Comments on: Spy Agency Changes Spark Mistrust

By: JCitizen

JCitizen — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 05:19:16 +0000

What?! We were talking about space man!! Not dirigibles!

Now with that statement behind me; an airship isn’t a bad idea! Stationed at 80,000 feet and stealthed out it won’t need armor, and could be so cheap as to really not matter! The only problem, is the Soviets would surely complain about it, even though they allow our UAV traffic to the south.

By: Roland

Roland — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 05:02:42 +0000

This may work in Afghanistan provided they have to change the material of the airship to soft modular armor system for bullet and rocket protection. They said spider web material is a stronger than steel yet it is very light. Maybe this material can help to protect the airship.

By: roland

roland — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 18:26:42 +0000

I believe the spy sattelite and good intel is extremely important to know the movements of the enemy specially the whereabout of Osama bin Ladin, Al-Sawari and Omar hiding place. And to guide our troops on the ground and sky.

By: Colin

Colin — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 08:58:58 +0000

Jay,

I’m checking! These guys don’t exactly blab about these agreements. Few know and fewer talk… I hope to let you know soon.

By: JCitizen

JCitizen — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 06:20:20 +0000

The system is in chaos for good reason; the security landscape matches this. The civilian sector is in the same throes of evolution!

I’ve seen a continuing acceleration of this for the last two years, for Sec Dev longer I can easily guess.

By: Jay B. Campbell

Jay B. Campbell — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 03:04:33 +0000

So did SECDEF and DNI sign this, or is this just another DC rumor mill run amuck?

By: Phoenix

Phoenix — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 21:35:53 +0000

I remember in the days of Gen Bob Herres writing to Hans Mark about having a single head knowing everything about space. I remember well working on a PD to have the AF designated as the executive for space. I still hear the rumblings of who owns, procures, and operates. Now, as far as I can tell and I’ve been in the military, commercial, NASA, and other space business for nearly four decades, nothing has changed in terms of sandboxes, parochial viewpoints, and business as usual — in spite of the recent Augustine enlightenment. Let’s just keep studying and spending, while Nero fiddles. It is time for major changes and delivery of capabilities to the warfighters.

By: anton

anton — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 19:40:42 +0000

That thing in the picture is part of a program.….…times are further then a spray on this and a sa. can follow…

By: JCitizen

JCitizen — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 19:31:56 +0000

Very good comments gentlemen! I’m subscribing to this one!

By: Sebastian Petkiewicz

Sebastian Petkiewicz — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 05:12:18 +0000

Opening statement with 10,000 satelites in space floating to the earth’s atmosphere, that is a problem simply because only about somewhere around 900 are only active. That is if I am correct, next problem is not sending more, but using the resources we have, for survilance, if no harm done already and I quote “American Companies did not abadon for bankrupt reason which have left the systems unoperational floating”.

By: realtimer

realtimer — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 20:25:25 +0000

Sounds like ‘confusion’ still reigns, especially regarding management. The Blind men are still circling!!

By: Doc Daniels

Doc Daniels — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:01:08 +0000

what is that thing in the picture.... gotlucky.net www.gotlucky.net

By: BobDre

BobDre — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 19:40:19 +0000

Interesting article. I have 35 years military and industry experience in ICBMs and space programs. I have always had one question about the NRO: Why does it even exist? It clearly is a duplication of the Air Force space mission and a proven incompetent agency and wasteful embarrassment. , FIA, Taj Mahal building, etc. Maybe it’s time to get rid the of NRO and put the resources where they belong in the Air Force. not create even more dissension.

By: Colin

Colin — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:31:51 +0000

Density,

Nice to have you back. What do you think of the whole ISR debate, which I didn’t really get to flesh out? Air-burning vs. satellites etc.

By: DensityDuck

DensityDuck — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 08:27:39 +0000

“With heavy sarcasm, the source familiar with the charter said “it would be so nice of the DNRO to tell us poor saps what is happening up there.”

Or maybe the Air Force should stick to jet planes and stop being all butthurt that there’s an aerospace vehicle out there without a “USAF” sticker on the side.

By: Aqui en la playa

Aqui en la playa — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 22:39:25 +0000

> A former senior government official argued that no one should worry since the intelligence community performs different functions than does the military. NRO reconnaissance satellites look for the unknown, this source said, and then cue military systems which perform surveillance.

While that’s perhaps the way things should be, to assert that it’s true now is total BS. For the past few decades, monitoring known targets has sopped up most of the time on imaging satellites, and continues to do so today. Ever since the demise of the KH-9, the optical and radar satellites that make up the small imaging constellation have been grossly unsuited to look for the truly unknown, unless the unknown happened to be located close to an established target. And the demands on the human resources, aka image interpreters, have made looking for unknowns a low priority, totally aside from the technical constraints.

And, oh, just what “military systems” was the senior government official talking about? We’ve got no more than four each optical/IR and radar sats in orbit, all of them NRO birds. Are the “military systems” UAVs?

All this is depressingly reminiscent of the 1960s CIA-USAF wars over the NRO and what US reconnaissance satellites should be doing.

Feh.