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French Threat To ID Secret US Satellites
SkiifGeek brings to our attention a story that ran on space.com a few months back but didn't get much wider notice at the time. "The French have identified numerous objects in orbit that do not appear in the ephemeris data reported by the US Space Surveillance Network. Now, the US claims that if it doesn't appear in the ephemeris data, then it doesn't exist. The French insist that at least some of the objects they have found boast solar arrays. Therefore it seems that the French have found secret US satellites. While they don't plan to release the information publicly, they do intend to use it as leverage to get the US to suppress reporting of sensitive French satellites in their published ephemeris."
They are hoping they are US satellites and not Chinese[insert evil empire name] satellites.
Well, they do have nukes...
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If they're really there, it's an empty threat. If the French can see them then so can anyone else with a telescope. It's likely everyone else of consequence already knows about them.
Surely the wise course of action would be to deny the existence of all secret US satellites plus a smattering of somebody elses's satellites, too. Just to stir up the entropy pool a bit.
If you can't even win in Iraq, :-)
You wouldn't win over France
That's freedom flies
Is it a secret we both have unmarked satellites, or are their locations the secret?
Eventually, this troll will be worthy of an Insightful moderation. That will be the day I leave slashdot.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
One New republic. Twice invaded and saved by France. For sale to the highest bidding oil company
**Life is too short to be serious**
Well, considering that the French lost about 50% of their able-bodied fighting men in WWI and WWII, I dont think that it was really surrendering. I love how my fellow countrymen keep babbling about French surrendering. If lets say an equivalent number of Americans died - maybe 3 million or so, don't you think it would have an impact on this country's fighting ability?
People, stop already with the French surrender dumbness. We haven't fought a 'fair' war since the Civil War, and that we fought against ourselves. Even in WWi and WWII we waited until others had worn out the enemy...
Jesus Christ - no wonder people hate Americans. Thanks for that, people - I'm embarrassed to say where I'm from these days. Bunch of jingoist jerks.
Poor means hoping the toothache goes away.
"Numerous communications satellites have been lost over the years."
They tend to fall out of orbit and burn up in re-entry and/or are placed in geosynchronous orbit, not the globe-spanning polar LEO's favored by the spook community.
Also, for the kind of money involved in launching, using and maintaining one, you do not lose one casually.
"Others may be a secret alien monitoring network..."
"What, haven't the hairless apes wiped themselves out yet?" Alien monitoring requires that we actually be, y'know, interesting and worth monitoring. Feels too much like a descendant of the ol' Ptolemaic geocentricism.
The gung-ho type we don't mind, they are consistent and wear their beliefs on their sleeve. They are honest and straightforward.
HAHAHAHAHA!
The current crop of jingoists are a bunch of cowards who think war is fine and dandy, as long as it's other people doing the dying. Damn near every top pro-war politician and commentator who was of age to serve during Vietnam found some way to stay out of uniform, and their kids aren't in any hurry to sign up for Iraq either. Oh, how "honest and straightforward" of them!
It's this new, smug, "I'm ashamed of my country" kind of American that I cannot stand
When your country does something wrong -- and when your country is a democracy, in which the leaders are theoretically responsible to the people -- it is good and right to be ashamed. Being ashamed isn't enough, of course; you should also do something to change it. Which, in the civilized world, includes bitching loudly and publicly. The idea that we should keep our mouths shut except to parrot platitudes of support for our Glorious Leaders is repulsive.
I'd hate to know how you'd feel if you were French and actually had to live with the knowledge that not only did your country surrender to Germany without a fight
If you really think France surrendered "without a fight" I'd recommend reading some more history. They were beaten, on the battlefield, by an army which could easily have done the same thing to any other country -- yes, including both the US and Australia -- that had the misfortune to be right next door to Germany at the time. And, in fact, did. The Wehrmacht in its heyday was unstoppable, and it took the Allies years (and a whole hell of a lot of lives) to swamp it in a war of attrition.
BTW, if your country was invaded, you would be cowering behind those "jingoist jerks", you hypocrite.
I served for ten years (two years reserve, eight years active duty, including Desert Storm) and I'm pretty sure that even as a fat old guy with a bum leg, I could still step up and defend US soil if I had to. The "rah rah USA" crowd would be screaming, crying, and pissing their pants.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
I think you are missing the point entirely. No one is interested in this information so they can 'affect' the hardware. The crux of the issue is that if the French start publishing live orbital telemetry on spy satellites then it will be damn easy for any interested party to 'hide' as the satellite passes over.
Moreover, changes in the telemetry will tell the 'bad guys' when the US is interested in something and hence they will have a better sense if their activities have aroused US suspicion.
I'd wager that even the Taliban could muster the internet access and math skills to figure this out given up to date telemetry.
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Every story you read about these days is about France, Israel, or the USA (or the three trying to destroy/enrich each other).
Please help stop it. Humans could put persons on Mars, yet we still quibble about dumb things.
Brittan created America because they were bitchy.
France helped America become independent.
Americans came to be tired.
Americans think we should all work out our differences. Americans think we should just work it out. Americans think we should not fight unless necessary.
America does not agree with leader.
Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. It's the only thing that ever has.
...unless it turns out that it's actually NOT a US spy satellite, and in fact belongs to China. At which point your career prospects become veeery dubious.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
...unless it turns out that it's actually NOT a US spy satellite, and in fact belongs to China. At which point your career prospects become veeery dubious. Only if you're Chinese.Only the fact that the French are threatening to identify secret satellites is public, the actual identity of said satellites (where they can be found), however is not.
"So I guess my point is that they did it invisibly despite being looked at the whole time."
And my point is that it wasn't "the whole time." An individual satellite only has scant seconds to photograph an area on a pass and won't be able to do it again for at least a day (probably longer). Multiple satellites give you a few more handfuls of seconds to observe during the course of any given day, but the odds are strongly in favor that no satellite will be making a pass at the random time you decide to move the bomb.
This isn't a Hollywood movie, satellites don't have hang time. Satellite reconnaissance is done by comparing two still photographs and looking for differences. Unless you actually have a satellite passing by as they move the bomb (you'd have a better chance of winning the lottery), all the NRO has to go on is "The A-Bombs R Us truck is parked in a different spot today than it was last Tuesday, it probably went somewhere. I wonder if they moved the bomb..." Park said truck in exactly the same place after you move the bomb, and there's no reason to suspect anything from the two photos.
Nothing happened in space today as a non-existent satellite collided with another non-existent satellite. The respective non-owners of the non-satellites both deny responsibility, stating that on specific inquiry, the respective orbits of both non-satellites were reported to be free for use by a non-existent object.
Details may or may not be available at 11.
Usage: km/h for speed (kilometers per hour); kph for very slow impulses (kilopond hours).
"But you're not looking for a solitary nuke. You've looking for the huge effort that goes into manufacturing and testing the thing. Things like materiel going into suspected labs and factories, or the local army cordoning off the test site. That's a lot harder to hide."
In the specific examples of the surprise tests of India and Pakistan in 1998, none of that was hidden. India set off its first nuclear device in the 1970's and Pakistan finished building the required infrastructure in the 1980's. India already had a testing range set aside for its first blast and Pakistan picked and cordoned off a testing site soon afterwards. The only thing left to both countries was actually building and testing the bombs. The United States used diplomatic pressure to dissuade both countries from doing just that, and satellites successfully caught a pending test in India in 1995, which the US successfully pressured them into stopping.
All the Indians did different in 1998 was use more camouflage, do most of their work at night, and make sure all the earth-moving equipment was back where it belonged come daylight.
If you're looking for "Country X has the infrastructure to build Teh Bomb!" as you'd want to find out with Iran and DPRK, then the satellites are impossible to hide from, but the only question the world was still asking in 1998 for both countries was "When are they going to test Teh Bomb?" and, due to careful planning, satellites weren't very helpful, and the surveilled party didn't need knowledge of satellites trajectories to do it.
as an Australian, I am totally ashamed that you are also an Australian.
you talk about ANZUS, our top politicians (Howard and Downer) don't even have a clear idea of what our obligations are towards that treaty. But then, that was probably just Downer being Downer.
I believe when the GP said "bullying allies" he didn't mean bullying every single person in the allied country. You being a single case doesn't count, and you being safely in some backwater country town probably precludes you from facing that anyway.
Did you see the news where Australia spent some $240 million on this little conference in Sydney, and Bush wasn't even sure what country he was in and which conference he was attending? That's how much he cares about his best international ally.
If you have ever spent just a little time outside of Australia, you will know that Howard has pretty much used up all of the goodwill non-US foreigners used to have towards Australians. Now, Australians are treated as if we are second-class US citizens.
Nope, the headline should be:
"French discover secret US sattelites, but will not disclose the information, unlike the US does."
It's even in the summary: "While they don't plan to release the information publicly, they do intend to use it as leverage to get the US to suppress reporting of sensitive French satellites in their published ephemeris."
And I was thinking reading the article was difficult for some. Apparently just reading the summary is to hard for some people here. Yeah, i'm looking at you kdawson...
Heck, they couldn't win in freaking somalia!
> Another is that if we leave French secret satellites off the list, then if someone spots a satellite not on the list, they won't know whether it's U.S. or French.
Nice strategy....
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
In Soviet Russia, our new overlords are belong to all your base.
If no one will admit to owning them, then they're useful for the Chinese (or anyone else) as targets in antisatellite weapons tests. Other than the resulting debris, they'd be doing everyone a favor.