XBRX@VAX5.CIT.CORNELL.EDU (Egan H. Greenstein) (04/23/91)
From: "Egan H. Greenstein" <XBRX@VAX5.CIT.CORNELL.EDU> A couple of months ago, I was reading a Tom Clancy-esque technomilitary novel whose name escapes me for the moment. (It's irrelevant, anyway.) In it, "they" use the Hubble Space Telescope as a recon satellite. My question is, IS THIS POSSIBLE??? My knowledge on the subject is fairly limited, but I see a lot of potential in HST. Extremely sensitive optics, a fine tracking system, an established data downlink system. Except for the fact that it was built for the express purpose of NOT having to look through the atmosphere, on the surface it seems to hold promise. If I was feeling cynical, I might suggest that the defective mirror was really an excuse by the DOD to downplay the sensitivity of the HST, and even to free up telescope time for "other uses." Good thing I'm not feeling cynical, huh? :*) Thoughts, comments, white hot flames? [The *last* time this topic came up the consensus seemed to be that Hubble has too narrow a field of view and is too sensitive to be useful for recon, but if anyone wants to repeat themself be my guest. --CDR] Egan H. Greenstein, XBRX@CORNELLA
prentice%triton.unm.edu@ariel.unm.edu (John Prentice) (04/23/91)
From: prentice%triton.unm.edu@ariel.unm.edu (John Prentice) XBRX@VAX5.CIT.CORNELL.EDU (Egan H. Greenstein) writes: >In [a novel], "they" use the Hubble Space Telescope as a recon satellite. My >question is, IS THIS POSSIBLE??? Why bother? This would be a hell of a lot of work to go through and it uses 10 or 15 year old technology. I suspect the DoD could do better than this without much trouble. Actually, the real pity of the Hubble is that DoD was so concerned about security that they prevented proper inspection of the mirror grinding facilities and apparently hampered proper testing (as I recall). -- John K. Prentice john@unmfys.unm.edu (Internet) Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA Computational Physics Group, Amparo Corporation, Albuquerque, NM, USA
wb9omc@ee.ecn.purdue.edu (Duane P Mantick) (04/24/91)
From: wb9omc@ee.ecn.purdue.edu (Duane P Mantick) [ 11 unnecessary quote-lines deleted. --CDR ] Most of the time commercial or private sector uses tend to follow recently declassified military hardware. What I am saying is that however sensitive the hubble-bubble is, I'd bet that the KH12 and its follow-ons are better, especially if you're only looking hundreds of miles instead of hundreds of light-years...... As an example of the military making sure the private sector is a bit behind, NASA once requested an SR71 from the USAF for high speed flight research. USAF gave them #951 and "demilitarized" it, whatever that means. If I had to guess, it probably means all the good stuff (electronically and optically) got ripped out - and I don't seem to recall 951 ever setting any blazing speed records, either. Same is true for the previous Blackbird, the YF12A. #936 *did* set a speed record while it was in military garb, *before* being handed to NASA....you might argue that NASA isn't in the business of setting speed records, but *research* might wish to pose the question 'how fast does this sucker REALLY go'. I dare say that USAF didn't want anybody finding out..... :-) Duane
smb@ulysses.att.com (Steven Bellovin) (04/24/91)
From: smb@ulysses.att.com (Steven Bellovin) I missed the previous discussion, so I'll go first... Around the time of the Hubble launch, there were a lot of comments in the press about some of DoD's big spysats. Apparently, there are a lot of similarities. In fact, one reason that NASA didn't test the mirror properly was that DoD didn't want to let them near their top-secret testing facility. For that matter, NASA's oversight of the project was hindered by security requirements. So -- I don't know if the Hubble telescope itself can be used to look down. But its relatives sure can. --Steve Bellovin
butler@stsci.EDU (Lee A. Butler) (04/25/91)
From: butler@stsci.EDU (Lee A. Butler) > From: "Egan H. Greenstein" <XBRX@VAX5.CIT.CORNELL.EDU> > > A couple of months ago, I was reading a Tom Clancy-esque technomilitary > novel whose name escapes me for the moment. (It's irrelevant, anyway.) > In it, "they" use the Hubble Space Telescope as a recon satellite. My > question is, IS THIS POSSIBLE??? Essentially, no. The instrumentation on board HST would suffer damage from looking at anything as bright as the earth/moon/sun. A great deal of work has gone into making sure that HST never points to any of these "bright" objects. However, there is evidence that DoD is/was looking at flying a satellite similar in optics to HST for recon purposes. The resolving power and light-gathering capability of a 3m mirror in low orbit is enough to make any good intel agent drool. Lee Butler butler@stsci.edu
sysmgr@KING.ENG.UMD.EDU (Doug Mohney) (04/30/91)
From: sysmgr@KING.ENG.UMD.EDU (Doug Mohney) wb9omc@ee.ecn.purdue.edu (Duane P Mantick) writes: > As an example of the military making sure the private sector >is a bit behind, NASA once requested an SR71 from the USAF for high >speed flight research. USAF gave them #951 and "demilitarized" it, >whatever that means..... NASA isn't the private sector, it's a part of the government. It would be very difficult to "cripple" an SR-71 of its speed without altering the characters of it so much as to make it a hazard to fly. Besides, there have been cases of NASA folks getting sworn to secrecy and then going to see what the AF does. The folks at NASA *know* the max speed & limits of the SR, but since we do not have a True Need to Know... SYSMGR@CADLAB.ENG.UMD.EDU