NASA PDF - Project Able - Lunar Module deploys up to 3000-ft solar reflector in earth orbit

In article .com,
wrote:
There's an interesting discussion about how classification was being
viewed in NASA in the mid-1960s at
http://history.nasa.gov/HHR-32/ch14.htm

Also interesting and related, although not NASA-specific, is
http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/dsbrep.html.
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. |

On Mon, 21 Nov 2005 23:31:54 -0600, in a place far, far away, Pat
Flannery made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:



Scott Lowther wrote:



One is forced to wonder what will happen now that this report has been
made public. Will Nagin and the Dems start to berate
Bush/Cheney/Haliburton for not having built Able to light up NOLA?


Murtha is an evil, weak-kneed traitor...no, Murtha is a military
hero...what will tomorrow bring from Cheney's office?

When did Cheney's office call anyone an "evil, weak-kneed traitor,"
let alone Murtha?

You need to adjust your medication, Pat.

" writes:


Rusty wrote:
Here is a NASA report just added to the NTRS server in PDF format.

It's a 1966 NASA/Grumman study that uses a manned Lunar Module to
deploy a 400-ft to 3000-ft solar reflector in a 6000 nm or 24 hr earth
orbit. The reflector would be used to illuminate selected areas of the
earth during the hours of darkness. This proposed program was called
Project Able.

Any indication what the ultimate purpose was? I assume the national
security classification indicates that it was for military or
intelligence use.

Vietnam comes to mind...
--
A host is a host from coast to
& no one will talk to a host that's close........[v].(301) 56-LINUX
Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433
is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433

(Derek Lyons) writes:


'Confidential' *is* a classification. (The whole list being
Unclassified, For Official Use Only, Confidential, Secret, and Top
Secret.) The presence of a classification does not mean that it's DoD
related - the classification system system is more-or-less a goverment
standard used by all departments and branches.


Not quite

A) FOUO/LOU etc are NOT classifications. They are agency inventions.

B) Confidential - TS are; they are set into law so yes they apply
to all agencies.


--
A host is a host from coast to
& no one will talk to a host that's close........[v].(301) 56-LINUX
Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433
is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433

On Fri, 25 Nov 2005 18:03:30 +0000 (UTC), David Lesher
wrote:

A) FOUO/LOU etc are NOT classifications. They are agency inventions.

....FYI, FOUO is not a classification under Federal law. 2/3 of the
state governments have legally adopted it as one. From my own
experience, Texas is one such state.

OM
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David Lesher wrote:

(Derek Lyons) writes:

'Confidential' *is* a classification. (The whole list being
Unclassified, For Official Use Only, Confidential, Secret, and Top
Secret.) The presence of a classification does not mean that it's DoD
related - the classification system system is more-or-less a goverment
standard used by all departments and branches.

Not quite

A) FOUO/LOU etc are NOT classifications. They are agency inventions.

Wrong. They are classifications - they are not however
classifications in universal use.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

Derek Lyons wrote:
David Lesher wrote:

A) FOUO/LOU etc are NOT classifications. They are agency inventions.

Wrong. They are classifications - they are not however classifications in universal use.

The difference is perhaps one that our previous President could have
expressed best:

Clinton

It all depends on what you mean by "classification."

/Clinton

The problem is that "classification" is usually taken to mean "national
security classification", in which case the only valid ones are C,S,TS.
In national security contexts, FOUO is usually described as a "handling
control" or something similar. However, you can find .gov pages on the
Web that describe FOUO as an administrative classification, and that's
right in the common usage of "classification."

I've found that such distinctions are often not well understood even
within the government.

FWIW, in the couple of cases where I've encountered actual explanations
of when FOUO should be used, they were protection of copyright material
in FBIS publications and protection of pre-award contract-sensitive
information within the government. Which struck me as perfectly
sensible, though not directly related to the national security.


(There have been Usenet discussions of such things in the past,
including the "beyond Top Secret", "compartmentation" and "Codeword"
threads. Google Groups will find them.)

" wrote:

The problem is that "classification" is usually taken to mean "national
security classification", in which case the only valid ones are C,S,TS.

In the common usage that I encountered, 'classified' meant 'anything
that had to individually accounted and signed for', and that included
FOUO. We never used the term "national security classification",
classified material was classified material, period.

We may be seeing a conflict between the formal usages as defined by
academia and bureaucrats - and the more practical usages defined by
those who actually worked with the stuff.

FWIW, in the couple of cases where I've encountered actual explanations
of when FOUO should be used, they were protection of copyright material
in FBIS publications and protection of pre-award contract-sensitive
information within the government. Which struck me as perfectly
sensible, though not directly related to the national security.

Many of our operating procedures were classified FOUO - the general
idea being to prevent them from becoming general [public] knowledge.
Ditto for much of the low level detailed information on the systems.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

Derek Lyons wrote:

" wrote:

The problem is that "classification" is usually taken to mean "national
security classification", in which case the only valid ones are C,S,TS.

In the common usage that I encountered, 'classified' meant 'anything
that had to individually accounted and signed for', and that included
FOUO. We never used the term "national security classification",
classified material was classified material, period.

As we've noted in previous such discussions over the years, your
experiences and mine show interesting and instructive differences. Not
surprisingly, as you were serving on submarines and I was an
inside-the-Beltway civil servant. In my world, there was no
"sign-for-it" accountability until you got into some special channels,
and even then things sometimes tended to be a bit loose. See, for
example, http://archives.his.com/intelforum/2.../msg00220.html .

As for FOUO and classification, see

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Aug2...Protective.pdf
http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/dhs-sbu.html
http://www.fas.org/sgp/clinton/eo12958.html
http://www.fas.org/sgp/bush/eoamend.html

On 28 Nov 2005 13:27:02 -0800, "
wrote:

Not surprisingly, as you were serving on submarines and I was an
inside-the-Beltway civil servant.

....Ah, in other words, D earned his position, while you probably
kissed some politician's ass for yours :-) :-) :-)


OM
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