Slashdot Mirror
Budget Issues Force Spy Satellites Into The Open
Korsair25 points out this article about a U.S. spy satellite program. "Quote: 'Over the decades, spying from space has always earned super-secret status. They are the black projects, fulfilling dark tasks and often bankrolled by blank check.' It also talks about some of the technology used to disguise or camouflage some of the operational satellites."
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the constituttion mandate that congress make publicly available a DETAILED ledger of expenses? Oh well, it's not like the US government cares about little things like their founding charter any more. After all, who needs a pretense of legitimacy?
Wow, Im sure Bush had a lot to do with the spy sattelite programs in the late 80's early 90's. uhuh, keep thinking that.
Military spy satellites have always been superior in both resolution, contrast-to-noise-ratio and magnification to their non-military counterparts.
Now these previously secret optics technology are partially out in the open, what will be done with them?
I'm sure they could be used to greatly improve the imaging resolution of space probes for example.
(After an elusive secret society of slashdot users uses it for a frikkin earth-blasting-laser that is)
Actually, if you're referring to the Cuban Missile Crisis (and I don't know any other event you could be talking about), it wasn't satellite recon that gave us those shots, it was U2 surveillance.
This "We don't need spy satalites in the current climate so we shouldn't develop them" is EXACTLY the kind of "get what we need for right now" thinking that got us in trouble with 9/11 in the first place.
We can't just react to the situation we're in now. We need a broad base of capabilities to address needs we have now, AND needs we may have in the future, AND needs we have no idea we'll have in the future.
We got burned on 9/11 because our entire system was still moving from being extremely focused on fighting the cold war to being extremely focused on being able to fight two regional conflicts. So we got hit where we were vulnerable - global terrorist conflict.
Just as ignoring that threat was a mistake in the past, deciding to scrap any equipment related to threats not currently present would be just as grave of an error, one we should hopefully avoid discovering in hindsight.
paintball
...how useful they are/were? The US intelligence agencies are not likely to tell folks where they got what information if they don't have to. For example, if information concerning the locations and orientations of anti-aircraft weaponry was obtained via satellite, the information would likely be passed to on-scene commanders, but not to CNN or such, so the average person is not going to know how effective the satellites are.
Yes, especially if you happen to be a "defense" contractor...
"Thank you, Congressman, for your stauch advocacy of this worthy project. The $11 billion you allocated for the fiscal year will fund additional research in order to get this system fielded. Um, by the way, we noticed that you are retiring soon. Perhaps you would like to lend your national security expertise as a consultant to our "advisory board," in exchange for a modest stipend, of course." *wink*
"Why, I think that I might be able to set aside a few hours a week with your fine company. After all, it's a matter of national security." *wink*
"OH SHIT, THERE'S A HORSE IN THE HOSPITAL!"
Oh yeah? If that's true, then why don't the headlines ever read, "Psychic wins Mega-Lottery!!"? ;-]
"A revolution without dancing is... a revolution not worth having"
FTA: "The reason why, Aftergood explained, is because congressional appropriators are free to spend the money without being held accountable for their actions."
One central problem in our American government is the pursuit of necessarily secret projects, while our government is controlled by a system of oversight for accountability. Some projects are kept secret from the oversight, and at least some of those get out of control. Reagan's Iran/Contra operation violated several laws, as well as conflicting with several foreign policies regarding both Iran and South American drug cartels. And these satellites apparently violate any sensible cost:benefit*risk analysis. Just as extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, so does extraordinary secrecy require extraordinary legitimacy. We can't know about the essential secret operations that succeed despite lack of oversight. But the repeated abuse of secrecy, merely to cover up "enormous boondoggles" as reported in the article, threatens the specific project goals, as well as the ability to run *any* government project without oversight. It's now an open secret that the Federal Government is collapsing under its own weight, along fault lines of abuse huge enough to be seen from space for generations.
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make install -not war
I thought it was just pretty much assumed we did this kind of stuff. Not really a shocker to me.
just because your a schizophrenic doesn't mean people arn't really out to get you
Spy satellites don't have to put out a regular broadcast telling everyone where they are.
1) They could use laser or microwave or some other tight beam to communicate their data back to friendly earth stations, or even hand it off to other satellites.
2) They don't have to communicate all of the time, they could just wait until over friendly territory and do scrambled high speed bursts of data.
I think if we can make a bomber stealthy, with a few billion here and there we can probably make spy sats that are damn near invisible too.
-you paint the side facing earth black.
-use radar absorbing materials and shapes etc.
-power it with some atomic plant so it doesn't need solar arrays.
-launch it hidden piggybacked on another satellite.
-it can listen for commands via radio but have it use encrypted laser to relay data to other sats that are known and can broadcast the data back to us.
And as you tread the halls of sanity, You feel so glad to be, Unable to go beyond. I have a message, From another time..
it's simply not possible for 300-odd people, even with 100-person staffs, to micromanage every aspect of government.
Maybe that's a sign that we have too much goverment?
Chip H.
If you do the math, the theoretical resolving limit for a 2.4m mirror (Hubble's size, which is about the same as the KH-11 and KH-12 spy satellites since they're all launched from the space shuttle) works out to about 5cm in the visible spectrum at a 90 mile altitude. That's under optimal conditions. They might be able to see if you're wearing a watch, but there's no way they can read the time unless the government has figured out some way to bypass the laws of physics.
No, we can only infer that if it's not deceptive, then it's not warfare.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Rats. And I had resolved for 2005 not to make fun of the perceptually disabled.
-FL
Think about it: the U.S. government isn't going to reveal any secrets in any article except for perhaps a few minor secrets from the 1950's. And also consider that any public statement by the intelligence community is made for a reason. Always. And it's not to reveal secrets. I consider this article part of a PR campaign: you are to accept being watched as the new reality.
So it seems the new world order will resemble a prison.