71–80 of 81 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hubble wasn't but a pair of Key Hole satellites (KH-11) were. https://www.americaspace.com/2012/06/06/top-secret-kh-11-spy...
Hubble was built by the same contractors that build the Keyhole satellites. They whole idea from the beginning was to reuse the spy satellite hardware for astronomy.
How it was tracked back to USA 224: https://github.com/cbassa/satellite_analysis/blob/master/nah...
The really astounding part of all this is that hobbyists have been monitoring the exact orbits of all the US spy satellites for years. They know exactly where they're overhead and when. That kind of capability used to be something that only a handful of states had, and now people just do it from their homes and post it to the internet.
https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/society-the-arts/books/st...
Two things I got from the video: 1) The videos of the launches are scary, especially the launches with the "A" rockets, and the fireball surrounding the rocket at the beginning of the launch. 2) It's a shame the patch with the Klingon text never made it out into the wild.
What I got from the video is that we have hundreds of Hubbles around the Earth but only one of them is pointed outwards at the stars.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The black box on the top left? I'm assuming that's just redacting the classification level, which was surely Top Secret.
Not just Top Secret. It would also be classified as TK (Talent Keyhole). The classification system is compartmentalized to limit exposure of things -- like raw intelligence & intelligence gathering capabilities -- to those who really need to know.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is anecdotal, and no idea how real it is, but my dad flew reconnaissance for the USAF in the 70s and claimed to have the capability to read license plates way back then from very high altitude (no idea what qualified as very high altitude, but assumed they were not easily detected from the ground).
Let's do some napkin math. A quick websearch suggests spy sats orbit around 200-800km, while U2 flies at 20km. Let's say you can use the same camera system on both. Then 10cm resolution at 200km orbit means 1cm at 20km, which would be enough to read a license plate.
Nothing our enemies did not already know.
Nothing our enemies did not already know.
Everybody knows the specifics now, and even the less well funded adversarial agencies will have a much firmer idea of just how good the adaptive optics of KH-11 are.
Two things I got from the video: 1) The videos of the launches are scary, especially the launches with the "A" rockets, and the fireball surrounding the rocket at the beginning of the launch. 2) It's a shame the patch with the Klingon text never made it out into the wild.
What I got from the video is that we have hundreds of Hubbles around the Earth but only one of them is pointed outwards at the stars.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which rules is he exempt from?
All of them: https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2019/publicint... ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20295754 ) > there are certain cases where it may be in the public’s interest to have access to certain Tweets, even if they would otherwise be in violation of our rules. On the rare occasions when this happens, we'll place a notice – a screen you have to click or tap through before you see the Tweet –…
The actual text (not POTUS specific):
Who does this apply to?
We will only consider applying this notice on Tweets from accounts that meet the following criteria. The account must:
- Be or represent a government/elected official, be running for public office, or be considered for a government position (i.e., next in line, awaiting confirmation, named successor to an appointed position);
- Have more than 100,000 followers;
- Be verified.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> * imagine how annoyed astronomers would be if they found out the biggest most advanced space telescope in history was in space and pointing down* Well, rumor is that Hubble was just a repurposed spy telescope, so astronomers probably should be annoyed :)
Annoyed? Sure. Surprised? Only the naive would be.