SpaceBanter.com - View Single Post - Could the Mars Rover Technology become Military Weapons?

**Pat Flannery**

wrote:
Furthermore, a NASA history of the Hubble[3] states
about the reasons for switching from a 3 meter main mirror to a 2.4
meter design: 'In addition, changing to a 2.4-meter mirror would lessen
fabrication costs by using manufacturing technologies developed for
military spy satellites.' "

This all gets gone into in the book "The Hubble Wars".

Not just the outer dimensions, even the optics may had some similarities
with the KH-11. The USAF (may got rumours that Perkin Elmer screwed
the grind) offered NASA (MSFC) an end to end test for free on their
own optical test stand. MSFC declined the offer. I suspect the KH-11
did not use the hyperbolic Ritchey-Chretien System but a more simple
one to grind. Thats why PE needed a special test rig they screwed in
building.

Btw, the Solar panels were not from the KH-11 but ESA. The KH-11
people did know that the ESA panels wont work, but it was launched
anyway.

It wasn't that the ESA panels were suspected of being defective at the
time, it was the fact that the type the NRO was using on their reconsats
were significantly smaller and lighter for the same power output as the
ESA ones - but their composition was classified at the time.
It still really ****ed off the HST team that the info on the panels
wasn't leaked to them.
Charles P. Vick has some "best guess" info on KH-12 he
http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/...h-12-schem.htm

Pat