NASA gets two military spy telescopes for astronomy

NASA gets two military spy telescopes for astronomy

www.wa shingtonpost.com

The U.S. government’s secret space program has decided to give NASA two telescopes as big as, and even more powerful than, the Hubble Space Telescope.

Designed for surveillance, the telescopes from the National Reconnaissance Office were no longer needed for spy missions and can now be used to study the heavens.

They have 2.4-meter (7.9 feet) mirrors, just like the Hubble. They also have an additional feature that the civilian space telescopes lack: A maneuverable secondary mirror that makes

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Secret government space program indeed. It just makes you wonder, what kind of technology has replaced these two outdated telescopes? This is a great article proving that we know very little about our governments secret space program. This also sheds some light as to why they cut NASA's funding. Anyone know more info regarding this topic?

www.wa shingtonpost.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

as big as, and even more powerful than, the Hubble Space Telescope.

Seems its time to help each other out more. Will be interesting to see the finds from these 2. Not to mention how many others are allready up and runnin/OBSERVING.

Too bad they won't give them the older/outdated ones still in orbit... But I guess they had to remove all the classified electronics and other equipment on the spy satellites.

reply to post by DJM8507


They could though tie or link them into the new designed versions that can glimps Pluto surface and just allow OMNI data transfer broadcast to allow for multiple minds input. These would see the celestials that amature EA*RTH astronomers cannot see w/o special lenses present on the new updates.

Yawn, I thought NASA was discontinued and they closed shop. Now they reopened and got 2 new telescopes? Now they have no excuse why we can't see the UFO's.

I bet PROBA1 is the new telescope. A new feature that has been added to Heiloviwer.

Now THIS is constructive use of old military technology.

More please!

They want to spy on our neighbours.
(Inter)galactic that is
The more they have the more they can find.

we are so in the dark about what our govn't is doing behind our backs. Truly scarry stuff. Like someone said before.. imagin what they replaced these telescopes with! Mindbending...

reply to post by Sinsear

Secret government space program indeed. It just makes you wonder, what kind of technology has replaced these two outdated telescopes? This is a great article proving that we know very little about our governments secret space program.

Very good question. This just confirms more for me that the Gov. is years or decades ahead of the civilian sector. We are just continuously playing catchup with technology that we ourselves helped fund but don't get to benefit from until it's deemed necessary. In this case used spy telescopes.

reply to post by Manhater


As I understand it, they only discontinued sending astronauts up there for missions and such.

Although I don't know how they're going to fix the telescope up there if it needs maintenance. Maybe they'll contract commercial astronauts now, lol.

reply to post by Sinsear

It just makes you wonder, what kind of technology has replaced these two outdated telescopes?

What makes you say they are "outdated"? The term used was "unneeded".

It sounds like the only real difference between Hubble and the spy telescopes is the ability to change the location of the secondary mirror and thus change the focal length, giving it a "zoom" ability (that would be the "more powerful" part of the description). However, since the primary mirror is the same size as that of Hubble it won't be any better at astronomical observation.

I certainly makes you wonder what this "secret space program" is keeping secret. It was nice of them to give us their second-hand junk that also happens to be more powerful than the Hubble Telescope. Seriously? If their hand-me-down equipment is more powerful than what civilian astronomers and astrophysicists has access to, what the hell did they upgrade to?

Didn't they just get one stolen from them??

I'm sure I just saw that posted maybe a week ago. I cannot find it though

Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by Sinsear

 

It just makes you wonder, what kind of technology has replaced these two outdated telescopes?

What makes you say they are "outdated"? The term used was "unneeded".

It sounds like the only real difference between Hubble and the spy telescopes is the ability to change the location of the secondary mirror and thus change the focal length, giving it a "zoom" ability (that would be the "more powerful" part of the description). However, since the primary mirror is the same size as that of Hubble it won't be any better at astronomical observation.

I've never heard of a US Special Access Project acting in an altruistic way. If anything, history has shown the exact opposite. If this equipment was "unneeded", it's because they have something more advanced to perform its function, and the "unneeded" equipment doesn't possess any qualities that they could cite to justify keeping it secret.

Originally posted by Corruptedstructure
Didn't they just get one stolen from them??

I'm sure I just saw that posted maybe a week ago. I cannot find it though

edit on 4-6-2012 by Corruptedstructure because: (no reason given)

Yeah that happened in Texas last week. In that case, it was a terrestrial telescope (not for use in space) for use in some University research project. Apparently that telescope was located a few days later and recovered.

reply to post by draco49

Ok. But in this case "more advanced" would only mean that the telescope has a larger mirror. That's the only way higher resolution could be obtained.

But so what? NASA still gets two very fine instruments and it's not really any secret that the military has had and has spy satellites.

Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by draco49

 

Ok. But in this case "more advanced" would only mean that the telescope has a larger mirror. That's the only way higher resolution could be obtained.

But so what? NASA still gets two very fine instruments and it's not really any secret that the military has had and has spy satellites.

Fair enough... I accept what you're saying Sometimes my inner conspiracy-theorist needs to be reeled in

The two new telescopes — which so far don’t even have names, other than Telescope One and Telescope Two — would be ready to go into space but for two hitches. First, they don’t have instruments. There are no cameras, spectrographs or other instruments that a space telescope typically needs. Second, they don’t have a program, a mission or a staff behind them. They’re just hardware.

www.washingtonpost.com...

Translation: they are "White Elephants." The good news is that NASA will be able to furbish them with sensors that can be used for spectroscopy. The bad news is that they can't afford to.

Originally posted by TheLieWeLive
Very good question. This just confirms more for me that the Gov. is years or decades ahead of the civilian sector.

Or it confirms that the civilian sector is practically equal with the government, and it is now cheaper to buy imagery from GeoEye et al. rather than launch and operate a large IMINT constellation under NRO control.