Artist/Astronomer Exhibits Photos Of Spy Satellites 173
daemonburrito writes "Trevor Paglen, the photographer and co-author of 'Torture Taxi: On the Trail of the CIA's Rendition Flights' and 'I Could Tell You But Then You Would Have To Be Destroyed By Me,' has an exhibit showing in Berkeley of 189 photos of secret US satellites (exhibit page here). Wired says, 'In taking these photos, Paglen is trying to draw a metaphorical connection between modern government secrecy and the doctrine of the Catholic Church in Galileo's time.'"
Heathen! (Score:5, Funny)
Cool... (Score:5, Funny)
That's a pretty neat exhibi$ #_(%#^3 NO CARRIER
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Maybe he lives in Soviet Russia and got ditched by broadband you insensitive clod!
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Maybe I'm just paranoid, but does anyone else think that maybe it was the CIA who submitted this news article?
wow... (Score:4, Funny)
Blame the CIA and the Catholic Church in one fell swoop? Now if that isn't a match made for UCB, then I don't know what is.
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Blame the CIA and the Catholic Church in one fell swoop? Now if that isn't a match made for UCB, then I don't know what is.
Yeah, everyone knows the Catholics are all in the FBI.
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Hmmm... (Score:3, Interesting)
Did TFA get slashdotted, or did the DoD bomb Berkley?
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I guess the latter, because I can't belive that Berkley can be slashdotted...
Gee (Score:1, Flamebait)
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Oh, I guess I shouldn't have just typed "Berkley" into the URL bar and should have clicked the link in the summary instead? Wow, your computer skills are 133t!
Re:Hmmm... (Score:5, Funny)
It's clear that the CIA is working with Slashdot to cover up secret spy satellites that can penetrate tin foil.
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Its so cheap and the NSA loves it.
Why is data sent 1/2 around the world and back again?
Wait... I'm confused. (Score:1)
Re:Wait... I'm confused. (Score:5, Funny)
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Although I'm not completely familiar with the epistemology, Objectivists do believe just that. And they purport to have a logical proof beginning with what is effectively "something cannot exist and not exist at the same time" extending through "non-initiation of force" and the like. From there, they layout a basis of morality using only rational constructs. It's a seductive argument, even if it's too hand-wavy for my tastes.
-Hope
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He is going to disappear. (Score:1)
Quicker than an unattended cookie at a fat camp.
The Universe.. (Score:1)
... revolves around the earth. Those are gods tears in the sky, not spy satellites. The church doesn't have anything to hide.
Now go to your room for life and don't tell anyone what you've discovered.
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Those are gods tears in the sky,
And why is God crying?
Probably because of something you did.
Thanks, Jack Handey [wikiquote.org].Doesn't Exist. (Score:5, Funny)
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Censorship? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Censorship? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Censorship? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, he is lifting the veil of secrecy. There's a big difference between secrecy and censorship.
Secrecy is a very important aspect of national security, and I wouldn't want to see it go away. That said, I want checks and balances to ensure that only things pertaining to national security are kept secret, and every other aspect of the government is kept transparent. I also want to make sure there are checks and balances to prevent a violation of citizens rights lumped in under national security secrets (like wiretaps of american citizens), and I want checks and balances to prevent a violation in inalienable human rights (like secret prisons) with the same premise as an excuse, but I sure have no problem with secret spy satellites. In fact, if I were an amateur astronomer who discovered said satellites, I would be morally against publicizing that information. I know other countries can look at the sky just as easily as I can, but I don't want to do their legwork for them. That said, if the astronomer in question doesn't have a problem with publicizing the information, I would have a problem with the government trying to shut him up. That would be censorship, not just secrecy. It's one of those "I disagree with what you're saying, but I will defend your right to say it" things.
In the case of Trevor Paglin, the article indicates that he knew where and when to find the satellites by looking at a database compiled by amateur astronomers. As far as I'm concerned, that doesn't classify as a "secret" anymore, other than the actual capabilities of the satellites. Therefore, I don't have a moral objection to it. In fact, I applaud all of his other work, which brings attention to those secret prisons I so despise.
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THese photos don't reveil any secrets. The possitions or "obital elements" are published. They have to be or you have the potential of crashes and colisions. What's not publised and what's not shown in these pictures are the details of what the spacecraft do.
These things are really easy to find. You don't need a telescope. Looking that way would be hard. The better way to find them (If the orbital elements weren't published) would be to listen, not look. All of them have radio transmitters that send
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Re:Censorship? (Score:5, Insightful)
Realistically, you are correct (although I still object to your terminology. They're not "censors," they're people sworn to secrecy. They only become censors when they attempt to stop the free speech of those who were not sworn to keep the secrets but found out anyway). What I described was an ideal situation. Even if the goal is unreachable, if we all strive to achieve it, we can keep ourselves from straying too far from it.
What we have to our advantage is that there are a lot of people involved in all levels of government in order to make it work. Somebody who believes in a responsible government is bound to be included in every secret project, and when they do, they will be morally obliged to become whistle-blowers and leak the information.
The problem isn't that the "trusted committee" isn't accountable to the public, it's that these days the public just doesn't care. The secrets that threaten public control of the government do invariably get leaked. We know about the wiretaps. We know about the secret prisons. We know about the torture. The problem is that a lot of the public believes this behavior is acceptable. Instead of thanking the whistle-blowers who brought this to our attention, some people go as far as calling them traitors.
You're right. Complete transparency of the government is incompatible with the ability to keep secrets. The alternative of keeping no secrets at all is to live with a foreign threat to our public control of the government. The fact that we're straying so far from what you called my "reasonable goal" is an inherent deficiency of a government under public control. When the public doesn't care, they fail to hold their government accountable, even when they do know about the secrets. However, the alternative to public control of the government is even worse. In the end, I prefer to strive to keep the balance. I accept that the government has to keep secrets even knowing that this interferes with the transparency I want from my government, and I accept to live in a democracy even knowing idiots get to vote.
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Well first they could say:" Yes, they are spy satellites. Of course we have spy satellites. They cost roughly $153 million each, and there are 170 to 190 of them. We would like to keep their capabilities secret." At least then they aren't lieing like little children with stolen chocolate bar. Also then there can be some semblance of accountability. As it stands there is zero accountability. Zero accountability + huge military budget = dictatorship. Dictatorship!!??!! no no no, that's ridiculous: you say. Given the publics disapproval other "secret" government actions, like extraordinary rendition and wiretapping, I would say that most secret programs don't reflect the will of the people at all. Given that if there are in fact 180+ different spy satellites in the sky, then there have been more spy satellite launches than manned NASA missions. [thinkquest.org]
I think it's better to say that it doesn't exist. How do you know it's one of ours and not one of theirs? Why would you want the government to acknowledge it, so your enemies know exactly which satellites are where, at what time, with which capabilities? That doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Yeah, I'd love transparency, but we've still got enemies out there, and we can't let them know everything that is in our hand. I have nothing against what these guys have done, but the government has no
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First, as far as I know the DoD has never denied the existence of spy satellites - they just don't comment about them at all. That is a big difference. Anyone (and I'm not saying you) who thinks that the government is trying to trick the people into thinking there are no such thing as spy satellites needs to get a life.
Second, these photos prove absolutely nothing - they are just tracks in the sky. Who is to say they actually belong to secret military satellites, weather satellites, communications satellit
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That's because that's what they don't want you to see.
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That's because they're in your head man.
Guess someone or something ... (Score:2)
Re:Guess someone or something ... (Score:4, Funny)
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Nice pics (Score:2)
I think I'll archive them in files and as prints... Hang on a sec, there's someone at the door.
I wonder how many times... (Score:2)
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...these things photograph the moon.
That's no moon...
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it didn't end well for galileo (Score:2)
Maybe you don't want the parallels to be too close.
Re:it didn't end well for galileo (Score:5, Informative)
Giordano Bruno was condemned because of his Theological beliefs. Galileo was just making scientifically unsound (and later proven false) claims.
Galileo was right that the Earth goes around the Sun, but he also wrongly insisted that it's orbit was circular (thus either introducing errors or necessitating the same epicycles that the geocentric model needed) and that tides were caused by the Earth's orbit and not the Moon. Further while his observations about the moons of Jupiter were insightful, he also mistook Saturn's rings for moons thus impugning the reliability of his Jupiter observations.
Galileo got a lot of things right, but he went about it in a very unscientific way (e.g. he wasn't critical enough of his own findings) that led to him also getting a lot of things wrong. Making mistakes is okay, but Galileo's wouldn't revise them when other academics pointed out their flaws. This eventually made enemies for him in the academic world which is eventually is what did him in.
Galileo did a number of great things. Just keep in mind that the version taught today is a censored one sided version of the story.
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I've argued pretty much what you have about Galileo, that he was brilliant as a scientist in an era when the rules of science were less formal, but was lousy on people skills and pissed off a lot of people who didn't just go around 'inquisiting' everyone, then the Roman Catholic church swung into a more fearful than average phase, he lost the protection of a pope that was willing to cut him extra slack, and he had no other moderates and reasonable men left in the church who wanted to stick their necks out f
news? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't understand. What's newsworthy about this? Guy takes photos and displays them. He is not censored. No censorship was alleged.
He wants to make a statement about the parallel between himself being censored and something from 500 years ago. But he wasn't censored and there's really no parallel.
And this would be news if something had actually happened. Are we supposed to be pretend outraged at the imagined censorship that didn't happen? How is that different than the usual pretense to outrage that some folks engage in all the time?
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Tim Robbins gives this talk to the National Association of Broadcasters about this "chill wind" of censorship blowing through the country, that gets covered by all the major media, then gets in his private jet and goes home. No "black maria" waiting for him at the airport to take him away, no darkened cell in the sub-basement of the Depa
Re:news? (Score:5, Insightful)
Real censorship is truly chilling. Only it is called POLITICAL CORRECTNESS.
Anything deemed "offensive" is removed, redacted, covered up, or otherwise stiffled. There are plenty of people who have, are having and will try to have others silenced for saying something that "offended" someone somewhere or another.
Why doesn't Tim Robbins actually speak against the REAL censorship attempts, rather than the nebulous versions he seems to see everywhere?
Re:news? (Score:5, Insightful)
.
Call me crazy, but I'd rather put up with a societally-imposed politically correctness than a government-imposed suppression of my actual right to free speech. I think some of those that constantly cry censorship and oppression might have a different impression if they lived under a truly oppressive regime (insert Bush joke here for +funny/+insightful). I liken it to middle-class suburban kids who actually think they have it rough growing up. It's simply that they lack a broader perspective to appreciate how good they actually have it relative to most others, and unfortunately, many of those kids grow up into similarly-minded adults.
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Also, why do my paragraphs munge together unless I put a character between them? I'm posting in text mode...
Re:news? (Score:4, Insightful)
Censorship is censorship. It doesn't matter the "punishment" for it.
The problem is society does use government to suppress politically incorrect speech. So I see no difference between the two.
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No, you just lose your job for using the "N" word. No, you just lose your job for having a bible on your desk. Hell, you can lose your job for saying "Nappy Headed Ho's"
Censorship is censorship. It doesn't matter the "punishment" for it.
Hmmm. Basically, you're saying that if I fire you because you're an asshole, it's "censorship"? You are confused.
Censorship is when I delete your offensive language from what I broadcast on television. Firing you for being offensive is just removing the antisocial element from my workforce.
Two words : Hate Speech (Score:4, Insightful)
Two more words: Hate Crimes
Sorry but the government has already acted. Instead of just being tried for a crime of aggression someone can be tried for what others think the perpetrator was thinking before and during the crime. There have been numerous cases in the press where a criminal case fell apart only to be followed with a "Hate Crime" trial that succeeded because the accusation is all so nebulous. Political Correctness run amok.
The courts already have been twisted into thought control. Yet it is nearly always biased in its application. There is no black and white in the definition of hate speech or hate crimes. Words used by one group become criminal while another group can use them with impunity. That is the very real world we live in today. Unfortunately too many people willingly accept this because they don't have the courage to stand up those who truly profess hate and instead want to wield the club of government to do it for them. Worse, they want to use that threat of government to manipulate and control the system.
The press is in it deep, consistently engaging in the same practice selectively changing context of stories to make the portrayal more offensive than it ever was. We are constantly bombarded by guilt, twisted phrases used to imply any opposing thought is not only wrong but criminal so.
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Two more words: Hate Crimes
I'll completely agree with you regarding your disdain of hate crime laws. The problem with this type of law is that it classifies crimes based on the victim rather than the actions of the accused. Is it a more heinous crime to assault a gay man than a straight one, or a black man versus a white man? Justice is supposed to be blind, but hate crime laws lift that blindfold and set a dangerous precedent. Think about how this could be applied in reverse, and you can see the damage these types of laws could
pendulum swings (Score:2)
Now (and even then) you can be fired for using a racial epitaph (though you have to have a pattern of abusive behavior). Second to that, you just might get the shit kicked out of you if you were to try to use one.
Right or wrong, distil 'political correctness' down to its essence and you get "you'll be punished for acting like an jerk". Acting like an ass is one of those inalienable rights implicit in being human.
You could previously be fired for being of a certain race. Now its a little harder to do.
I suppo
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Uh.. I think you mean a racial epithet. I'm pretty sure you can still have whatever you want on your tombstone. And even if you can't, it's not like they can do anything to you over it.
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Of course, if you use a racial epithet in the wrong part of town, you MIGHT end up using a racial epitaph.
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That is what is called being an unprofessional arsehole that pisses off management and advertisers. It is possible to read a lot more into it if you have an agenda to push but IMHO that is stretching the anecdote to manipulate people.
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No, you just lose your job for using the "N" word. No, you just lose your job for having a bible on your desk. Hell, you can lose your job for saying "Nappy Headed Ho's"
Damn right you can. If I'm paying you to perform a task, and that task doesn't include spewing whatever rhetoric and half-thoughts your underdeveloped mind struggles to put together, then I have every right to fire you when you deviate from that job description. If your language and/or conduct are detrimental to your job performance and/or
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I don't understand your post at all. Are you saying that because Tim Robbins isn't censored, then censorship doesn't exist? Really?
Really?
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Except that the best censorship is censorship you are not aware is happening. Clearly, if you want to censor "Topic X," then it seems you must actually DISSEMINATE Topic X, otherwise, how would people know that they were not allowed to discuss it? It takes a sharper mind to figure out how to censor without A) Actually spreading around the very information you want to block and B) Stopping spread of knowledge of the censorship itself.
Just because you don't see it doesn't mean it isn't happening. That's...
Re:news? (Score:5, Informative)
That would only hold true if they where screaming about complete censorship. For example, we know that at least 30,000 National Security Letters are issued every year since 2003, but we have no real idea what they are about because they all come attached to gag orders. [washingtonpost.com] So we know that the NSLs exist, but the content is censored, so oversight and accountability is impossible. In the case of the spy satellite photos, we know that they cost millions, if not billions of dollars, and that they exist, but that's it. Again no oversight, and no accountability.
It seems to me that there is was a great deal of oversight, balance, and accountability built into the early constitution because those things are one of the things that enables a truly democratic/representative government, as opposed to a democratic shell over a oligarchic government that holds the true power. That accountability has steadily eroded since the dawn of the Cold War and thus so has belief in our government. I'm not saying that voting does nothing, but I am saying that there a lot of very powerful, very well funded segments of our government that are untouchable (even indirectly) by the voting public. That is not government for the people, by the people; that is government in spite of the people. That is what the Left and the true Conservatives are complaining about when they bitch about government secrets.
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And when you consider that you can easily point to REAL censorship going on, e.g., in Communist China, in Iran, in Zimbabwe, in Myanmar, and a thousand other places, and compare that to the "outrages" that people like Robbins claim, it just looks even more ludicrous.
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If you check through some of his other posts, he basically just trolls anything that might be construed as 'liberal'. You won't be able to sway him with a logical argument.
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Modern book burnings aren't really censorship; they're morons wasting money. No one is going to buy all of the books published, and as long as they're paying for them, I don't see a problem with it. I'm sure the publishers don't mind, either -- they get their money.
If anything, that sort of behavior makes people curious about the book in question. And when (not if) it turns out the book isn't so bad, then the idiots burning them just look like obstinate jackasses (see: Harry Potter and the religious peop
Re:news? (Score:5, Insightful)
My understanding was the exhibit was not about censorship. It was about looking at things that should not exist, and questioning the reasons why the establishment denies their existence. This can range from the moons of Jupiter or to satellites designed to spy on domestic affairs. His interest is not in the silencing, but in the denial.
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Well, his exhibit still doesn't make sense then - because the government doesn't deny anything about those birds either. (Nor do they confirm anything...) "Not saying anything" != "Denial".
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Nobody's mentioned goatse yet, WTF?
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I think you are the first person to mention the prisons in this thread. Personally, I expect the U. S. government to use spy satellites and such. I can see why the U.S. won't acknowledge any specific info on them, although that's of doubtful utility. I'm assuming that most potential enemy nations have the resources to figure out what's up there, by photos, or by having someone live close to the launch sites (just try to hide a delta launch so that no one within 30 miles of the cape knows it happened), and p
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Had the exhibit been censored, how would we have known about it?
Slashdot would have posted it. "Exhibit of satellite photos censored" might be the headline.
It would be pointless to make this effort only to be prevented from displaying it.
But it's not pointless now because ...?
It's irony, not stupidity.
Can't it be both? Maybe it is pretend irony. Maybe the message is: "This would be ironic if only it exhibited the character of irony."
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Yes. Governments keep secrets. It's 1984. Or 1498. Or 489. Or 49 B.C.E. Or whenever.
Secrecy is only actually detectable to this Galileo-wannabe because all this info is published in publicly available, searchable databases.
Galileo was actually talented at something besides seeking attention.
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I think the censorship was in the title. I've always heard the phrase as "I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you."
I think the publishers thought the threat of "killing the customer"" was too much and changed it to the much wimpier "destroyed by me".
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He wants to make a statement about the parallel between himself being censored and something from 500 years ago. But he wasn't censored and there's really no parallel.
Huh? There's an obvious parallel. 500 years ago, the church was claiming that all those things that Galileo saw out there were orbiting the Earth. The article has pictures of things out there that the author claims are orbiting the Earth.
Or, if you don't like that parallel, consider: Galileo described things in orbit around Jupiter, which
yawn! (Score:4, Insightful)
i just love the people who were never interested in politics now ranting on like they're experts and telling us how much worse things have gotten. if anything, the government is finally coming clean about what they were already doing for decades.
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US Satellites? (Score:4, Interesting)
How does he know it is the US controlling a given satellite? I wonder if any DoD guys looked at the exhibit and said "Hey! That's not one of ours."
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In case of slashdotting. . . (Score:2)
. . . I'm posting a few of the pix here:
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x
Google cache (Score:2, Informative)
Metaphorical?! (Score:4, Funny)
That was... (Score:5, Interesting)
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The parallel would have worked had they imprisoned him. One vague steak of light looks pretty much like any other. Paglen seems more worthy as a Fark cliche. Galileo managed to reveal something "hidden" to the naked eye.
A snapshot of performance art, maybe.
Artistic masturbation (Score:3, Insightful)
This is typical pointless artistic masturbation. This artiste is pulling a silly stunt to try to make a name for himeslf and wow the clueless intelligencia of the art world. These pictures are less impressive than Iridium flares which are themselves pretty ho hum on the scale of celesial wonder. It would be much more spectacular if he had more detailed pictures taken with a telescope. Granted, these pictures aren't bad if you ignore the topic of prying into the super secret realm of the spooks.
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Not only that, he has absolutely no fucking idea what he's taking pictures of. He sees something go over, maybe piddles around on the internet and takes a stab (based on the deluded "satellite spotters" who actually think they know what's going on) at what it might be, and simply asserts that it's some secret program that has a cool name.
Brett
Re:exhibit page offline (Score:5, Insightful)
After trying for the last... oh, a while, I finally gave in and clicked the link to the Wired Story in the hope that I'd see some of these pictures.
And they are censored - by the guy's stupid cheapassed telescope, long exposure times, etc! They sure are some impressive... um, streaks?
I think the Berkeley (hey I spelt it rite) server stopped working out of embarrassment. Now instead of wondering how Berkely got slashdotted, I'm wondering how the story got on slashdot at all (which I guess is still asking why it got slashdotted)
For once when I saw someone's subject line "nothing to see here" he wasn't kidding!
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I have one mod point left but I can't figure out if you are trying to be funny or if you just don't know how satellite photography works.
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AC's have been posting this shit for only god knows how long and not one of you stupid fucks has bothered to clean up the formatting and improve the readability?
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AC's have been posting this shit for only god knows how long and not one of you stupid fucks has bothered to clean up the formatting and improve the readability?
That's because the AC conspiracy has been denying the existence of the Shift key for decades.
Re:Conspiracy Theory =/= Science (Score:5, Informative)
The USAF has its own launch capability; they buy the same rockets from the same contractors NASA does. Sometimes NASA launches these things themselves; the Shuttle has carried secret satellites from time to time. It's hard to hide a launch, but you can keep the nature of its payload a secret. So, you can identify Mystery Satellite #121 by radar and by telescope, but determining whose it is (the Russians certainly have their own and I'd be surprised if the French don't) and what it is capable of is another matter. And if you're not watching it 24 hours a day, it can manoeuvre onto a different orbit when you're not looking.
So revealing that he's found 189 satellites and publishing his photographs doesn't reveal much the government wants kept secret. Every serious rival nation already knows where these things are. If however someone published that 'Satellite #117 is a Model X SuperScryer made by Lockheed in 2002, operating in infrared frequency x with maximum angular resolution y, resolving objects on the ground to z centimetres, using the following highly classified technologies...' - now that would upset people.
And 189 isn't so large a number. It's not like Star Wars out there, with crowds of vehicles zipping past each other. Space is big, and empty, and spysats are not such big things. They orbit very low, the better to get a close look at the Earth's surface, while communications and GPS satellites are far above, to have line of sight to much wider areas. Collisions are very unlikely, and all concerned maintain an extremely careful radar watch on all orbits intersecting any manned vehicle.
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Ooo, good point. Cause if they have the pictures, then they'll know that they're aiming at a satellite, and not just empty space.
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If you think that the Chinese need to be told where satellites are, then you must think they are also too dumb to launch something into space in the first place.
They know WHERE every satellite is, anyone with access to the tracking systems that are necessary in order to be able to get a satellite into space can see them. The trick is knowing which one is which. Pictures of the satellites would help them in that, so they won't show the pics, true. So that's no big deal as far as I'm concerned.
Of course, shou