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NRO To Declassify Cold-War Spy-Sat Tech
Muad'Dave writes "The National Reconnaissance Office is set to reveal details of two of the cold war's most capable spy satellite programs on September 17th — the GAMBIT and HEXAGON projects, aka the keyhole KH-7, -8, and -9 satellites. These bus-sized sats provided critical imagery during the height of the cold war, and were likely the inspiration for the movie Ice Station Zebra. The article links midway down the first page provide a fascinating look into the world of real spy-vs-spy, cloak-and-dagger intelligence gathering."
Oh fer chrissake, it's a tech article, not a tinfoil-hat Wikileaks article. Let's talk about how the Keyholes were the prototypes for Hubble.
Wide band SDR, recording all bands with a 400-500dBm floor, storing at least 1.33x10^12 petabytes per day.
Everything from human thought, to pirate radio...
Dude you can not take reason with the an unquestioning true believer.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
+1 incoherent
0 = 1 + e^(Alt something)
the novel Ice Station Zebra by Alistair MacLean came out in 1963. it was later adapted into the movie Ice Station Zebra in 1968.
That's the idea of voluntarily declassifying this information. You seem to want all intelligence automatically posted to a Twitter feed. These are groups who seem some days to think using lemons and water to make invisible ink should still be classified.
They aren't going to release relatively recent information on ongoing wars and their alleged operations against a person they see as a near terrorist just because in an ideal world we citizens should know what the government is doing in our name.
by Anonymous Coward: I, for one, welcome the shift from car analogies to pizza analogies. um.. overlords?
According to several sources, the NRO plans to display several declassified objects on the grounds of the Smithsonianâ(TM)s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Museum for a short period of time, possibly only on September 17. One of these objects is the massive camera system from the KH-9 HEXAGON. Another is the camera system from the KH-7 GAMBIT.
Some /.er has to know more.
Make a few phone calls if you have to!
If they're only on display for one day, I'll make a special trip to the museum.
They already have an older keyhole satellite in their collection, with a part of it on display.
The film retrieval system was "we're going to have a plane catch it in mid-air".
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
The movie Ice Station Zebra was nice, but at least reference the book it was based on. http://www.amazon.com/Ice-Station-Zebra-Alistair-MacLean/dp/1402790333/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1316100563&sr=8-4 Especially sense it was just re-released.
heh.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
"The plot has parallels to events reported in news stories from April 1959, concerning a missing experimental CORONA satellite capsule (Discoverer II) that inadvertently landed near Spitsbergen, situated in the Arctic Ocean on April 13, which was believed to have been recovered by Soviet agents."
The book was published in 1963 the first KH-7 was launched in July of 1963 so the math doesn't add up for the Gambit to be the satellite in the book.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
The number of scary things the US military and CIA have done in the last 50 years is well-documented and not tinfoil-hat material. Sure, Assange may or may not have been set up, but the point remains that a lot of what was going on then that we know about now would have been assumed to be paranoia by those who thought it to be true at the time too.
In sixty or seventy years, when the truth is declassified about now, you might not be around for the "i told you so" ... so do yourself a favour and assume a zebra doesn't change its stripes much.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
...is the Hubble Space Telescope.
I opened the larger version from the picture from article (the size comparasion between the sats), and for my, the KH-11 are a copy from Hubble
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
or maybe they've been ordered to look elsewhere ? after all, bush was about iraq since day 1 and while he may have not percieved the manitude of the islamist / ben laden threat, any blast for real finally "helped" him to promote his "cause"..
Use of the US army as a private army ( saddam tried to kill Bush 41, no need to mention how much the bush family is involved in oil related business ). Finally all the world knew something was going on prior to 9/11 except the USA.. see : book of clinton 'my life', when he left the white house and see
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSL1612543820070416
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,266291,00.html
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/France_knew_of_and_told_CIA_about_al-Qaeda_hijack_plans_prior_to_9/11 http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/041707J.shtml
Back in the 1970s I had the pleasure of working on several large-scale classified projects (one included a large ship). Everything we did had to be done on a schedule that would take into account whether a Soviet spy satellite was passing over or not. I can remember being frustrated that this caused a lot of extra work and time but at least we knew when NOT to do something.
I suspect that it's a lot more difficult now.
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
In sixty or seventy years, when the truth is declassified about now, you might not be around for the "i told you so" ... so do yourself a favour and assume a zebra doesn't change its stripes much.
I'm assuming you meant "assume an Ice Station Zebra doesn't change..." here.
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
I recall in college being given a problem set on optics, which considered whether it was possible for the US Government to actually read license plates from space. This question asked us to consider the Hubble Space Telescope and its diffraction limit (setting aside atmospheric disturbance), and compare that to the angular size of the letters on a license plate when viewed from low Earth orbit. Why consider the question using the Hubble, and not some hypothetical spy satellite? Well, the size of the Hubble's mirror was well known, whereas the size and configuration of spy satellites was still classified. "But," said the professor with a wink, "the sizing of Hubble was based in part on what was already known to be possible." The graphic accompanying the article shows a KH-9 that looks a whole lot like a Hubble.
The only thing that one can say for certain about 60-70 years from now, there will always be people filling 'news entertainment' with stories of governmental conspiracies and plans. It's an easy business to be in, and people like Glenn Beck will continue to exploit the easily fooled for financial gain.
According to your 'schedule' we should just now be finding out all of the terrible things that people like you claimed happened in the 30's, 40's, and 50's. Can you point out one thing that was effectively 'suppressed by the government' in the same manner that you might suggest is commonplace?
The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
All the intelligence collection can't fix an inter-departmental communication failure. Yet each year, US government grants itself ever more sweeping intelligence collection power. I wonder if the inter-departmental communication problem was ever fixed?
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
Digital Globe and GeoEye now operate commercial imagery satellites. That's where Microsoft and Google get their imagery for areas where they don't have close aerial coverage. DoD buys a lot of their info. Best commercial resolution is 45cm. Which, realistically, is enough to find most threats that can be seen from above.
Digital Globe has an analysis of Osama bin Laden's compound in Pakistan..
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/military/astrospies.html
I highly recommend it. The Soviets actually got a manned space satellite to work. Which is probably where they learned so much about extended space missions.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Can you point out one thing that was effectively 'suppressed by the government' in the same manner that you might suggest is commonplace?
I can do better than than. How about a whole book of them?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I have always liked that movie. A nice submarine movie with a Cold War spy thriller theme as well. Has a fine performances from Rock Hudson, Patrick McGoohan, and Ernest Borgnine.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063121/
http://www.amazon.com/Ice-Station-Zebra-Rock-Hudson/dp/B0006B2A42
Wow, Thats amazing that you mention a book I read recently that doesnt point really any terrible things the CIA did. Its more of a history of the organization. Hardly anything as damning as you're trying to make it out to be.
That is an interesting question. I don't know what can be made out by the military spy sattelites but my experiencr with Google maps is this. I can clearly make out who has and has not a backyard fence in my subdivision. Also I was a backpacker and knew exactly where some foot paths were. I could detect some of them in a Google maps satellite picture. By the way, these paths were not very heavily traveled (they were in the Wind River Range) and the paths were sometimes hard to follow at ground level.
"since the mid-1990s, when an executive order signed by President Clinton—apparently over some opposition from NRO leadership—declassified the CORONA reconnaissance satellite program"
No the biggest thing they released in the 90's was during 1992: That the NRO existed.
I'll take that as a 'no I cannot'; you might as well point at a pubic library and claim 'it's in there'.
I'm sure that anything 'big' in that tome was widely known at the time or exposed within a few years. Sure, the operational details might be classified, but you would seem to claim that there are big secrets still hidden. I know for a fact that the CIA sometimes goes out and kills people and the eavesdropping worries me, but it's not well hidden. People leak stories, especially as they grow older, disgusted, or poor.
Is there some big scandal brewing now, perhaps some detail that has thus so far remained hidden? Any rational person would say maybe, to that question, I might even say 'probably', however, most details flush out within a decade, even if congress or the media doesn't decide to shine a spotlight on the subject. Sure there are some men who try to be 'the man who really runs things', some even succeed a little, but they never really do so as quietly as they'd like. Just ask the Koch brothers, or Murdock.
The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
and I bet they don't need film anymore
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
doesnt point really any terrible things the CIA did
You obviously read a different book. That's pretty much ALL "Legacy of Ashes" does. It's the most damning critique of the CIA ever produced (among REPUTABLE journalists anyway, not tinfoil hat types).
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
There is still stuff from the 50's and 60's that they've never even declassified yet (or is still so heavily redacted as to be useless). And you think all the details of this "War on Terrorism" are coming out within a decade?!? We'll be lucky to see any of the real nasty stuff in our LIFETIMES, much less in ten years.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.