Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Decades-Old Mystery Put to Rest: Why Are There X's in the Desert?

npr.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

1–10 of 80 posts

Re: Decades-Old Mystery Put to Rest: Why Are There X's in the Desert?

#5

Post by Animats »

SCHiM wrote: post #2

tl/dr: U.S. Military spy satellite camera calibration.

Right. Since each "mysterious" X was equipped with a "US Army Corps of Engineers" brass plate, it was kind of obvious they were calibration targets for something military. The article says "focusing", but they were probably used to get more precise orbital elements for satellites. This was pre-GPS, and calibration across geography on a planetary scale was tough.

Re: Decades-Old Mystery Put to Rest: Why Are There X's in the Desert?

#6

Post by dsjoerg »

wyldfire wrote: post #4
SCHiM wrote: post #2

tl/dr: U.S. Military spy satellite camera calibration.

Yes, indeed but read it anyways! ;) It's not too long IMO and the human element of the story is lost in this summary.

Too long for me! Just here to waste a minute and the TLDR does me a service.

Re: Decades-Old Mystery Put to Rest: Why Are There X's in the Desert?

#8

Post by tugs »

dukoid wrote: post #7
SCHiM wrote: post #2

tl/dr: U.S. Military spy satellite camera calibration.

Did anybody find one on Google Maps in Satellite mode?

I found two: 32.807001, -111.722184 and 32.791790, -111.705250 I'd like to find more to see the 'grid' mentioned in the article.

Re: Decades-Old Mystery Put to Rest: Why Are There X's in the Desert?

#9

Post by djsumdog »

SCHiM wrote: post #2

tl/dr: U.S. Military spy satellite camera calibration.

> "This [X] we're standing on right now helped protect us from nuclear war," Owen says.

Um no. It just helped the US know where shit is. They didn't keep us safe. Mutually assured destruction did. That's why every war since then has been a proxy war.

If anything, programs like this poured massive amounts of money into expanding out out of control military and probably caused the expansion of wars into areas, leading to the deaths of countless civilians in the former USSR nations.

Post reply on HN