French Threat To ID Secret US Satellites 355
SkiifGeek brings to our attention a story that ran on space.com a few months back but didn't get much wider notice at the time. "The French have identified numerous objects in orbit that do not appear in the ephemeris data reported by the US Space Surveillance Network. Now, the US claims that if it doesn't appear in the ephemeris data, then it doesn't exist. The French insist that at least some of the objects they have found boast solar arrays. Therefore it seems that the French have found secret US satellites. While they don't plan to release the information publicly, they do intend to use it as leverage to get the US to suppress reporting of sensitive French satellites in their published ephemeris."
But you don't get it, they "don't" exist! (Score:5, Interesting)
So shooting a laser beam to blind something non-existent shouldn't be a problem. If you can knock this non-existent "thing" from the sky even better, now it would "doubly" not exist!
The actual situation is rather more complicated. (Score:5, Interesting)
First consideration: It is a fairly involved and expensive process to catalogue these objects. Maybe some crazy EE guy could mess with them with a ground based laser for an affordable $20k or whatever (I honestly don't know the feasibility of that) but having to go back and classify near-earth space objects on top of that would probably push it being the range of feasability for any small scale endeavor.
And, another *big part* of defense/offense is simply making it more expensive to engage youl. This is the definition of why defense is always more difficult than offense--the defender has to defend every avenue of attack, the aggressor need only choose the most favorable to themselves. Sure, it might be possible for any modern nation to invest a few billion to making the identifications, and that might nullify the advantage you would have otherwise, but getting them to spend the money is itself an advantage. Even countries that starve their citizens to pay for missiles (ala, north korea) only have limited budgets. The thinner you can spread them, the better off *you* are.
Second consideration: In as much as identifying satellites is a statistical process, i.e., "We've looked at 70% of the objects in the sky, and have identified +/- 20% of those which are satellites " then sharing data is always beneficient in giving you more certain results. This is relevant not only because it means you get more satellites, but especially because the satellites you do get are more defintie to be representative of the whole. If you were going to organize some strategic strike against America's defense satellites, you'd want to get all of them. Otherwise you might waste a bunch of money to get the tactical advantage of taking out the satellites and America will just be like "Whoops, they got some of our satellites, time to change to the backups. Cool, our network is fully functional again. Let's go nuke whoever did that."
Third consideration: I don't think the location of all the 'public' satellites are disclosed. The French are able to identify which are secret satellites because we told them the ones that weren't. Anyone who didn't know that could certainly identify satellite objects in the sky, but they would be unable to distinguish between commercial GPS satellites and secret military missile-commanding GPS satellites.
Now, I don't really know how much any of those come into effect on their own, but my point is that just because it is possible for someone else to gain knowledge without your disclosing it does not mean that it doesn't make a difference whether you simply disclose it or make them work to figure it out.
Re:let 'em (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:The actual situation is rather more complicated (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not concerned about amateur efforts to identify the satellites, they're irrelevant.
Any country of consequence, who would be capable of affecting our satellites in orbit, is likely to be doing mapping of their sky; and, as a result will have some statistics on what's there. The French publishing the additional data doesn't matter in that it remains true that no one knows to whom the satellites belong and what their capabilities are. Granted, the extra data points might be useful to another country; but, as I've said, I'm certain they are already mapping what's in their sky anyway.
Re:For Sale -- Cheap! (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:For Sale -- Cheap! (Score:5, Interesting)
At least I could seek comfort in the knowledge that the US, in all its world-dominating glory, wouldn't even exist if it wasn't for my country. (plus, can you really expect France to take care of the Germans every time?)
BTW, if your country was invaded, you would be cowering behind those "jingoist jerks", you hypocrite.
Somehow I reeally doubt it, for some crazy reason the "jingoist jerks" are never the first ones to line up to grab a rifle and defend the country. Go figure.
Point is, constantly bragging about something that other people did 50 years ago gets tiresome pretty quickly (besides, I'm Russian, so let's not get into the whole "Who won WWII" thing
Re:Now they just have to duplicate GEODSS (Score:2, Interesting)
The French are serious about space operations, both commercially and militarily. Arianespace, a French company (in essence) launching from French territory in South America, is the world's leading provider of geostationary transfer orbit launch services. Presumably, they feel as concerned as any other major space operator about the space junk problem, as exacerbated by the Chinese anti-satellite demonstration last January, and are investing in a program to ensure that they can track space junk independently of the USA.
Or, they may simply be interested in keeping track of all in-orbit assets as part of their defense posture.
Russia also operates optical and radar-based satellite-tracking systems. One can speculate that they already know about secret U.S. satellites, but are unlikely to reveal such knowledge in a public forum. China is also believed to have optical and radar satellite tracking systems in place (per a recent US Defense Dept. report).
Re:For Sale -- Cheap! (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not ashamed of my country having a lot of power. And I'm not ashamed of my country using it- if you have power, you've got a responsibility to use it. With great power comes great responsibility, as Stan Lee said. I say, if a carefully planned, well thought out military intervention is the best option (not that war is ever a great option, but sometimes it is better than not going to war) then, well, bombs away.
What I'm deeply ashamed of is the shitty job we've done in using it. Bullying our allies, running secret prisons, detentions without trial, torturing people to death, losing much of the headway we made in Afghanistan, and making Iraq into a place so terrifyingly bloody that people actually long for the days when it was merely ruled by a psychopathic dictator... the past few years have been shameful. Anyone who could look at what we've done in the past few years and feel any sort of pride is either deeply in denial or a sociopath. I have no problem with America using its power to advance its own interests and improve the world, but we haven't been doing either.
Re:let 'em (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Did you RTF? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:let 'em (Score:4, Interesting)
This is, literally, rocket science.
Re:This is easily winnable for the USA (Score:3, Interesting)
Wow. You really think half of the Ospreys won't crash?
Seti@Home (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I don't think so (Score:1, Interesting)
Oddly enough, we have data on thousands of satellites, but a handful of satellites aren't on the list. Funny, that.
Suppressing the information about "channel 9 news's international feed satellite" was certainly the wrong way to go about doing this, since just about any advanced government can find all of the satellites that pass overhead and compare their findings to the list.
Re:Oh no the French are mad (Score:2, Interesting)
there are several states that do this... china, russia, the US... how can they tell?
Re:Some pics and (French) text about Graves... (Score:3, Interesting)
As for the Rainbow warrior "adventure" (Mitterand): this was most unfortunate. Hasty operation, bad execution, no luck and a dead photograph when the idea was to avoid human casualties...
On his side, Chirac has not really sent French troops in an Ivoirian "adventure": in financial terms, it very much looks like an expensive operation, but noting compared to Iraq... Politically, time will tell what will result from that mission. I am not that pessimistic about it, the latest news are rather encouraging.
We can only guess what would have occured had Laurent Gbagbo and his wife continued their war with the northern part of the country (and possibly with their northern neighboors too): slaughters? Continued civil war? I am not so sure.
The clashes have been very limitted, the war has stopped for now, let us hope his country will heal and that real elections will take place soon. French (and UN) troops have spent already enough time there. Time for a break, a reconciliation, a renewed prosperity and some genuine democracy...
French losses have been very limited: the operationnal capacities have proven adequate for the task, even if their were lacks : no video before the Hotel Ivoire, faulty propaganda tools compared to the astonishing amount of lies propagated by the Ivoirian press of all sort are two. Non lethal weapon were used but were in short supply at the Ivoire, especially when the Legionnaires (with light tanks!) faced a hostile crowd of several thousands people: there were casulties that day.
Anyway...
As for Sarkozy: only God knows what his intentions are. And even He may be puzzled sometimes. But he is the Decider, the Renewer, a competent guy, full of energy wit, will, and so on. I nearly hate him and I strongly believe he will ruin us by sheer incompetence and affairism.
Regards.
that's no joke (Score:3, Interesting)
By doing this all over the place, they forced the Americans to spread out their intelligence resources covering all kinds of bogus chaff, thus increasing the chance that some real military work would slip in beneath the radar, so to speak.
Re:Oh no the French are mad (Score:3, Interesting)
The point isn't who the French sells their weapons to (which is every thug and terrorist with a pocketbook), it's whether or not they have the capability to use them for themselves. Yes, they're real good at machine gunning groups of unarmed protestors, but militaries tend to fight back...