DARPA Developing Telescope 8x Larger Than Hubble Which Could Look for Alien Life But Won't

originally posted by: Riffrafter

originally posted by: Bedlam

Sadly, the military is about the only thing in the US that funds basic scientific research. At least they share the most of it with you.

Sadly, that's mostly true. But sharing the science and sharing the tech are two *very* different things as you know.

Sometimes they share that too. Sometimes. We DO have to make up some fiction as to how it could benefit civilians one day on every proposal. It's the "dual use" section. It can be quite entertaining. You are encouraged to be convincing. Sometimes that's tough.

Consider - you're proposing a satellite constellation that can paint a charge pattern on the ionosphere. How do you pitch that for dual use? "May have uses in large scale xerographic printing of movie backgrounds" LOL

The science: when they have to, or when the benefits greatly outweigh the perceived military returns and even then they can be cagey as hell. But of the two, they are much more forthcoming with the science.

The tech: varies widely but at a minimum only when they are ahead by at least 2-3 subsequent generations of new tech already in place for the task, and often not even then.

I dunno, at least half of the DARPA stuff immediately trickles down in a direct way. And while the entirety of a thing might be classified, at least some of the parts of it won't be. I can probably think of some examples if I strain a while.

What would really drive people nuts if they knew are the discoveries that are made by accident or that were initially tangential to the project at hand, but which are eye-popping in their own right - and that the military doesn't even know what to do with - but which may have some military value in the future and is therefore also totally kept under wraps.

People don't even to know to ask about this because, well, they don't know what they don't know...

Ain't life grand?

Ah, well, that's true. Consider Helliwell at Siple Station. What started off as looking at ducting ended up as HAARP. Who knew?

And I can think of several more that I can't mention.

But worse than that, is that you can't legitimately cross-seed between projects. If you get that ol' serendipity factor solving an issue in Project A, you can bet that if Project B that's not in the same scope has the same issue, they won't be informed. The engineers on the project don't know it's necessary, and the higher-ups don't understand the issues are the same.

I used to have cross-pollination barbecues until they stopped it. "Hi, this is Doug. Doug, this is Bill. Bill had that problem you're having. But you're in different project groups. Alas. I'm in both but I'm forbidden to pass info between projects. You guys have some ribs"

originally posted by: Bedlam

You made a lot of good points in this post.

But I have to say my favorite part was the pic your posted:

If anything, it might be part of an early-warning telescope system to monitor for alien activity headed toward Earth.

Here is a pic...

Poking fun at someone/anyone in particular, or just having some fun?...



I haven't seen that pic in a long time...gotta love those S.H.A.D.O brits...

originally posted by: Riffrafter

Poking fun at someone/anyone in particular, or just having some fun?...

I haven't seen that pic in a long time...gotta love those S.H.A.D.O brits...

It's the way my mind works, I suppose. If you say "early warning system for something coming from space" I immediately hear the UFO theme music and S.I.D. pops up in my mind's eye.

I really wanted some episodes featuring S.I.D. It never got the attention it deserved.

a reply to: Bedlam
I think that show might make a good alien repellant. They would always shoot first and ask questions later.

In one episode both an alien and an earth guy were stranded, and the alien guy helped the Earth guy, was trying to be friendly and helpful. The guys buddies show up and they still kill the alien. That's the thanks you get for trying to be friendly and helpful to an Earthling, is the message being broadcast into space.

I doubt they can even see our TV but if they could, that would keep them away if they had any sense.

originally posted by: MystikMushroom
. Isn't it kind of weird to anyone else how "discoveries" are seeming to happen left and right these days?

Not if you've been following astronomy, specifically exoplanet research since 1995.

The discoveries you reference are not from some nefarious black vault but the hard work of plenty of people who are advancing both ground and space based telescopes through ever more sophisticated optics, electronics and faster computers.

The discoveries are a result of technological advancements applied by civilian science to the questions about what's out there.

I have a hunch that we've known about all these planets we're just now "discovering" because the military is "letting" our scientists find them.

See above. The military has nothing to do with Kepler nor its proposed K2 mission.

All Kepler data undergoes analysis and when discoveries are made they're published. Often these come in batches due to the nature of the instrument.

Additionally this is a 'hot' field right now so many different groups around the world are advancing different techniques with which to make these discoveries.