons (a simple google search will enlighten you).

Stop thinking that the US is some holier than though state.

Israel as well is no human rights champion. Just look at the atrocities that are going on in occupied Palestine.

Re:Hello, this is the US, Israel's bitch.

[neocon]

Umm, hello? I never denied that the US used nuclear weapons in combat -- indeed, by doing so, we saved the lives of the hundreds of thousands of American and Japanese soldiers and millions of civilians who would have died in the invasion of the Japanese home islands (just read up on the invasion of Okinawa, which killed far more people than Hiroshima and Nagasaki, if you have any doubt).

Are you suggesting that Mr. Hussein would use nuclear arms, would set such a high threshold on their use? After what he did to Iran or to the Kurds?

Really?

Your attack on Israel is equally misguided -- Israel has shown incredible restaint in its own defense, something which cannot be claimed about the murder-suicide bombers.

So, holier than thou? Who knows. Holier than Mr. Hussein? Damn straight...

Re:Hello, this is the US, Israel's bitch.

[neocon]

Do you really think that the US is after Hussein because of his past or because he has any "weapons of mass destruction"? The US, as you may know, actually aided Iraq in the Iran-Iraq War. You have to step back from the war propaganda that's currently abound in the US media. The current administration wants this war simply because of oil. The fact of whether Iraq has any has weapons what so ever is really irrelevant to the administration's plans.

Leaving aside that you make these absurd claims without providing any evidence to back them up, your allegations don't even make sense on their own terms. If, in fact, Bush's goal is to make money on oil, the last thing he would want to do is take action against Saddam Hussein -- you see, regime change in Iraq means an end to the UN sanctions against Iraq, which means a massive drop in the price of oil.

So I guess you didn't really think your black-helicopter theories through, now did you?

Once again you need to remember that the pro-Israel media in the US distorts the facts. The IDF has killed roughly 3 times as many Palestinians, 85% of which are civilians, than Israelis killed by suicide bombers. As well the IDF has bombed numerous hospitals, schools, and civilian homes. If that's what you call restrained then...

No, once again you are making wile claims without bothering to back them up. Can you point to any credible source backing up your claims that the Israelis have done anything like what you claim?

Keep in mind that even Arafat now admits that the claims of massacres which his people and the European press made this spring were outright lies, so unless you have some reason to believe that you know more about the matter than he does, why would we take you seriously?

The rest of your post descends into misrepresentation of history (hint: the West bank has never in history been a sovereign state -- check any history book) and a pathetic attempt to justify the slaughter of civilian men, women, and children by murder-suicide bombers. As you do not even provide cites for the claims above, I won't dignify such tripe with an answer.

Re:Hello, this is the US, Israel's bitch.

[neocon]

Ha. Hahaha. Hahahaha.

So in other words, if a war would result in oil prices going up, then that's proof that the US is going to war because of oil, and if a war would result in oil prices going down, then that's proof that the US is going to war because of oil. Damned if we do, and damned if we don't, eh?

Forgive me if I'm not impressed, particularly as all of these increasingly twisted and byzantine conspiracy theories can only hold if one willfully ignores the blindingly obvious -- that the US has a vital interest, under the doctrine of self defense, in preventing Iraq from attaining weapons of mass destruction, weapons it has already shown itself to be more than willing to use.

If you want to argue otherwise, you need to provide evidence, not wild ranting and speculation.

Your sorry attempt to defend Mr. Hussein only confirms that you are way out in black-helicopter land.

As for depleted uranium, at the risk of pointing out the painfully obvious, it's called `depleted' uranium for a reason. It's not radioactive, nor would it make sense for it to be -- our own troops are the ones who spend the most time around it, after all.

So thanks for playing, but please try harder next time.

Re:Hello, this is the US, Israel's bitch.

[neocon]

Note that the articles you link provide some interesting speculation, but no evidence. Most notably, they ignore the obvious fact that both the French and the Russians have a vital interest in keeping the oil deals they have made with Mr. Hussein, and would not have voted for the recent UN resolution if it would have the result you claim.

Now, if you can provide any evidence to back your claim, you'll be providing more than conspiracy theories. Instead, you provide speculation which has not stood the test of time (your articles date from before the President approached the UN at all in one case, and from very early in the debate in the other).

As for Israel, you keep claiming massacres (though I see you've backed down from your earlier claims of numbers or percentages), but you provide no cites. Why should we take you seriously? You also claim `expulsions', but who are you claiming has been expelled? There are plenty of Palestinian citizens of Israel, and they have all the rights of any other Israeli (indeed there were 17 Palestinian members of Israel's parliament, the Knesset, the last time I checked).

This makes a marked contrast to the expulsion of all Jews from the West Bank by Jordan when they invaded it in 1948, or from the current Palestinian Authority, which makes it a crime punishable by death to be Jewish in the West Bank.

Re:Hello, this is the US, Israel's bitch.

[neocon]

As far as I've learned, proof is not something you read in the press. Especially not during war in your own country's press.

So in other words, not only do you have no evidence to back up your wild claims, you also want us to believe that of all the thousands of media outlets in the US, and tens of thousands more around the world, every single one is hiding the evidence that would back up your conspiracy theories.

And bear in mind that the _only_ country that has used nuclear weapons so far, is the US.

Your point being what? By using two nuclear weapons, we saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of troops on both sides, and millions of Japanese civilians. Are you claiming that Mr. Hussein would show as much discretion in using nuclear weapons?

Really?

So they call it depleted, therefore it must be depleted? You are even more naive then I thought. (Regarding your own troops: US veterans of the Gulfwar have severly handicapped children because of some misterious "disease")

Please feel free to provide any evidence backing your claim -- study after study has shown no lasting effects on Gulf War veterans not consistent with post-traumatic stress disorder. More generally, if there were such effects, and they were from use of DU ammunition, why weren't there similar effects in any of the hundreds of training ranges, and other conflicts (from Grenada to Afghanistan) where DU ammunition was used? Eh?

Re:Hello, this is the US, Israel's bitch.

[neocon]

Godwin aside, what's your point? `Hitler believed he was right, so everyone who believes he's right is wrong?'

That's not even marginally coherent.

Re:Hello, this is the US, Israel's bitch.

[neocon]

Hey, are you European?

So in other words, you advocate appeasement?

Re:Hello, this is the US, Israel's bitch.

[neocon]

Ah, okay, so if you object to any government at all owning nukes, even free, open democracies like Israel, can we assume you'll be going after France and Britain next?

No? So it's just Israel you despise? Thanks for making that clear.

Re:Hello, this is the US, Israel's bitch.

[neocon]

Are you really suggesting that we should make foreign policy based not on what is right but on what we hope will keep totalitarian dictators and terrorist crazies from attacking us?

Really, Mr. Chamberlain?

Re:Hello, this is the US, Israel's bitch.

[neocon]

I see, so not only is the US mean and nasty, but we can `arm-twist' sovereign states into signing resolutions which they have permanent veto power over? I guess I'm not buying it. Any of the UK, China, France, or Russia could have vetoed the resolution. Not only didn't any of them, but none of the other members of the Security Council voted against it either.

So which is it? If we don't consult the UN, we're `unilateralist', but if we do, we're `arm-twisting' them? Damned if we do, damned if we don't, eh?

And I repeat my statement -- Palestinians who live within Israel have all the rights of other Israelis. What you refer to is the absurd Palestinian claim of a `right of return' which would allow non-Palestinians (such as Arafat, who was born and raised in Cairo) to claim Israeli citizenship. No other nation on earth is asked to adopt such a policy, not even the Arab lands, most of which expelled their Jewish populations long ago.

And in case you haven't been paying attention, Israeli children are being murdered by Palestinians almost every day. But no doubt in your black-helicopter world, shooting toddlers while they listen to a bedtime story is `heroic resistance', eh?

Re:Hello, this is the US, Israel's bitch.

[neocon]

All of this ignores the simple fact: our goal in this action is self-defense, plain and simple. If we had reason to believe that China posed the same sort of threat to us as Mr. Hussein does, we would indeed have to act. That China already has nuclear weapons would necessarily make such action more difficult -- and is a perfect example of why we must prevent Mr. Hussein from reaching the same point.

Now, your proposal would seem to be that any time a tin-pot dictator expresses a desire to attack us, we should rush to meet his demands. Do you really believe that this would make a good foreign policy? I doubt it...

Re:Hello, this is the US, Israel's bitch.

[neocon]

Uh, yeah, OK. That's not what the UN says, that's not what anyone who's gotten out of Iraq alive says, that's not even what those who oppose US action (such as chief inspector Hans Blix) say.

The fact is, at the time the inspectors were forced out of Iraq in 1998, they were regularly finding not only chemical and biological weapons facilities, but supplies such as high-grade centrifuges built with high-quality pure aluminum tubes, such as are used in production of weapons-grade nuclear material.

All this in the hands of a country which agreed to disarm after it's brutal aggression against Kuwait was rolled back, and has been in material breach of those agreements for years.

That may seem like `no meaningful weapons' to you, but that's a chance which we cannot afford to take.

Re:Hello, this is the US, Israel's bitch.

[neocon]

Your point being what, exactly? In 1983, Saddam had not yet gassed his own people (1988), embarked on a massive program to develop WMD (1987, and much more so after 1991), invaded Kuwait (1990-1), or signed UN disarmament pacts, which he is now in material breach of (1992-2002).

At the time, he was the lesser of two evils, a counterbalance to the menace in Teheran.

Times change.

And Israel is a free and open democracy, with equal rights for all of its citizens, but you're a far cry from being CowboyNeal...

Re:Hello, this is the US, Israel's bitch.

[neocon]

Actually, that's not correct. Even the article you link to speaks of Husseing spending a whole bunch of time and money trying to get nukes, but claims he has not succeeded (how they can know, since no inspectors have been near Iraq in four years is left as an exercise for the reader). These sources have more information on the matter, and disagree even on this point:

• A piece on Hussein's atomic program from Richard Muller of LBL
• Richard Sperzel (former head of the UN weapons inspections) to the House

As for delivery systems, a missile is hardly the only way to deliver a WMD. A far bigger risk is that of Mr. Hussein providing such a weapon to al Qaeda, or to his own intelligence services for a more uncoventional delivery.

And yes, if North Korea becomes as much a threat to us as Iraq is, we will deal with it. That doing so will be harder now that they already have nukes is a perfect demonstration of why we must not allow Mr. Hussein to get that far.

Re:Hello, this is the US, Israel's bitch.

[neocon]

Fascinating -- so your `proposal' is that we use our power to deal with anyone anywhere who you feelis doing something nasty to anyone, as long as our self defense is not at stake. But when faced with someone who we know is building WMD, and who we know has no qualms about using them, including potentially on us, well, hands off, man!

Not exactly a coherent foreign policy, is it?

Here's what I say: the President and government of the US are directly responsible to provide for the defense of the US and its citizens. Among other things, this means making it very dangerous to harbor those who are trying to attack us, and making it very dangerous to build WMD which might be used on us or our allies.

As for what might `produce' terrorists (an interesting word -- are you really claiming that those involved don't choose their own actions?), the last decade has shown us that what produces terrorism is weakness and lack of response to terrorism -- show them that terrorism achieves their goals, and you'll get more terrorists. Just look at the record: our cutting and running in the face of Mogadishu led straight to the first attack on the World Trade Center. Our refusal to adequately pursue the network that carried out that attack led to the embassy attacks. Our two-bit response to those attacks led to the attack on the USS Cole. And our `fire a few missiles and forget the matter' response to that led to September 11.

Re:Hello, this is the US, Israel's bitch.

[neocon]

And if we lived in a world where everyone who might oppose us was tractable to Clinton-style wishy-washiness and `engagement', that would be all very nice. In the real world, where some of those who oppose us act in basically irrational manners and/or oppose us because they disagree with basic tenets which we hold dear, that's a recipe for disaster (as the Clinton administration clearly demonstrates).

In short, in the real world, you're suggesting that we bribe tyrants who would destroy us, and when that fails, give into their demands.

I'm not convinced. I doubt anyone else reading this is either.

ho hum....

[Anonymous Coward]

*Mozilla 1.0+, Netscape 6.0, and Netscape 7.0 uses the JAVA 2 Virtual Machine which does not support the original Java applet security model used with EarthExplorer applets.
**EarthExplorer will not currently work with Macintosh systems due to the following:

1. IE and the Microsoft Virtual Machine does not support LiveConnect for Macintosh systems.
2. Old versions of the Java Virtual Machine (Netscape 4.6 and earlier) do not support LiveConnect for Macintosh systems.
3. The Java 2 Virtual Machine does not support the original Java applet security model EarthExplorer uses.
4. Signed secure applets don't communicate properly through LiveConnect when using the JAVA 2 Virtual Machine on a Macintosh. See http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=160274 for more information.

Macintosh users may search for many of the same products at: http://edc.usgs.gov/webglis. You can also access EarthExplorer using the PC emulation package "Virtual PC" if you have this installed on your system

Interesting, somewhat related

[Anonymous Coward]

While working at nasa, a co-worker told me this story once:
Apparently in the 80's, he had been working on a satellite which contained a sensor to measure ground temperatures. The contractors who were working on the image processing for the data were so far behind, that the program would not be ready until a couple months after the satellite launch (a major PR disaster - no pretty pictures for the public to see!). So he was put on a crack team to hack something together that would be ready by launch time. What they ended up putting together was better than the specs. So the satellite launched and they got back the pictures and saw alot of interesting things... Like, gee, what's that underground hot spot in Nevada, and so on and so forth... So they were all pleased with themselves until the Feds came, classified their program and all the images, dumped all their equipment in a truck, and drove off.. I guess this shows why it is never better to do more than "government work" :)

Early Days

[redshift-systems]

25 years ago? B&W hey? Wow, that's like pre-micro$oft era. Before they came along and brought colour to all our lives.

Other News

[stinkydog]

In other news the website http://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/ has been crashed by unknown terriosts from the shadowy 'slashdot' organization. This massive 'Denial of Service' attack, know as the 'Slashdot Effect', is the orginizations trademark, much feared by webmasters and network engineers everywhere.

SD

Re:Interesting....

[mblumber]

This joke is overused, and you used it incorrectly because you don't understand it.

The reference is to "Underpants Gnomes" (a South Park episode) where a bunch of gnomes steal Tweak's underpants. Their business plan is as follows:

1. Steal underpants.
2. ????
3. Profit! ...and so now you see how this often related to the .com's back a few years ago, but how your "conspiracy theory" list doesn't make any sense.

Cuban Missiles?

[JohnnyBigodes]

How about those Cuban Missile Crisis pics, do they have that roll available?

Saaaaay, you wouldn't perhaps be Saddam Hussein shopping for a few missiles, would you?

The probable limit of spysats

[MtViewGuy]

I think the practical limit for today's KH-11 and newer spysats is about 6-7 cm resolution, not enough to read a newspaper headline but definitely good enough to tell what kind of vehicle you're looking at.

Remember, even at 100 cm resolution the IKONOS satellite is capable of showing some amazing images. Remember that IKONOS image of the North Korean rocket test facility?

I expect within the next 4-5 years several companies will be orbiting imaging satellites capable of resolution at 100 cm resolution. It'll be nearly impossible to hid any secret activity with that type of resolution.

Re:The probable limit of spysats

[MtViewGuy]

However, don't try to be cute and put up any major unusual structure outside of town--it's bound to be seen from an imaging satellite.

The Russians hid their rocket engine test program by deliberately building their facilities in a suburb of Moscow and putting up apartment-like buildings with no-expenses-spared noise and engine exhaust surpression systems. That was exorbitantly expensive and only one such facility was ever built.

waste of tax dollars...

[mr_gerbik]

Why does the US spend millions and millions of dollars on expensive spy satellites when they could just use kites??

-gerbik

KH-9, Big Bird

[wiredog]

It was the last of the bucket droppers. An interesting book, if you can find it, is Deep Black. It's a history of overhead imaging from the Civil War through the KH-11 program, including the U-2 and SR-71 aircraft.

My father worked for the Defense Mapping Agency (the predecessor of NIMA) until 89 and he was surprised at some of the things that showed up in that book. Especially that the resolution of the KH-11 (best is 2.5 inches, so it can't read license plates) and KH-9 (9 inches) were in there.

A number of interesting uses

[d-Orb]

While much of the talk here is about either seeing celebrities naked baking under the Mediterranean sun or spying axis-of-evil governments and the such, the main use these images will have is that they are the first imagery of the Earth from space available. They do record images of the poles from where ice cover can be estimated. Again, forest cover can also be estimated from a time before civilian satellites were a reality. In other words, these images provide us remote sensing data from quite a long while ago. This should help the investigation of better climatic models and so on.

100cm

[wiredog]

That's 1 meter. IIRC, the French satellite has 1 meter resolution in the visible light bands. I think the latest Landsats are that good.

Re:100cm

[MtViewGuy]

If I remember correctly, the resolution of SPOT (launched by the French) had a resolution of 10 meters in general. The current Landsat has a resolution around 5 meters, if I remember correctly. For many commercial imaging satellites, very high resolution is not really necessary because they're designed to cover wide areas for environmental research.

It was only after IKONOS became operational in the late fall of 1999 that commercial imaging satellites reached the 100 cm resolution level. You'll see a lot more 100 cm resolution imaging satellites from multiple companies in the coming years--several American and several European companies are designing such satellites now. We may see commercial imaging satellites capable of imaging down to 50 cm very soon.

USGS web page: Gale Norton strikes again!

[mfago]

As mentioned in another post, the USGS webpage itself is unusable unless you're running Netscape 4 (windows or linux only) or IE for Windows.

I think it would be a good idea for as many people as possible to emailthe maintainer of the web page.

Unsurprising for the gov't to so thouroughly screw-up like this, especially with Interior Secretary Gale Norton at the helm. FWIW, she is facing contempt of court charges for lying in Federal court during a trial of gross mismanagement of the Native American Trust fund. Mismanagement by completely failing to secure a computer system...

Hell, why don't we all email Gale herself?!

Re:USGS web page: Gale Norton strikes again!

[Mike Schiraldi]

Your link is messed up -- it should be a .gov.

Re:USGS web page: Gale Norton strikes again!

[vsprintf]

I'm not going to defend Gail Norton, but FYI, the problems with Earth Explorer were created long before she was appointed. Where to start?

You (we) elected several administrations who saw government-funded code as an Evil Thing that sucks the life-blood (money) from deserving private enterprises like Microsoft. There was a federal mandate to use COTS wherever possible.

The responsible government PHBs, never a group to question an edict or make a decision based on facts, decided EE would use COTS. The government PHBs gave the decision to the private sector coders (contractors) to implement, based on a commercial product the government PHBs had chosen.

Many months and man-hours later, the valiant coders had done their best to turn a mouse scrotum into a bowling-ball bag, but as you've noticed, it still has limitations.

So, kids, the moral of the story is: Don't post about "my tax dollars at work", be thankful the government is committed to using COTS and protecting your jobs - even if the end product sucks.

Insteresting Little Story

[FatRatBastard]

I used to live on RAF Woodbridge in the UK back in the 80s (go Warriors!) and was there during the infamous Rendlesham forest UFO sighting (of Unsolved Mysteries and East at Left Gate fame). One of the better theories I've read about the whole thing was that the UFO story was a cover story for retrieving low flying spy satellite film canister, which, frankly, makes a hell of a lot more sense than the UFO nutters who are convinced we were doing all sorts of who knows what with ET.

Re:Insteresting Little Story

[mumblestheclown]

Absolute bollocks.

While there may indeed have been film recovery of satellite films (this sounds marginal, but not outside of the realm of possibility), the idea that the film was designed at an airbase if the parachute failed is absolute bollocks.

given the aerodynamics of a tumbling film canister and high altitude winds or whathave you, they'd be lucky to hit a given county, much less a given airbase. The plan is stupid--if the film cannister is designed to potentially survive a parachute-less fall, why would they bother with the parachute?

That there was something top-secret flying near an airbase during the cold war is not hard to believe. The notion that this was a film cannister recovery device with lights on it (let me get this straight--it has lights on it AND is designed to renter the atmosphere?) is incredibly hard to believe.

No Chernobyl pics, probably

[Charles Dodgeson]

I doubt we'll see Chernobyl pics; they're too recent for one thing. But it would be fun. Anyone remember the early days of it when the US was reporting the event based, so they said, on spy sat pics, and non-communist central and northern Europe was reporting contamination in their air. But the line from the USSR was, "No, we don't have any problem. No we don't need your help. BTW, anyone know how to put out a graphite fire?"

In the eastern block, news of the event was only reported about a week afterwards. A joke going around Hungary (which borders the Ukraine) was, Q: Why do we celebrate the October Revolution in November? A: Because that is when TASS felt fit to report it.

Re:all we need now is the dark side of the moon pi

[Openadvocate]

Dark side? There's no dark side, although I do like to listen to Pink Floyd.

Unbelievable technology

[HisMother]

I've read articles about the technology behind these -- it's pretty amazing. The pictures were not "beamed" back to earth -- they were taken on film and the film parachuted back.

Yup, the film was Kodak film -- no kidding

[Buran]

Actually, the Corona program did use Kodak film. Due to static problems with early film (which caused arcing on the exposed negatives), Kodak developed polymer-based film.

I work in an electron microscopy lab and the film used for the EM systems is Kodak 4489 "ESTAR Thick Base" -- which means that my paychecks depend directly on something that was developed for use in space. (As a space buff -- Buran is/was the Soviet space shuttle -- I'm quite pleased with that situation.) A spinoff, as they're commonly called.

The EM film is mounted on metal plates for exposing and when developed yields 8cmx10cm transparencies using Kodak D-19 developer. For Corona, the exposed film was placed in a reentry capsule which parachuted back to earth and was retrieved midair by a C-119 Flying Boxcar aircraft. It doesn't take that long to develop at all and can be ready for analysis the same day.

According to the Kodak EM film page:

"KODAK Electron Micrography Film 4489 has approximately half the speed of KODAK Electron Image Film SO-163 film, but exhibits less curl and shorter pump-down times. Coated on a 7mils Estar support, KODAK Electron Microscope Film offers exceptional dimensional stability and eliminates the use of traditional glass support products."

We are still using film because (1) electron microscopes are very expensive, so ours are from the mid-1970s, (2) it's not that easy to retrofit them, at least as far as I understand it, for full digital, and (3) it's not all that hard to put the negatives on a lightbox and shoot them with a professional digital SLR, which is how we get the images into computers for processing. And, of course, (4) digital camera technology still hasn't beat out film for quality yet, though we're hoping to get a Canon EOS-1Ds soon that will start to close the quality gap.

(The film is kept in a vacuum once in the microscope -- something else which I'm sure was a benefit for Corona.)

If you want to see some sample EM images taken with the Kodak film, see our lab's image gallery. Don't bother with Kodak's sample images, they suck. ;)

I'm pretty sure that Kodak also designed the Corona camera system, though I'm not certain who the actual builder was.

Re:Yup, the film was Kodak film -- no kidding

[lemkebeth]

Actually, I seem to recall one or two cameras (hideously expensive) that exceed the quality of film.

Re:all we need now is the dark side of the moon pi

[Buran]

No, indeed not, just a hidden side. :)

I hate the "dark side" misconception and every time I hear it I want to bash the asker over the head with that damn CD. "But a big, famous band said it, it's got to be true!" "Yeah, and how do you know they passed grade school science? Now shut up and read this astronomy textbook..."

Isn't it a 2-CD set? Good, heavier. All the better to bash morons with.

Panoramic Imagery

[briancnorton]

This is all great and all, but I have worked with corona imagery (after 1996) and it's REALLY hard to use.

First of all, the imagery is not vertical, it's panoramic. Great for intel agencies, not so great for mapping. It's almost impossible to orthographically rectify, and hence use for anything useful. The resolution of the film is very good. It's something like 150 lp/mm, and the stereo is very good, but it's a pain in the butt to do panoramic stereo without special equipment.

second, geo-referencing was accomplished in a brilliant, if arcane way. A second camera was involved that took pictures of the stars 180 away from the image. To find out what the picture is of, you need starcharts and a lot of math to figure out what stars you are looking at, where the satellite was, and what the picture is of. The equipment to do this in a useful environment is VERY expensive.

third, it's panchromatic and not IR sensitive. You can see some ground features, but nothing environmental, and not all that much of historical significance. Consequently, the imagery has not been used for as much as had been hoped.

Facinating ingelligence!

[mumblestheclown]

Imagine - hanoi appears to be at the juncture of two rivers, and beijing seems to have some sort of big square.

With intelligence-gather incapabilities like that, no wonder we won the cold war.

Cuban missile pics

[Sarin]

They didn't use satellites to make those, but spyplanes.

Geez, has no-one seen thirteen days?

The ones that are still classified

[smaugy]

Wouldn't it be possible to fit them together like a jigsaw puzzle to find out which ones weren't declassified?

Re:The ones that are still classified

[FTL]

> Wouldn't it be possible to fit them together like a jigsaw puzzle to find out which ones weren't declassified?

Knock yourself out. Meanwhile the rest of us will just read the article:

> NIMA is releasing virtually all of its imagery from these programs except for imagery of Israel.

Re:The ones that are still classified

[drinkypoo]

Since no one would bother shooting every inch of dirt, probably not. This WOULD be an amazingly interesting thing to do, though. You would have to write some pretty good software to do it, reconciling your images to a three-dimensional model of the earth, stitching, and so on; But it would be extremely interesting to see what it looked like.

Spot the obvious connection

[henley]

There's a very good reason why you might link the ability to look way-out-there with the ability to look really-closely-down-here.

The Hubble Space Telescope is very closely based on earlier KH-series spy sat designs. So much so that it was shipped from the manufacturer to Kennedy Space Center in a KH-11 shipping container.

Indeed, a lot of the early gross design decisions on Hubble were subject to "anonymous" review from the relevant black agencies, and changes made appropriately.

Call it an early example of the Peace Dividend....

Re:Flexing Mirrors

[Big Mark]

Probably not, as spy satellites don't use mirrors, they use high quality lenses, and you cant put things on the back of the lens to deform it and have light pass through it at the same time.

Although it is a possibility that a lens could be developed where it's precise curvature could be controlled by a superfine mesh of electrodes on their surfaces, which wouldn't interfere noticeably with the image (diffraction caused
But as the lenses are composed of many, many different bits of glass, the processing power required to perform the calculations for every surface is beyond wince-inducing, and NASA don't like using new things either (they've got 486s or plain vanilla Pentiums, IIRC, controlling Hubble) so it couldn't happen for a long time.

Still, come back in a decade or three. Big Brother is not only watching you, he's mocking the size of your "equipment" when you go for a leak as well!

And 30 years later...?

[MicroBerto]

I don't even want to IMAGINE what they are taking right now. With the way technology advances, I bet the latest satellites can tell you how many ants are running around an ant farm.

And it's no wonder how they were able to missile-attack a *car* in Yemen from an un-manned aircraft! They can see everything now!

Common misinformation on HST

[StupendousMan]

The parent is wrong about several things:

As others have said already, the primary mirror is not of the right design to look back at the Earth and actually yield the right kind of details. Hubble focuses to infinity and an earth-imaging satellite only has to focus to a distance of a few hundred miles -- the exact altitude depends on the satellite's orbit.

HST's instruments include movable mirrors which allow one to modify the focus. They could easily focus on objects at the distance of the Earth's surface. HST has taken pictures of the Moon, which is certainly not at infinity.

Furthermore, Hubble's optics are too sensitive to be pointed at the Earth or the Moon -- both are so bright that they'd blow out the sensors.

Some of HST's instruments would saturate if they took exposures of the Earth through wide filters. Others would not. The HST calibration team sometimes takes exposures of the Earth or Moon to use as flatfields.

But, yes, as many have already pointed out, HST can't take images resolving newspaper headlines.

Working site

[tevman]

http://edc.usgs.gov/webglis

this is the site w/o java issues

Sopranos Quote

[delcielo]

Christopher Moltisante: "You mean that was real?! I saw that movie. I thought it was bullshit."

Film catch

[MacAndrew]

Actually, I think the film rolls were captured in midair by aircraft. Ground (water) pickup was a fallback.

It may sound low-tech, but to me a lot harder than what we have now with a plain old digital camera and radio transmitter. Imagine all the moving parts, all the things that could go wrong.

Re:all we need now is the dark side of the moon pi

[DjMd]

The moon rotates so no 'one side' is the dark side... Unless you are sugesting the earth has a dark side...

Re:Oh good!!! [OT]

[Puk]

This is OT, but with regards to your sig, have you seen Bill Maher's new book and adaptation of that poster? Apologies if that's how you came across the original, but if not, check it out. :)

-Puk

Russians nuked the Chinese

[cilyrabit]

Rumor... a friend told me this story a year ago, don't know if its true and didn't find anything about it after a quick search on the internet... but here goes:

My friend said "

I had a friend who used to work for the government... years ago he processed the photos that the US spy satellites took. One night at dinner the discussion had wandered onto the topic of the atomic bomb and its potential uses in a modern conflict, and someone says something to the effect:

"... the US is the only country that has used the atomic bomb against another nation..."

At which the friend spoke up, "Except for the time when the Russians bombed the Chinese."

Everyone at the table stopped talking and looked at him. "What!"

"Oh you guys didn't hear about that did you..."

A rough outline of the scenario...

Back in the late 50's or early 60's sometime the Russians and the Chinese are glaring at each other across the Siberian border of which some remote corner's exact boundries are in dispute. Each country lines up some number of troops and tensions are a little high. Finally the Russians move their withdraw their troops back about 10 miles... the next day the Chinese advance 10 miles. A few days later the Russians retreat 25 miles... over the next few days the Chinese advance 25 miles (meanwhile the US spy satellites are catching all of this in photos). A few more days go by and the Russians retreate 50 miles and the Chinese advance once again. So the Russian retreat 100 miles and drop a nuke right above the Chinese! ... From that point on Chinese ceased their dispute over the Siberian border.

Is this true! How come no one has heard of this story? Supposedly the Russians weren't going to tell because they didn't want to attract international condemnation. Besides, they had used in their own territory. They could claim it to be a test.

The Chinese? They didn't want to have to answer the question, "What was China doing with troops deep in Soviet Siberia."

The US? Why were they silent? That is top secret, but maybe some of the declassified photos show the events...

Two dark sides

[Black Copter Control]

There are two 'dark sides' to the moon.

One is the physical dark side... The side that's facing away from the sun (at the moment in question). The other dark side is the classical 'dark side' -- the side that's always facing away from the earth.

During the full moon, both dark sides are the same side. During a new moon, the dark side is actually brightly lit (by the sun) but since none of that light ever really makes it back to earth, it might as well be dark for most earth observers' purposes.

Of course when the near side of the moon is dark, it's lighter than the dark side is when it's dark because it's lit by the reflection of the earth. This means that the dark side of the moon is actually darker (when it's dark) than the 'light' side when it is dark.

This means that the dark side of the moon really is dark when it's dark -- as opposed to the bright side of the moon which is faintly lit when it's dark.

(go ahead.. just try and pass that through an AI parser!)

How long is it?

[jefu]

Sorry.

I meant, how long will it be, given some of the other things on slashdot today about the US Gov't taking things off public web sites, before someone decides to make all those protected too?

After all, it would be Un American to make the information available without someone profiting on it.

Any touch of cynicism detected is copyright by me. Any attempt to imitate it, quote it or otherwise be cynical will be treated as a serious infringement of my intellectual property rights and my legal bloodhounds will descend on you direct from the Baskervilles where I've been hiding them just for that purpose. I've stored up a nice stash of luminescent paint too.

"You can be dogfood." (obobscurereference)

What a silly subject line

[neocon]

Leaving aside that it was the UN which placed the conditions which Mr. Hussein agreed to, what's your point? He was allowed to stay in power after the brutal invasion of Kuwait in return for agreeing to certain terms. He has not lived up to those terms.

More generally, why don't you make your position clear to the rest of us: Yes, or no, do you believe that Mr. Hussein should be allowed to develop weapons of mass destruction?

Re:What a silly subject line

[neocon]

The Amnesty report you cite is riddled with errors -- most notably it still alleges that there was a massacre at Jenin even though even Arafat now admits that this was a lie.

Now, you manage to find one instance of a child accidentally killed by Israeli troops in the middle of a gun battle with armed gunmen. This you hold up against murder-suicide bombers in the children's areas of restaurants, and murderers who break into homes and shoot children as they hear their bedtime stories.

And if you haven't noticed, area A includes 97% of the west bank -- look it up for yourself. As to `citizenship' of those in the west bank, they are citizens -- of the PA. That Arafat does not give them any rights is hardly Israel's fault, now is it? Or are you saying that they should be citizens of Israel? I thought you wanted two seperate nations?

Re:What a silly subject line

[neocon]

This crime of being jewish on PA lands is some new kind of blood libel? Are you aware that such knowing lies can be punishable crimes? What about Ha'aretz reporter Amira Haas [freemedia.at], who lives in occupied West bank?

Are their `useful idiots' like Mr. Haas or Adam Shapiro? Sure. They stand in contrast to the almost daily murders of Jewish settlers by Fatah and the al-Aqsa brigades, both of which report directly to Mr. Arafat, and to the repeated lynchings of any Palestinians even suspected of wanting peace with Israel by Mr. Arafat's Tanzim security forces.

Re:What a silly subject line

[neocon]

No, they are not in any way under the rule of Israel. 97% of the West Bank has been completely out of Israel's control, and in the hands of Arafat since Oslo.

This is what Israel put on the table. The Palestinian half of the bargain was an end to the murder-suicide bombings, and agreement to recognize Israel's right to exist. The PA has refused to live up to either of these conditions.

Re:What a silly subject line

[duren686]

Now, you manage to find one instance of a child accidentally killed by Israeli troops in the middle of a gun battle with armed gunmen.

I didn't read the article, but is this the child in the famous Palestine propaganda picture, that was killed by allegedly Israeli gunfire, who is pictured huddled behind a trash can with his father?

If so, then It wasn't actually the Israeli troops that shot him. See, the Israelis were behind the wall that the kid and his father were huddled up against, and they were firing at Palestinians from behind the kid. The shot that killed him came from in front of him, and went into his head going towards the Israeli troops. Now, unless Israel was using magic bullets that could change their trajectory in mid-flight, it is simply not possible for them to have killed this child.

Re:Oh good!!! [OT]

[Pig Hogger]

Thanks, I didn't know that book.

What a silly subject line

[neocon]

You're trolling, right?

The only article about `three Palestinians dead' on the page you link to is this one, about two Palestinian gunmen and a passerby who died after they opened fire on Israeli troops. Other articles on the site include a piece twelve Jews who were shot yesterday while walking home from prayer. Another article discusses the two Jewish children, ages four and five, who were shot with their mother a few days ago while sitting down for bedtime stories.

Needless to say, there is nothing like the absurd statistic about deaths you cite -- care to provide a cite, or are you just blowing hot air?

As for `two states in Israel', if you haven't noticed, the Israelis have been trying to give the Palestinians their own state since the Oslo peace accords of 1991 (and 97% of the West Bank has been under PA control since that time, asking only for an end to the murder-suicide bombings in return. The y never got that end.

As for democracy, I would remind you that all citizens of Israel, Jewish, Christian, or Palestinian, enjoy exactly the same rights -- indeed there were 17 Palestinian members of the Knesset (Israel's parliament) the last time I checked. This makes a marked contrast to the PA lands, where it is a crime punishable by death to be even suspected of being Jewish.