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2004-12-11 Home Front: Tech

Debate on Secret Program Bursts Into Open

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Posted by Anonymoose 2004-12-11 10:32:18 AM|| || Front Page|| [2 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 More likely it is either a sigint bird or some sort of enhanced Jstars-on-a-satilite.

Posted by N Guard 2004-12-11 11:23:08 AM|| 2004-12-11 11:23:08 AM|| Front Page Top

#2 The Zionist Death Ray Version 2.0

Posted by Matt 2004-12-11 11:24:06 AM|| 2004-12-11 11:24:06 AM|| Front Page Top

#3 we need the teleporter
we could send 6 Marines anywhere without worrying about the navy

Posted by half 2004-12-11 11:30:36 AM|| 2004-12-11 11:30:36 AM|| Front Page Top

#4 NYT: But former Congressional and intelligence officials who oppose it said it would duplicate capabilities in existence or in development, as part of the countryâs vast network of satellites, aircraft and drones designed for eavesdropping and reconnaissance.

Duplicate capabilities in existence? But that's the very point of military equipment. It needs to be redundant, so that if one system fails or is destroyed by the enemy, we continue to have coverage via the other systems.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2004-12-11 12:14:22 PM|| [http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2004-12-11 12:14:22 PM|| Front Page Top

#5 This sounds like it could be the battlefield internet we heard about a few weeks ago. High levels of redundancy would be integral to it.

Posted by phil_b 2004-12-11 12:50:53 PM|| 2004-12-11 12:50:53 PM|| Front Page Top

#6 Gee, let's have a single point of failure for the war effort (oops we already have that, it's called ths disloyal opposition.) Isn't rockefeller from a red state - what the hell are they drinking?

Posted by Douglas De Bono 2004-12-11 3:44:22 PM|| [http://www.DouglasDeBono.com] 2004-12-11 3:44:22 PM|| Front Page Top

#7 Wonder if the bee in their bonnet is that this is a DOD program & not a CIA one ??

Posted by too true 2004-12-11 5:20:58 PM|| 2004-12-11 5:20:58 PM|| Front Page Top

#8 FYI: All satellite programs are DoD. Look who launches and runs the satellites, and who they work for.

And if this is a "high survivability" satellite program, its about time. The firs thing any adversary would want to do is blind us.

Given the atrophy in ground assets as part and parcel of the atrophy of the military in the 90's (ex: the retirement of the SR-71, etc), people are unaware of how little we have except overhead assets available for our troops to gether intelligence. Its a danger we risk only at the risk of another Pearl Harbor, or a 9/11 on a continental scale.

Posted by OldSpook 2004-12-11 6:38:21 PM|| 2004-12-11 6:38:21 PM|| Front Page Top

#9 America's dependency upon satellite based intelligence gathering is fundamentally unhealthy. Feet-on-the-ground tend to intercept more critical secret information. Our blindness that contributed to 9-11 is a solid example of this. During the Cold War our over-reliance upon satellites actually increased the danger of nuclear war. Had our relatively unsophisticated network of orbital stare-down mosaic arrays and other monitoring birds suddenly gone out-of-service, we might have been forced to "launch 'em or lose 'em." A single high-explosive projectile fired into "The Blue Cube" in Sunnyvale might have been able to precipitate such a crisis.

That said, the value of orbital reconnaissance cannot be overstated. While it needs to be balanced with more conventional intelligence gathering methods, the KH series of satellites has provided us with critical and otherwise unobtainable data. Space based photography allowed Kennedy to correctly call Kruschev's bluff during the Cuban missile crisis.

As to the current ado over this secret project; The technologically illiterate politicians who run this nation's government cannot be trusted to make wise decisions regarding our space based assets. However little I enjoy the military's tradition of budgetary mismanagement, I'd rather that America maintain its technological supremacy despite the cost overruns. Any new network of orbital monitoring systems will perforce be integrated with whatever missile defense shield that is built. Since this is part of a critical strategic initiative, it gets my vote.

Posted by Zenster 2004-12-11 7:04:32 PM|| 2004-12-11 7:04:32 PM|| Front Page Top

#10 T**** Sh*t for the dummycrats, we got the votes. I suspect this bird has something to do with SDI.

Posted by Capt America 2004-12-11 8:21:35 PM|| 2004-12-11 8:21:35 PM|| Front Page Top

#11 FYI: All satellite programs are DoD. Look who launches and runs the satellites, and who they work for.

And if this is a "high survivability" satellite program, its about time. The firs thing any adversary would want to do is blind us.

Given the atrophy in ground assets as part and parcel of the atrophy of the military in the 90's (ex: the retirement of the SR-71, etc), people are unaware of how little we have except overhead assets available for our troops to gether intelligence. Its a danger we risk only at the risk of another Pearl Harbor, or a 9/11 on a continental scale.

Posted by OldSpook 2004-12-11 6:38:21 PM|| 2004-12-11 6:38:21 PM|| Front Page Top

#12 Off-topic or abusive comments deleted]

Posted by OldSpook 2004-12-11 6:38:21 PM|| 2004-12-11 6:38:21 PM|| Front Page Top

00:03 gromky
23:36 Mike Kozlowski
23:21 Don
23:09 Capt America
22:59 Jarhead
22:51 Brett_the_Quarkian
22:39 True German Ally
22:35 Zenster
22:28 Zenster
22:24 Dave D.
22:15 lex
22:14 Dave D.
22:13 lex
22:02 Dave D.
22:01 lex
21:59 lex
21:52 Dave D.
21:50 lex
21:49 Bomb-a-rama
21:46 Phil Fraering
21:46 jackal
21:44 lex
21:43 Alaska Paul
21:43 lex