NASA Gets Two Military Spy Telescopes For Astronomy 237
First time accepted submitter SomePgmr writes "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."
Re:Satellites still need to be launched (Score:5, Funny)
An awful long post for one minute after the story's timestamp. I'll save the rest of the Slashdotters here the work and accuse you of working for Microsoft, Oracle, Apple, Linus Torvalds, the NSA, the CIA, the KGB, the Democrats, the Republicans, Adolf Hitler and Mr. Rogers.
More on topic, any idea where in "upstate NY" they're being kept? Whether you go by the NYC definition of Upstate or the rest of the state's definition of Upstate, it's still a pretty big area and odds are I'll be near it sometime within the next two weeks. I'm going to guess somewhere near either Rome or Watertown.
Re:Obsolete? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Satellites still need to be launched (Score:5, Funny)
I spend all day at working writing up responses to posts which haven't yet happened on /. , in the hopes that I will be able to swoop in with a insightful long post that quickly. However nobody ever posts about Barney or Daredevil 2.
Re:Satellites still need to be launched (Score:5, Funny)
Re:NASA Has 2 Hubbles (Score:5, Funny)
Interesting you should say that, because it's basically her background. She was involved in the design and production of women's clothing before she worked at NASA. Basically, she'd design patterns then make dresses. She claims it is much easier to design patterns for spacecraft than women, they don't move as much and they aren't as picky.
Re:Translation ... (Score:5, Funny)
From a different article on this I read earlier today, it would seem that the fact that it was designed for wider views actually helps it for certain tasks - monitoring for supernovae, for instance.
If only we had them operational 776 years ago.
They were, it's just taken this long for Holy Roman Empire Intelligence to declassify them.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Satellites still need to be launched (Score:5, Funny)
Also, when their orbits are designed to overfly interesting places in the (former) USSR or China, how likely are they to overfly interesting stuff stateside?
How likely? 100% chance.
Do spend a little time reading up on orbital mechanics some day.
Don't be like Tom Clancy, who wrote in one of his novels that the CIA had a satellite in geostationary orbit over the north pole.
Re:Satellites still need to be launched (Score:4, Funny)
However, anyone who did not expect that comment is obviously brain-dead.
Re:Satellites still need to be launched (Score:5, Funny)
All you need to a lot of fuel. Of course orbit is really the wrong term.