Cold War Satellite Pics Declassified 246
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?"
one thing (Score:2, Funny)
Cuban Pics (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Cuban Pics (Score:5, Interesting)
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
Film catch (Score:2)
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:Cuban Pics (Score:2)
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...
Sopranos Quote (Score:2)
Re:Cuban Pics (Score:2)
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.
kodak instant moments? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:kodak instant moments? (Score:2, Funny)
Yup, the film was Kodak film -- no kidding (Score:5, Informative)
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.com]:
"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 [wustl.edu]. 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 (Score:2)
Whose looking in your window? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Whose looking in your window? (Score:5, Interesting)
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? (Score:3, Interesting)
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? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Whose looking in your window? (Score:5, Interesting)
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? (Score:2)
Re:Whose looking in your window? (Score:2, Insightful)
BTW, the U.S. government is currently allowing nonclassified LEO remote sensing sats of a
Re:Whose looking in your window? (Score:3, Interesting)
The probable limit of spysats (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
100cm (Score:3, Informative)
Re:100cm (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Re:The probable limit of spysats (Score:2)
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.
Re:Whose looking in your window? (Score:2)
Re:Whose looking in your window? (Score:2)
Re:Whose looking in your window? (Score:2)
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? (Score:5, Insightful)
We should avoid using spy movies as a basis for estimations on what our government is capable of.
Re:Whose looking in your window? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Whose looking in your window? (Score:2)
Re:Whose looking in your window? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Whose looking in your window? (Score:4, Interesting)
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.)
Common misinformation on HST (Score:4, Interesting)
The parent is wrong about several things:
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, [stsci.edu] which is certainly not at infinity.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.
Spot the obvious connection (Score:2)
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:Whose looking in your window? (Score:2, Funny)
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? (Score:2, Funny)
Picture it- sharks with FRICKIN' LASER BEAMS attached to their heads!
The Cuban Roll (Score:4, Funny)
Re:The Cuban Roll (Score:4, Funny)
Might as well say it.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Might as well say it.... (Score:2, Informative)
Oh good!!! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Oh good!!! [OT] (Score:2)
-Puk
Re:Oh good!!! [OT] (Score:2)
Here are the images you wanted (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Here are the images you wanted (Score:2)
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? (Score:2)
Working site (Score:4, Informative)
this is the site w/o java issues
Re:No Mozilla support? (Score:2)
Re:No Mozilla support? (Score:2)
But wait you could install java2 on IE so everyone can use this. Dumb!
Hello, this is the US, Israel's bitch. (Score:2, Insightful)
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. (Score:2)
Re:Hello, this is the US, Israel's bitch. (Score:2)
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. (Score:2)
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.
What a silly subject line (Score:2)
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:Hello, this is the US, Israel's bitch. (Score:2)
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. (Score:2, Insightful)
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. (Score:3, Informative)
You wrote:
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. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Hello, this is the US, Israel's bitch. (Score:2)
Hey, are you European?
So in other words, you advocate appeasement?
Re:Hello, this is the US, Israel's bitch. (Score:2)
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. (Score:2)
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. (Score:4, Insightful)
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. (Score:2, Insightful)
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. (Score:2)
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. (Score:2)
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 [washtimes.com] 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. (Score:2)
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. (Score:2)
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. (Score:2)
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. (Score:2)
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 [yahoo.com], 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. (Score:2)
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. (Score:2)
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.
ho hum.... (Score:5, Informative)
**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=16027
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 (Score:5, Interesting)
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 (Score:2, Funny)
Other News (Score:5, Funny)
SD
Cuban Missiles? (Score:4, Funny)
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?
waste of tax dollars... (Score:3, Funny)
-gerbik
KH-9, Big Bird (Score:5, Interesting)
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 (Score:3, Insightful)
USGS web page: Gale Norton strikes again! (Score:5, Informative)
I think it would be a good idea for as many people as possible to email [mailto]the maintainer of the web page.
Unsurprising for the gov't to so thouroughly screw-up like this, especially with Interior Secretary Gale Norton [washingtonpost.com] 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 [mailto] herself?!
Re:USGS web page: Gale Norton strikes again! (Score:2)
Re:USGS web page: Gale Norton strikes again! (Score:2)
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 (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Insteresting Little Story (Score:3, Insightful)
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 (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
Unbelievable technology (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Panoramic Imagery (Score:5, Informative)
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! (Score:4, Funny)
With intelligence-gather incapabilities like that, no wonder we won the cold war.
Cuban missile pics (Score:3)
Geez, has no-one seen thirteen days?
The ones that are still classified (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The ones that are still classified (Score:2)
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 (Score:2)
And 30 years later...? (Score:2)
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!
Russians nuked the Chinese (Score:4, Interesting)
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!
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...
How long is it? (Score:2)
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)
Re:Interesting.... (Score:3, Informative)
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!
Re:all we need now is the dark side of the moon pi (Score:2)
Re:all we need now is the dark side of the moon pi (Score:2)
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.
Two dark sides (Score:2)
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!)
Re:all we need now is the dark side of the moon pi (Score:2)
Re:Flexing Mirrors (Score:2)
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!