How Life on Mars Will Be Revealed by Curiosity

On Sun, 1 Jul 2012 11:42:13 -0400, Jeff Findley
wrote:

In article cacf834d-c709-4a26-b1ee-
, says...

sats are made to be invisible or at least hard to detect.....

B.S. Solar arrays reflect sunlight and are fairly easy to detect.

Just playing devil's (Bob's) advocate...

RTGs or even nuclear are not unprecedented, if the military had
sufficient reason.

air launched by a carrier aircraft would appear for most of its flight
as just another plane flying around..

Except when the extremely hot and bright rocket engine fires. How else
do you propose a vehicle get to orbit after being dropped from an
aircraft?

A Pegasus staging area 500 miles offshore in the middle of the night?
Drug runners and drunk cruise passengers would be the only witnesses,
assuming they launched on a clear night.

military probably has a way to mask a incoming something. stealth
aircraft are common knowledge

Reentry creates more heat, plasma, and a huge trail of ionized gasses.
You can't hide that.

That would end several hundred miles from the landing site. I know, I
watched several Shuttle nighttime re-entries. My family was all
outside in Florida at o-dark-early hoping to see the Atlantis make the
last Shuttle landing a year ago. Clear sky, still couldn't see a
damned thing. So a California landing, or even Guam or Diego Garcia
would not necessarily be noticed. They'd have to haul it back in some
weirdly modified C-5 or something. What's that you say, there IS a
weirdly modified C-5? Hmm....

Brian

In article , bthorn64
@suddenlink.net says...

On Sun, 1 Jul 2012 11:42:13 -0400, Jeff Findley
wrote:

In article cacf834d-c709-4a26-b1ee-
, says...

sats are made to be invisible or at least hard to detect.....

B.S. Solar arrays reflect sunlight and are fairly easy to detect.

Just playing devil's (Bob's) advocate...

RTGs or even nuclear are not unprecedented, if the military had
sufficient reason.

Possibly, but you'd also have to hide the big radiators needed to get
rid if waste heat from the RTG's or nuclear reactor. The more power
such a sat would require would mean larger and larger radiators. The
bigger such a thing gets, the easier it would be to spot.

Also, it would also have to be "stealthy" against radar. The US isn't
the only country who tracks "space debris". When your tracked "space
debris" starts defying orbital mechanics, you've found something "very
interesting".

Don't forget you run into scaling problems. A satellite that's useful
isn't going to be tiny. An optical satellite big enough to produce
useful intelligence information isn't going to be tiny. Even passive
listening satellites are huge (big fracking antennas to collect faint
signals).

What *useful* purpose would a tiny, assumed stealthy, satellite serve?

air launched by a carrier aircraft would appear for most of its flight
as just another plane flying around..

Except when the extremely hot and bright rocket engine fires. How else
do you propose a vehicle get to orbit after being dropped from an
aircraft?

A Pegasus staging area 500 miles offshore in the middle of the night?
Drug runners and drunk cruise passengers would be the only witnesses,
assuming they launched on a clear night.

There are lots of ships on the ocean. It's going to be hard to hide a
big rocket trail. Add to that the satellites looking for ICBM launches.
Those satellites will pick up a satellite launch just as easily as they
will pick up an ICBM launch.

military probably has a way to mask a incoming something. stealth
aircraft are common knowledge

Reentry creates more heat, plasma, and a huge trail of ionized gasses.
You can't hide that.

That would end several hundred miles from the landing site. I know, I
watched several Shuttle nighttime re-entries. My family was all
outside in Florida at o-dark-early hoping to see the Atlantis make the
last Shuttle landing a year ago. Clear sky, still couldn't see a
damned thing. So a California landing, or even Guam or Diego Garcia
would not necessarily be noticed. They'd have to haul it back in some
weirdly modified C-5 or something. What's that you say, there IS a
weirdly modified C-5? Hmm....

See my comments above for launches.

Do you conspiracy theorists really think that Russia, China, and etc.
would keep quiet about a secret US space program? The US certainly
isn't quiet about Russia's "secret" satellites. They routinely publish
the orbital elements for what we presume to be Russian spy satellites.
Amateurs routinely track them as well, just for fun. It's really not
all that hard to do.

Jeff
--
" Ares 1 is a prime example of the fact that NASA just can't get it
up anymore... and when they can, it doesn't stay up long. "
- tinker

"Brian Thorn" wrote in message
...


Basically, "Could it be done?"

Possibly. With existing tech and like I said over the Pacific, and knowing
when the Russians are looking, etc.

BUT, the operational constraints are HUGE and large enough it may not make
it worth it.

They're large enough that I would safely bet that it's impossible to do
routinely.

Can it be done once in a great while, possibly. But highly doubtful. Done
more than once in a great while, not a chance.


On Sat, 30 Jun 2012 08:39:50 -0700, Fred J. McCall
wrote:

bob haller wrote:

On Jun 29, 1:19 am, Fred J. McCall wrote:
bob haller wrote:
On Jun 27, 9:03 am, "Greg \(Strider\) Moore"
wrote:
"Jeff Findley" wrote in message

...

It's is bloody difficult to hide a launch. It's doubly bloody
difficult
to hide a satellite in orbit in a way that it cannot possibly be
tracked
(neither optically nor by radar). It's triply difficult to hide a
satellite reentering and landing because it makes a huge fracking
ionization trail as it reenters.

Manned "black ops" in orbit is pure fiction.

I have wondered about this. What's harder to hide? The launch
phase or the
re-entry?

I'm guessing the re-entry.

I suppose it may be possible to have an entirely black program, but
the
operational constraints would be huge. You'd probably have to launch
from
some place like Kwajalein Atoll and then start re-entry someplace
way out
over the Pacific and come in on a descending leg from the NW to SE
to stay
out over uninhabited areas as much as possible. This means landing
at like
Tierra del Fuego. And then of course shipping stuff back to
Kwajalein
Atoll.

Just not practical or at all likely.

Jeff

a mini space plane could be launched by a larger carrier aircraft,

Not if it was going to actually go into space, unless it is a VERY
mini space plane.

and return to a air strip somewhere

It still has to boost up and reenter down. That stuff is pretty
obvious, what with the bright lights and such.


sats are made to be invisible or at least hard to detect.....


Utter bull****.

Well, not entirely. There are reports of some efforts to make
satellites hard to spot, both from "inside sources say..." and from
amateur observers. I think the satellite launched by STS-28 Columbia
was said to be such a design.

However, it is very rare.

air launched by a carrier aircraft would appear for most of its flight
as just another plane flying around..


And then it becomes a really ****ing bright flame that triggers every
bird looking down with something like IONDS. You can't do 'secret
launches'.


military probably has a way to mask a incoming something.


Utter poppycock! Learn some physics, you ignorant ****.


stealth aircraft are common knowledge


Yeah, and stealth aircraft don't fly at Mach 15+ and leave a ****ing
huge bright streak from their plasma sheath across hundreds or
thousands of miles of sky.

Again, learn some physics.

Well, I think Bob is way off base with his "secret manned space
program" nonsense, because it is just too expensive for whatever value
it could conceivably offer. But we need to be careful in dismissing it
outright. We still don't know what was causing all those Shuttle-like
sonic booms heard in Southern California in the 1990s, remember. At
the time, "Aurora" was all the rage, but it now seems pretty clear
Aurora was just a code name for B-2 funding. But if the "Aurora" SR-71
successor wasn't behind all those odd sightings and sonic booms, what
was?

And then there is Aviation Week's cover story about "Blackstar".

So Bob's daydreams of secret military astronauts is probably way off
in science fiction territory, but saying "you can't hide a launch"
is going a bit too far. You probably *could* hide both a launch and a
re-entry, at least from the public (and there's no guarantee Russia or
China would report it publicly, they may not want us to know that they
know). A Pegasus-like launch from Kwajalein could be conducted with
hardly anyone in the public knowing about it. Kodiak Island wouldn't
be much harder to conceal. A re-entry coming up over the south and
central Pacifc and crossing the California coast at high altitude to
land at Creech AFB would not be easily noticed by the public,
especially in the middle of the night (the visible plasma trail ends
hundreds of miles offshore.) It would probably make a noise, like a
sonic boom, but... oh wait, there WERE lots of unexplained sonic
booms... But a launch of something big enough to carry crews? No, that
would be too much to conceal for long.

Brian



--
Greg D. Moore http://greenmountainsoftware.wordpress.com/
CEO QuiCR: Quick, Crowdsourced Responses. http://www.quicr.net

On Mon, 2 Jul 2012 09:06:31 -0400, Jeff Findley
wrote:


Possibly, but you'd also have to hide the big radiators needed to get
rid if waste heat from the RTG's or nuclear reactor. The more power
such a sat would require would mean larger and larger radiators. The
bigger such a thing gets, the easier it would be to spot.

Last I checked, Galileo, Cassini, and New Horizons don't have honkin'
big radiators. If they're good enough to take photos of Pluto from
thousands of miles away, they should be sufficient to take photos of
Earth from 125 miles up.

Also, it would also have to be "stealthy" against radar.

The public doesn't have radar.

The US isn't the only country who tracks "space debris".

But our allies with the capability (not many) could quite easily be
asked to keep quiet about it. Our adversaries, as I say they may not
want us to know that they know.

Don't forget you run into scaling problems. A satellite that's useful
isn't going to be tiny.

Not even remotely true.

An optical satellite big enough to produce
useful intelligence information isn't going to be tiny. Even passive
listening satellites are huge (big fracking antennas to collect faint
signals).

What *useful* purpose would a tiny, assumed stealthy, satellite serve?

Orbview wasn't exactly huge. It went up on Pegasus XL. Ikonos wasn't
much bigger (Athena-launched.)

A Pegasus staging area 500 miles offshore in the middle of the night?
Drug runners and drunk cruise passengers would be the only witnesses,
assuming they launched on a clear night.

There are lots of ships on the ocean.

Really big ocean, not really all that many ships, and most of them are
on predictable trade routes. Look how long it took ships to get to
where Air France 447 was last seen. Or how hard it is for the U.S. to
protect ships off the Somali coast. And a Pegasus staging area could
easily be selected for its distance from shipping lanes.

It's going to be hard to hide a
big rocket trail.

Big rocket trails aren't a given. Look at last week's Delta IV-Heavy,
which created only a brief trail. Even Falcon 9 with RP-1 propellant
didn't generate a big trail in May. The only really smoky trails are
from solids.

And of course, they could simply launch on cloudy days/nights. Of the
last three launches I witnessed (LRO on an Atlas 5, STS-135, and the
Delta IV a week later, the only one I saw for more than about five
seconds was the Delta. The other two vanished into clouds instantly.

Do you conspiracy theorists

I'm not a conspiracy theorist, I'm just playing Devil's Advocate. And
considering that Blackstar and the peculiar C-5 were reported by the
prestigious Aviation Week, I'm not exactly way out in left field with
my counterpoints.

Just wondering... what is YOUR theory for the weird sonic booms
recorded by USGS seismographs in Southern California in the mid 1990s,
the booms that looked exactly like Shuttle re-entries on a similar
flight path, even though no Shuttle was in flight?

really think that Russia, China, and etc.
would keep quiet about a secret US space program?

If it was in their best interest, certainly. Why do you automatically
assume they'd needlessly reveal the capability of their surveillance
networks? What exactly would they reveal, "the U.S. launched a secret
satellite?" Okay, prove it. They wouldn't do that because they'd have
to show everyone how good their data is.

The US certainly
isn't quiet about Russia's "secret" satellites. They routinely publish
the orbital elements for what we presume to be Russian spy satellites.

But Russia and China do not do so for anyone else's satellites, so
that point is moot.

Amateurs routinely track them as well, just for fun. It's really not
all that hard to do.

It was actually pretty hard tracking the X-37B on both flights. It was
gone for days at a time.

Brian

On Jul 3, 12:48*am, Fred J. McCall wrote:
Brian Thorn wrote:
On Mon, 2 Jul 2012 09:06:31 -0400, Jeff Findley
wrote:

Possibly, but you'd also have to hide the big radiators needed to get
rid if waste heat from the RTG's or nuclear reactor. *The more power
such a sat would require would mean larger and larger radiators. *The
bigger such a thing gets, the easier it would be to spot.

Last I checked, Galileo, Cassini, and New Horizons don't have honkin'
big radiators.

They're also so far out that the Sun is just another star. *Oh, and
they DO have radiators.



If they're good enough to take photos of Pluto from
thousands of miles away, they should be sufficient to take photos of
Earth from 125 miles up.

If you don't want to see anything in particular, sure they're 'good
enough'.

One more time, RESOLUTION IS LIMITED BY THE SIZE OF THE PRIMARY LENS.



Also, it would also have to be "stealthy" against radar.

The public doesn't have radar.

But lots of other folks do. *Who do you think the 'secret' is trying
to be kept from?

The US isn't the only country who tracks "space debris".

But our allies with the capability (not many) could quite easily be
asked to keep quiet about it. Our adversaries, as I say they may not
want us to know that they know.

Silly idea. *Again, just who do you think the 'secret' is being kept
from?



Don't forget you run into scaling problems. *A satellite that's useful
isn't going to be tiny.

Not even remotely true.

Oh? *Just what 'useful mission' do you think you can squeeze into a
one cubic foot satellite?



An optical satellite big enough to produce
useful intelligence information isn't going to be tiny. *Even passive
listening satellites are huge (big fracking antennas to collect faint
signals).

What *useful* purpose would a tiny, assumed stealthy, satellite serve?

Orbview wasn't exactly huge. It went up on Pegasus XL. Ikonos wasn't
much bigger (Athena-launched.)

You might want to actually look at the physical size of those birds.

A Pegasus staging area 500 miles offshore in the middle of the night?
Drug runners and drunk cruise passengers would be the only witnesses,
assuming they launched on a clear night.

There are lots of ships on the ocean.

Really big ocean, not really all that many ships, and most of them are
on predictable trade routes. Look how long it took ships to get to
where Air France 447 was last seen. Or how hard it is for the U.S. to
protect ships off the Somali coast. And a Pegasus staging area could
easily be selected for its distance from shipping lanes.

None of that is the same thing. *Look at the ground view footprint for
something going up into space.



It's going to be hard to hide a
big rocket trail.

Big rocket trails aren't a given. Look at last week's Delta IV-Heavy,
which created only a brief trail. Even Falcon 9 with RP-1 propellant
didn't generate a big trail in May. The only really smoky trails are
from solids.

A 'brief trail' that was how long and visible from how many thousand
square miles?



And of course, they could simply launch on cloudy days/nights. Of the
last three launches I witnessed (LRO on an Atlas 5, STS-135, and the
Delta IV a week later, the only one I saw for more than about five
seconds was the Delta. The other two vanished into clouds instantly.

And folks standing somewhere else? *How big and thick a cloud deck do
you need?



Do you conspiracy theorists

I'm not a conspiracy theorist, I'm just playing Devil's Advocate. And
considering that Blackstar and the peculiar C-5 were reported by the
prestigious Aviation Week, I'm not exactly way out in left field with
my counterpoints.

ANY evidence for 'Blackstar'? *AvLeak is just a magazine, after all.



Just wondering... what is YOUR theory for the weird sonic booms
recorded by USGS seismographs in Southern California in the mid 1990s,
the booms that looked exactly like Shuttle re-entries on a similar
flight path, even though no Shuttle was in flight?

There were no such sonic booms. *There WERE sonic booms that looked
like they came from a vehicle much smaller than a Shuttle doing Mach 5
at 90,000 feet.



really think that Russia, China, and etc.
would keep quiet about a secret US space program?

If it was in their best interest, certainly. Why do you automatically
assume they'd needlessly reveal the capability of their surveillance
networks? What exactly would they reveal, "the U.S. launched a secret
satellite?" Okay, prove it. They wouldn't do that because they'd have
to show everyone how good their data is.

Who do you assume we'd be trying to keep a 'secret space program'
secret FROM?



The US certainly
isn't quiet about Russia's "secret" satellites. *They routinely publish
the orbital elements for what we presume to be Russian spy satellites.

But Russia and China do not do so for anyone else's satellites, so
that point is moot.

Again, just who do you think we'd be trying to keep a 'secret space
program' a secret FROM?



Amateurs routinely track them as well, just for fun. *It's really not
all that hard to do.

It was actually pretty hard tracking the X-37B on both flights. It was
gone for days at a time.

Was it? *The Russians couldn't find it?

--
"Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar
*territory."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * --G. Behn

perhaps fred gets paid to produce loony messages, and make anyone who
disagrees with him appear stupid for a reason.

he might work for NRO as a disinformation poster. blur info here and
make poster who happen on fact to look dumb.......

so real secrets arent revealed........

On Tue, Jul 03, 2012 at 05:17:31AM -0700, Fred J. McCall wrote:
And so we see once again just what sort of loon Bobbert really is...

bob haller wrote:


perhaps fred gets paid to produce loony messages, and make anyone who
disagrees with him appear stupid for a reason.


Perhaps people who disagree with me look stupid because they are? That
would certainly be a reason....


he might work for NRO as a disinformation poster. blur info here and
make poster who happen on fact to look dumb.......


Or perhaps it's that so many who disagree with me (like Bobbert)
happen to actually BE dumb?


so real secrets arent revealed........


Poor Bobbert thinks Usenet is actually important enough that the NRO
would assign disinformation agents to it? REALLY??

Poor Bobbert thinks the NRO somehow has its own laws of physics, that
they're concerned that someone might 'discover' and 'reveal'?
REALLY????

Paranoid loon, anyone?

You haven't seen a paranoid loon until you've seen uneducated nuckle-
draggers criticizing the use of (-1) as a designated null-pointer in
computer code. You see, (-1) is too much of a reminder of mortality
for some folk. In particular, believers who not only delude
themselves with thoughts of an afterlife, but who also habituated to
interpret natural phenomenon and their environment as being somehow a
single great whole signifying and revealing God's hand in terrestrial
affairs.

I realize that religion is primarily intended to allow the masses to
be dumbed down and controlled, but I submit to your consideration the
idea that these morons have gone too far with their mass idiocy.
Mysticism in particular is an acute menace.

As to the NRO, I note you don't ask for the chain of reasoning that
would support the contention above. You just act as though the idea
of government spying on its own citizens as meaningless, and then offer
up a bull**** straw-man on physics by way of explanation.

Fred, I'm fascinated by the psychiatric implications of what you say
and how you say it. Please continue to post so those of us who are
interested may continue to observe and learn.


Regards,

Uncle Steve

--
The moon has never been closer.

On Mon, 02 Jul 2012 21:48:41 -0700, Fred J. McCall
wrote:

Last I checked, Galileo, Cassini, and New Horizons don't have honkin'
big radiators.

Galileo and Cassini both went past Venus before going out to deep
space.

They're also so far out that the Sun is just another star. Oh, and
they DO have radiators.

Not the big shiny easy-to-see radiators Jeff was alluding to.

If they're good enough to take photos of Pluto from
thousands of miles away, they should be sufficient to take photos of
Earth from 125 miles up.


If you don't want to see anything in particular, sure they're 'good
enough'.

Pegasus is 4 feet in diameter. That could provide a mirror about 40
inches in diameter with room to spare for casing and payload fairing.
That's plenty large enough to do some serious observation. Not KH-11
class of course, but it isn't obvious all photorecon needs to be that
capable. FIA was heading toward smaller satellites, remember, before
it was so mismanaged it was killed off.

One more time, RESOLUTION IS LIMITED BY THE SIZE OF THE PRIMARY LENS.

A 40-inch mirror is substantial.

The public doesn't have radar.

But lots of other folks do.

Not as extensive as you suggest. Air France Flight 440 vanished
without a trace because it was beyond radar coverage in the middle of
the Atlantic.

Who do you think the 'secret' is trying
to be kept from?

The same people they're keeping the nature of X-37B or the recent NROL
launches from? If the Russians and Chinese know all about what NRO is
launching, why does NRO still keep it secret? From whom?

Silly idea. Again, just who do you think the 'secret' is being kept
from?

Iran/Iraq/Afghanistan/North Korea are good candidates.

Oh? Just what 'useful mission' do you think you can squeeze into a
one cubic foot satellite?

Pegasus is publicly known to have a 4 ft x 7 ft. payload
accommodation. Hardly "one cubic foot". And Pegasus is known to have
launched Earth observation satellites.

Orbview wasn't exactly huge. It went up on Pegasus XL. Ikonos wasn't
much bigger (Athena-launched.)

You might want to actually look at the physical size of those birds.

The results speak for themselves. Google Orbview and SeaWIFS under
Google Pictures and see for yourself. Tell me that NRO wouldn't find
that useful. And NRO's hypothetical birds could be in lower,
shorter-lived orbits getting closer views.

None of that is the same thing. Look at the ground view footprint for
something going up into space.

Something deployed from Ascension or the Azores, or Diego Garcia, or
Kwajalein, or Kodiak? Nothing but remote ocean downrange for thousands
of miles.

A 'brief trail' that was how long and visible from how many thousand
square miles?

200 miles away from Ascension? Who would see it? That's about where AF
Flight 440 disappeared without a trace. No one saw it, it took two
years to find it. Diego Garcia is even better, with nothing south of
it except Antarctica.

And folks standing somewhere else? How big and thick a cloud deck do
you need?

Well, the only photos I've seen of STS-135 beyond the first thirty
seconds (I was 20 miles away and only saw it from about T+15 to T+30)
were from some woman on an airliner, where you see a thin trail rising
in the distance above an infinite cloud deck. And I'm really not
arguing that such a secret launch would have been from Canaveral or
Vandenberg anyway, much too difficult to conceal. But a Pegasus or
something similar, air-launched at sea hundreds of miles from base?
Not so easily dismissed.

ANY evidence for 'Blackstar'? AvLeak is just a magazine, after all.

They're the pros, though. They talked about the Stealth Fighter years
before the Air Force acknowledged it. I'm just pointing out that the
idea does not seem to be universally ridiculed or dismissed as typical
conspiracy theory fodder, which Jeff was implying (in my opinion, I
could be wrong.)

Just wondering... what is YOUR theory for the weird sonic booms
recorded by USGS seismographs in Southern California in the mid 1990s,
the booms that looked exactly like Shuttle re-entries on a similar
flight path, even though no Shuttle was in flight?


There were no such sonic booms. There WERE sonic booms that looked
like they came from a vehicle much smaller than a Shuttle doing Mach 5
at 90,000 feet.

I agree. The problem for your argument is that the DoD has no publicly
acknowledge system capable of Mach 5 at 90,000 feet, except a few
sounding rockets and the like, but no rocket launches were announced
at those times and you say they can't hide a rocket launch. If they
can indefinitely conceal a Mach 5, 90,000 ft. capable system, why are
you so dismissive of a clandestine orbital system?

And Mach 5 at 90,000 feet sounds very much like a returning Shuttle to
me. "Much smaller" is totally in keeping with what I'm suggesting is
possible.

Who do you assume we'd be trying to keep a 'secret space program'
secret FROM?

That's not the point. I was just arguing that it is possible (albeit
unlikely). Not why it would be happening or why it would be concealed.
I am just playing devil's advocate here. Such blanket statements as
"it is impossible to hide a space launch" just seem ludicrous to me.

Amateurs routinely track them as well, just for fun. It's really not
all that hard to do.

It was actually pretty hard tracking the X-37B on both flights. It was
gone for days at a time.


Was it? The Russians couldn't find it?

I was referring to the amateurs Jeff described.

Brian

On Tue, 03 Jul 2012 20:49:24 -0700, Fred J. McCall
wrote:

Not the big shiny easy-to-see radiators Jeff was alluding to.


And they're nowhere near anything that would warm them up, which
something near the Earth would be.

Except for their flights through the neighborhood of Venus, half the
distance between Earth and Sun, you mean?

Pegasus is 4 feet in diameter. That could provide a mirror about 40
inches in diameter with room to spare for casing and payload fairing.


But isn't.

Uh, what isn't? Are you saying Pegasus isn't 4 feet in diameter? It is
4.1 ft according to Orbital.

One more time, RESOLUTION IS LIMITED BY THE SIZE OF THE PRIMARY LENS.

A 40-inch mirror is substantial.


None of the vehicles called out have anything remotely approaching a
40 inch mirror.

So? I'm pointing out what is possible with existing vehicles. We are
talking about hypotheticals here. Hypothetically, Pegasus could launch
a satellite with a primary mirror 40 inches in diameter. That would
leave about ten inches of margin for the telescope frame itself and
the payload fairing, which is ample.

The public doesn't have radar.

But lots of other folks do.

Not as extensive as you suggest. Air France Flight 440 vanished
without a trace because it was beyond radar coverage in the middle of
the Atlantic.


A bit lower than a satellite.

So are rockets during the boost phase. We were talking about
*launches* that wouldn't be noticed, remember.

The comment was "lot of other folks do" have radar. Please identify
the radar system over the south Atlantic or sourthern Indian Ocean, or
central/southern Pacific that would detect launches from the
Ascension, Diego Garcia, or Kwajalein areas.

Who do you think the 'secret' is trying
to be kept from?

The same people they're keeping the nature of X-37B or the recent NROL
launches from? If the Russians and Chinese know all about what NRO is
launching, why does NRO still keep it secret? From whom?


The Russians and Chinese DON'T.

Then why do you assume they WOULD know all about a clandestine
satellite program? You can't have it both ways, Fred.



Silly idea. Again, just who do you think the 'secret' is being kept
from?

Iran/Iraq/Afghanistan/North Korea are good candidates.


Silly.

I'll point out that Iran recently forced down one of our UAVs that was
"accidentally" over its territory.

Oh? Just what 'useful mission' do you think you can squeeze into a
one cubic foot satellite?

Pegasus is publicly known to have a 4 ft x 7 ft. payload
accommodation. Hardly "one cubic foot". And Pegasus is known to have
launched Earth observation satellites.


You said "small". You didn't say "the biggest thing Pegasus can
launch".

No, I never said small. Jeff said 'tiny' and you went off on some
weird tangent about 1 cubic foot of payload (a number you evidently
pulled out of some body oriface not to be named). I pointed out
OrbView as not being huge, and OrbView was launched on Pegasus. And I
did indeed say the biggest thing Pegasus could launch, when I said
Pegasus could handle a mirror 40" diameter. Do keep up, Fred. :-)

And while we're on the subject, there is no reason to believe Pegasus
is the biggest option for air-launched spacecraft. The Air Force
dropped Minutemen missiles out the back of a C-141 in the early 1980s
to demonstrate air-launched MX ICBMs. There is absolutely no reason to
believe an Athena-like launcher (derived from MX) could not also be
shoved out the back of a C-17 or C-5, and there is still the strangley
modified C-5 (with the extended "cheeks") that was seen in the 1990s.

There's a reason they do what they do. And what they do is NOT launch
little tiny birds very low.

I've acknowledged all along that I don't know the reasons for this
hypothetical clandestine space launch. I've only insisted that if they
did have a reason, it clearly is not impossible. DoD/NRO is notorious
for not giving reasons for what they do (i.e, X-37B.)

But in any case, you just can't say that, Fred. We know very little
about what DoD/NRO does in space, why, or how. We know they've
launched secret things on Atlas and Titan, and one or two Delta IIs.
What was actually under the payload fairing is not publicly known.
What we do know from publicly released information from the FIA
(Future Imaging Architecture) debacle is that they were interested in
spy satellites much smaller than the KH-11s (which needed expensive
and unreliable Titan rockets to launch) as early as the early 1990s.
We also know that NRO recently gave NASA two KH-11/Hubble class
telescopes. If they're giving away big telescopes, with what did NRO
replace them?

None of that is the same thing. Look at the ground view footprint for
something going up into space.

Something deployed from Ascension or the Azores, or Diego Garcia, or
Kwajalein, or Kodiak? Nothing but remote ocean downrange for thousands
of miles.

Go do the math and tell me what the ground footprint of visibility is.

Of the boost phase... about 500 miles long and perhaps 200 miles each
side of the ground track, depending on altitude and day/night
differences. From personal experience, I can tell you that day
launches are almost invisible after first stage. Night launches are
visible longer, but you have to be deliberately looking. That was the
range from Shuttle liftoff to SSME cutoff and ET seperation off Cape
Hatteras or the Chesapeake region or somewhere close by on ISS
missions according to numerous "see the Shuttle night launch"
websites. Now you break out an atlas and show me what is along a line
500 miles long and 200 miles wide from Kwajalein, Diego Garcia, or
Ascenscion, what radars cover that area, and what populated areas
would provide shelter for eyewitnesses.

A 'brief trail' that was how long and visible from how many thousand
square miles?

200 miles away from Ascension? Who would see it? That's about where AF
Flight 440 disappeared without a trace. No one saw it, it took two
years to find it. Diego Garcia is even better, with nothing south of
it except Antarctica.


FLIGHT 440 WAS AN ****AIRPLANE****, YOU YAMMERHEAD!!!!!!!!

Yes, I know Fred. I'm talking about air launch from something like
Orbital's L-1011 which is an ****AIRPLANE****. My point is, exactly
what radar installation would detect a Pegasus/L-1011 launch staged
from Ascension and heading due south? You seem unwilling or unable to
answer that question.

And I think Diego Garcia (a military base with no civilians
whatsoever) is an even better candidate. I was just using Ascension
because of the highly public acknowledgement that there is no radar
out there whatsoever, neither U.S., Brazilian, nor European. So whose
radar would detect a spacelaunch out there, Fred, the Angolans's
secret space tracking radar? Why do you get to invoke secret hardware,
but I don't?

Well, the only photos I've seen of STS-135 beyond the first thirty
seconds (I was 20 miles away and only saw it from about T+15 to T+30)
were from some woman on an airliner, where you see a thin trail rising
in the distance above an infinite cloud deck. And I'm really not
arguing that such a secret launch would have been from Canaveral or
Vandenberg anyway, much too difficult to conceal. But a Pegasus or
something similar, air-launched at sea hundreds of miles from base?
Not so easily dismissed.


Sorry, but your anecdote isn't particularly convincing.

Shocked. Shocked I am that evidence counter to your assertion is
dismissed out of hand. Shocked!

I grew up watcing space launches from the Cape Canaveral area, Fred.
How many space launches have you witnessed?

By the way, I have the photos to prove all three of the launches I
mentioned. Look up bthorn on Webshots.

ANY evidence for 'Blackstar'? AvLeak is just a magazine, after all.

They're the pros, though. They talked about the Stealth Fighter years
before the Air Force acknowledged it.


And were wrong about so many details.

Irrelevant. I'm not arguing the details (which almost certainly are
wrong, I freely admit) only that there have been public reports of
secret programs later proven to be true.

I'm just pointing out that the
idea does not seem to be universally ridiculed or dismissed as typical
conspiracy theory fodder, which Jeff was implying (in my opinion, I
could be wrong.)

It's loon food.

Very possibly. I've argued from the beginning that this is all
theorerically possible with hardware and systems known to exist today,
nothing more.

So far you have been completely unable to refute my arguments, making
up false data ("one cubic foot satellite"), putting words in my mouth
that were not there ("small satellite, not the biggest Pegasus could
launch") invoking radar systems that don't exist in your attempt to
prove a launch would be seen on radar everywhere on Earth, completely
ignoring that SeaWIFS and Orbview are Pegasus-launched Earth
observation satellites with quite good resolution, and handwaving away
what even you admit must be a secret aircraft/exoatmospheric craft
capable of Mach 5 and 90,000 ft. (which will be blockbuster news in
the aerospace community when/if the DoD ever acknowledges it.)

I agree. The problem for your argument is that the DoD has no publicly
acknowledge system capable of Mach 5 at 90,000 feet, except a few
sounding rockets and the like, but no rocket launches were announced
at those times and you say they can't hide a rocket launch. If they
can indefinitely conceal a Mach 5, 90,000 ft. capable system, why are
you so dismissive of a clandestine orbital system?

If you know of a way to get a small vehicle doing Mach 5 up to orbit,
please let us all know.

I'll note you once again failed to answer my question.

And Mach 5 at 90,000 feet sounds very much like a returning Shuttle to
me. "Much smaller" is totally in keeping with what I'm suggesting is
possible.


No, it was nothing at all like what a Shuttle produced.

Perhaps, but USGS said it was "very reminiscent of Shuttle" or words
to that effect.

Who do you assume we'd be trying to keep a 'secret space program'
secret FROM?

That's not the point.

That *IS* the point, unless you assume we're insane.

No, the point is that you and Jeff claim that a secret space launch is
IMPOSSIBLE. I'm not addressing the why's, only that it certainly is
POSSIBLE, and without invoking magic pixie dust either. It would be
more or less off-the-shelf capabilty.

Give what you're spewing, I'm afraid what you find ludicrous just
doesn't carry a lot of weight with sane folks.

I respect you too, Fred.

Squealing "Devil's Advocate"

Squealed? I said calmly and in forewarning from the first line of my
first reply that I am just playing Devil's (Bob's) Advocate.

to try to avoid having to make sense is merely specious.

For a specious argument, you sure are having a difficult time refuting
it. You could start by actually addressing my points, instead of
ignoring them, misstating them, or dismissing them with one-liners.

Brian

with the large number of things in orbit, airliners flying around a
occasional well designed NRO manned launcher might easily fall into
the background noise.......

On Wed, 04 Jul 2012 13:39:44 -0700, Fred J. McCall
wrote:


Pegasus is 4 feet in diameter. That could provide a mirror about 40
inches in diameter with room to spare for casing and payload fairing.

But isn't.

Uh, what isn't? Are you saying Pegasus isn't 4 feet in diameter? It is
4.1 ft according to Orbital.

Isn't "providing a mirror about 40 inches in diameter". Is English
not your first language?

Yes. I'm not sure your's is. "Pegasus is" would be challenged with
"isn't". "Could provide... with room to spare" should be challenged
with "doesn't".

How you going to point it? How you going to power it? How you going
to find out what it saw?

Volume behind the telescope itself, like Hubble. Google the STEP
satellites launched by Pegasus, especially STEP-4 and TSX-5. They
folded lots of hardware into a small volume.

The comment was "lot of other folks do" have radar. Please identify
the radar system over the south Atlantic or sourthern Indian Ocean, or
central/southern Pacific that would detect launches from the
Ascension, Diego Garcia, or Kwajalein areas.


Any old RORSAT. You think Russia has no radars looking near those
places? What fool's paradise do you live in?

I began this discussion explicitly pointing out that Russia would not
necessarily reveal their technology and what they know. I completely
agree that Russia would know whatever it is such a vehicle was up to.
Would they announce it? They'd have to provide proof that it wasn't
just a discarded stage from some other launch, or what-not.

And for the record, RORSATs are all-weather surveillance satellites,
not Air Traffic Control radar. And they are necessarily in low orbits
whose overflights can be easily timed to avoid.

Who do you think the 'secret' is trying
to be kept from?

The same people they're keeping the nature of X-37B or the recent NROL
launches from? If the Russians and Chinese know all about what NRO is
launching, why does NRO still keep it secret? From whom?

The Russians and Chinese DON'T.

Then why do you assume they WOULD know all about a clandestine
satellite program? You can't have it both ways, Fred.

Well, actually I can, since you're arguing two different things.
There's a lot of distance between "know it launched" and "know all
about it".

I think we're arguing around in circles here. :-)

I'll point out that Iran recently forced down one of our UAVs that was
"accidentally" over its territory.

I assume you think you have some point there, but it certainly isn't
obvious what it's supposed to be.

Secret U.S. military systems overflying Iran. You can't grasp that
connection? Okay then.

What it can't do is power the electronics, point it, transmit what it
sees, or any number of other things

Of course it can. Orbview and SeaWIFS get along just fine.

(unless all that other stuff comes
up on ANOTHER Pegasus or three).

Well, now that you mention it, the first unmanned U.S. rendezvous was
DART... launched on Pegasus in 2005. It crashed into the target, but
was followed up by Orbital Express, which undocked and re-docked. Also
launched on Pegasus.

And while we're on the subject, there is no reason to believe Pegasus
is the biggest option for air-launched spacecraft. The Air Force
dropped Minutemen missiles out the back of a C-141 in the early 1980s
to demonstrate air-launched MX ICBMs. There is absolutely no reason to
believe an Athena-like launcher (derived from MX) could not also be
shoved out the back of a C-17 or C-5, and there is still the strangley
modified C-5 (with the extended "cheeks") that was seen in the 1990s.

Or perhaps you could just FART them into orbit? Since you've elected
to show just how big your ass is, it seems entirely feasible.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96A0wb1Ov9k

Care to revise that dismissal?

Oh, so since you don't know it could be ANYTHING.

Or nothing. I've admitted that all along. For the record, I do NOT
think any of this has actually happened. I'm just saying it isn't
impossible. You're flailing around for counter-arguments has not been
particularly successful.

Yeah, right. And
the proof of it being whatever loony thing you want to claim it is is
that 'nobody' knows. Except, of course, that lots of people do.

Name them.

But in any case, you just can't say that, Fred. We know very little
about what DoD/NRO does in space, why, or how.


Poppycock! Perhaps YOU know very little, but lots of other people
know quite a bit that is public knowledge.

Such as? Who are these mysterious other people you keep speaking of
who have all the answers about NRO and are willing to talk? Frankly,
you're the one who's starting to sound all X-Files here, not me. Is
the Cigarette Smoking Man sharing info with you?

We know they've
launched secret things on Atlas and Titan, and one or two Delta IIs.
What was actually under the payload fairing is not publicly known.

Bull. You can mostly tell what that stuff is by the orbits it goes
to.

The orbit it goes to is not in question. A sun sync orbit only tells
us that the payload is for Earth Observation, not actually what it is.
It could be one KH-11, or it could be three smaller nested birds. Note
that Shuttle launched an IUS with a DSP satellite on one mission and
an IUS with two DSCS satellites on another. Same booster, same orbit,
entirely different missions. And there was no way to tell which was
which.

"Much smaller"? Just how much smaller? And are you sure they were
talking about the optical birds and not the radar ones? And how were
they to be made "smaller and lighter"? Not by making the camera
primary significantly smaller, I would bet, since that pretty well
wrecks your ability to see if you do that.

It will be interesting to someday find out exactly what FIA was trying
to achieve. Whatever it was, it was either trying to do too much on
one spaceframe (like the NPOESS of the same era) or it tried too much
new technology at once, some of which may have not panned out and was
hopelessly behind schedule and overbudget (like X-33 also of the same
period.)

It could conceivably have been folding mirrors like Multi Mirror
Telescope. James Webb tried the same thing in the IR band and has been
a nightmare of technical problems, delays and budget overruns. An MMT
design could fit on a smaller rocket, like Atlas at least (Ariane 5 is
launching Webb, but is going all the way to L2.)

We also know that NRO recently gave NASA two KH-11/Hubble class
telescopes. If they're giving away big telescopes, with what did NRO
replace them?


Other big telescopes. Ever heard of 'spares sets'?

According to the rumors at the time (and that's all we really have to
go on, since NRO isn't talking) there was one leftover KH-11 when FIA
went belly-up, and it was refurbished and launched. Possibly as
USA-224.

You know Lockheed
was put on contract to build more KH-11 at the end of the optical part
of FIA, right?

Yes, but why didn't Lockheed use the available Hubble/KH-11-class
mirrors in their new-build KH-11s? It will probably be decades before
we know the answer.

Here's what they've replaced FIA with:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA-224

Actually, that's just Wikipedia's guess, albeit a good one. The Air
Force/NRO has not admitted it was a KH-11 (which is kinda my point
that we don't really know what's under that fairing). But again, why
didn't they use the existing mirrors for the new-builds? And we don't
know if USA-224 was the last of the old breed or the first of the new
KH-11s.

Do your math again. FIRST STAGE burnout of Pegasus is bit less than
38 miles up. That says it is visible from a circle on the Earth with
a radius of around 550 miles at burnout.

There are a lot of islands within 550 miles of any of the places you
mention.

No, Fred there are not. Break open an atlas and find Diego Garcia and
Ascension Island. A launch due south from, say 200 miles south of
Diego Garcia wouldn't come within 550 miles of anything until it
overflies the Kergullen Islands almost 3,000 miles south. The Isle St.
Paul and Isle Amsterdam are near the flightpath, but are usually
uninhabited (occasional visiting scientists only.) Ascension Island
has nothing whatsoever due south of it, within 500 miles of the
flightpath until Nightingale Island also 3,000 miles away.

And that's just FIRST STAGE burnout. It's much higher at
second stage burnout.

And much higher and harder to see by anyone on the ground. I watched
too many Atlas-Centaur launches that disappeared as soon as the Atlas
burned out and Centaur ignited.

And the big bright thing coming out of it and going up to space is a
****ROCKET****, you yammerhead!!!!!!

With no one within 500 miles to see it.

Asked and answered. Sorry, but I don't find debating games like the
preceding to be particularly convincing.

Especially when you are badly losing the debate...

And I think Diego Garcia (a military base with no civilians
whatsoever) is an even better candidate.

Count the people living on all the islands within 550 miles of that
place.

Zero. You have actually looked up Diego Garcia, right? Besides, I have
repeatedly stated an L-1011 or other carrier aircraft staged from
Diego Garcia or Ascension, not launching the rocket from a pad there.

Nothing secret about RORSATs existing.

You do understand what a RORSAT is, right Fred? I don't think you do.
RORSATs are not Air Traffic Control radars in space, they are Earth
imaging satellites that can see in all weather and at night. All they
would have seen on Ascension is an L-1011 on the ramp.

Oh, I see. The fact that it was all wrong doesn't matter in your
world. Good to know. It explains how you can make the claims that
you do.

It doesn't change the basic premise at all. A Pegasus from an L-1011.
An Athena-1 (or something similar) shoved out the back of a C-5. Or
Blackstar on a modified XB-70. The details are certainly disputible
and very likely wrong. But the concept is entirely valid.

Yes, you've argued that. What you haven't done is provided any real
support for your 'argument'.

Only in Fred-world. I'm not the one making up nonexistant islands as
proof launches would have been seen.

making
up false data ("one cubic foot satellite"), putting words in my mouth
that were not there ("small satellite, not the biggest Pegasus could
launch") invoking radar systems that don't exist in your attempt to
prove a launch would be seen on radar everywhere on Earth,


Spate of outright lies.

Your own words. I'm not surprised at all you are now pretending you
didn't make those claims. But they're right there in your previous
replies.

Where'd I 'admit' any such thing?

"If you know of a way to get a small vehicle doing Mach 5 up to orbit,
please let us all know."

So you must therefore agree that such a Mach 5 vehicle exists. It is a
shame for your argument that the DoD has not admitted it.

I'll note your 'question' is predicated on an assumption not currently
in evidence.

Backpeddaling, Fred. I thought you were above disowning your own
words.

And again we see that the facts don't matter in your world.

Pot. Kettle. "Black".

No, the point is that you and Jeff claim that a secret space launch is
IMPOSSIBLE. I'm not addressing the why's, only that it certainly is
POSSIBLE, and without invoking magic pixie dust either. It would be
more or less off-the-shelf capabilty.

Except IT WOULDN'T BE SECRET BECAUSE PEOPLE WOULD KNOW ABOUT IT.

Who? I'm talking about real people, Fred, not make-believe people on
make-believe islands.

For a specious argument, you sure are having a difficult time refuting
it. You could start by actually addressing my points, instead of
ignoring them, misstating them, or dismissing them with one-liners.

So far you HAVE no points so there is nothing to 'refute'.

Pretending they don't exist does not make them nonexistent, Fred.

Brian