What a Tweet Tells Us About US Spy Satellites

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  • เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 ก.ย. 2024
  • A Tweet has shown us the capabilities or the current generation of US spy satellites. By analyzing the images shared the location of the satellite was determined and traced to USA-224 AKA NROL-49 - an image intelligence satellite that is derived from a design in the 1970's and also shares some design charactersitics with the Hubble Space Telescope.

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  • @tiberiusbrain
    @tiberiusbrain 5 ปีที่แล้ว +4349

    I love how amateur satellite trackers can actually determine which spy-satellite took the image....

    • @Sekir80
      @Sekir80 5 ปีที่แล้ว +185

      It is not that hard if you do it regularly.

    • @tiberiusbrain
      @tiberiusbrain 5 ปีที่แล้ว +193

      @@Sekir80 understandable, onxe you get the hang of it. But i still love it. I should do that someday, know when to look up and wave!

    • @Deathven1482
      @Deathven1482 5 ปีที่แล้ว +137

      And what the satellite looks like, and it’s designation and what it was launched by, and it’s orbit, etc etc...

    • @Sekir80
      @Sekir80 5 ปีที่แล้ว +50

      @@tiberiusbrain Yeah, I even took some photos of USA 245 IIRC, unfortunately my timing and scope wasn't the best. Either way, the shape of the spysat can be imagined quite easy.

    • @vickas54
      @vickas54 5 ปีที่แล้ว +69

      Yep, stealth in space is nigh impossible.

  • @pierrebmd6884
    @pierrebmd6884 4 ปีที่แล้ว +397

    I work in civilian remote sensing RnD and it is actually mind blowing to see an image with such a resolution. To give a perspective on what is currently available to the public, the free imagery from the Sentinel or Landsat constellations are at best at 10 meters resolution. If you are able to pay, Worldview 4 sensors are 0.31 m res (at best with panchromatism). But those KH 11 sensors are at least an order of magnitude lower... I would dream working with those!

    • @snower13
      @snower13 3 ปีที่แล้ว +34

      That's because there is an international agreement on commercial satellite image resolution (30cm if I recall correctly), not due to technical limitations. There are also financial reasons why commercial satellites don't have similar resolutions. The price per square meter would be insane in order to recuperate the development and operational costs (plus profit). Only super power governments have the budget to pay for ultra high resolution images of 'aviation denied' territories. While the US government would probably buy enough of the data to fund those theoretical commercial satellites, they would rather pay extra and keep it all to themselves (and keep it secret).

    • @snower13
      @snower13 3 ปีที่แล้ว +27

      I confirmed the Open Skies Treaty, Helsinki, 24th March 1992 is where the 30cm limit is specified.

    • @fshypublic6103
      @fshypublic6103 3 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      @@snower13 Didn’t the US and Russia withdraw from the treaty? I wonder if that’ll have repercussions on commercial satellite image resolution in the future.

    • @deusexaethera
      @deusexaethera 3 ปีที่แล้ว +15

      ​@eblman: The Little Red Hen was an asshole, though. If you actually read the book (I have a toddler so I've read it many times recently), none of the tasks the Little Red Hen asked for help with actually required any help: Planting a single grain of wheat, reaping a single stalk of wheat, grinding a handful of wheat grains into flour, baking a single tiny loaf of bread, etc. In fact, any help offered would've slowed down most of the tasks. I think she really only asked for help so she could have a flimsy justification to refuse sharing her tasty bread. As I close the book, I always add "...and one day the Little Red Hen died friendless and alone" to the end of the story, to make it more accurate.

    • @peteconrad2077
      @peteconrad2077 3 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      @@deusexaethera great idea. Are my kids in for a world view realignment at story time tonight!!

  • @hazonku
    @hazonku 5 ปีที่แล้ว +81

    I'm honestly more impressed by Ralph's images than the satellite itself. Those are AMAZING. I wanna know more about his setup. The motion control rig & math he's got going on has to be crazy!

    • @MrGoatflakes
      @MrGoatflakes 5 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      yep, but there is also lucky imaging. Just exactly what it sounds like. something like 1 out of 20 images will have barely any atmospheric distortion :P

    • @stargazer7644
      @stargazer7644 3 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      It's called a telescope. Several of the mounts will load keps and track satellites. There are a couple of packages out there to keep the object locked in view once the scope sees it.

  • @MushookieMan
    @MushookieMan 5 ปีที่แล้ว +1781

    It's a cell phone picture of a glossy image, pasted into Word 97, printed, faxed, scanned, and then redacted in MS Paint.

    • @tomsko863
      @tomsko863 5 ปีที่แล้ว +107

      And that's someone's job to do....

    • @polygondwanaland8390
      @polygondwanaland8390 5 ปีที่แล้ว +76

      And yet every internet genius thinks it tells us the exact camera resolution, make, model, and serial number.

    • @GeneralChangFromDanang
      @GeneralChangFromDanang 5 ปีที่แล้ว +182

      Saved as bitmap and then resaved as jpeg when they realized the file size was too big.

    • @another1commenter770
      @another1commenter770 5 ปีที่แล้ว +21

      If it was up to the potus he would have reduacted it with the brush tool in photo shop.

    • @josephcasey9280
      @josephcasey9280 5 ปีที่แล้ว +132

      @@another1commenter770 I think if it was up to potus, he would have given us the full un-redacted picture.

  • @lynxissiodorensis2319
    @lynxissiodorensis2319 5 ปีที่แล้ว +3067

    I'm Scott Manley, spy safe. ;-)

    • @RobinPillage.
      @RobinPillage. 5 ปีที่แล้ว +31

      Good one🖒

    • @jkajewski
      @jkajewski 5 ปีที่แล้ว +63

      @King of Rome, & Earth man I want some of what you're smoking...

    • @Ottee2
      @Ottee2 5 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      @King of Rome, & Earth , Lord love a duck.

    • @Christian_Johansson
      @Christian_Johansson 5 ปีที่แล้ว +23

      @King of Rome, & Earth believing in stupid crap like religion only show how stupid a person is. Especially the abrahamic religions, since they make knowledge the first and ultimate sin and supress any longing for knowledge.

    • @scrapgrace
      @scrapgrace 5 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      King of Rome, & Earth No

  • @hammyh1165
    @hammyh1165 4 ปีที่แล้ว +141

    If you can remember the Footage from the cameras from the smart bombs during the Gulf War and how it was all fuzzy but still amazing.
    A friend of mine had access to the raw imagery and showed me some , it was crystal clear you could even see the paint texture on the bunker doors before the bomb hit.
    I suspect even this image is subject to that and the raw imagery is even clearer.

    • @Hansengineering
      @Hansengineering 4 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      The footage shown _during_ the gulf war was not smart bombS, it was the exact same footage, played every single time, for years.

    • @davidm.4670
      @davidm.4670 3 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      @@Hansengineering And I always wondered about showing the 1st bomb going into the hole made by the 2nd bomb ...

  • @PetetheNorwegian
    @PetetheNorwegian 5 ปีที่แล้ว +846

    No political opinions, 100% on topic. This is part of the reason I love your content, Scott!

    • @neiltroppmann7773
      @neiltroppmann7773 5 ปีที่แล้ว +54

      Ya for real, if this was a tv new station it would be: here's what happened now lets speculate and make up shit for 30 minutes lol

    • @erichdiebenow4727
      @erichdiebenow4727 5 ปีที่แล้ว +69

      Well the facts show how dumb the decision was lol

    • @CGDubz87
      @CGDubz87 5 ปีที่แล้ว +42

      @ebulating opinions are subjective, so, yeah, saying trump is an idiot for (x) is a political opinion.

    • @rigel2112
      @rigel2112 5 ปีที่แล้ว +18

      @ebulating It is if you do not know what happened and just speculate like you are doing. In this very video he showed we already have better imaging out there and this is old tech.

    • @pzoe3808
      @pzoe3808 5 ปีที่แล้ว +28

      Love TRUMP

  • @pdutube
    @pdutube 5 ปีที่แล้ว +1641

    I don't have to nude sunbathe, but when I do, I make sure there's a Keyhole satellite above me.

    • @QuantumFluxable
      @QuantumFluxable 5 ปีที่แล้ว +95

      It's kinda like that episode of Rick and Morty where they strip down to make the aliens turn away from their monitors.

    • @vladimirdyuzhev
      @vladimirdyuzhev 5 ปีที่แล้ว +253

      Your nude features should be bigger than 10 cm to be even noticable on the image. Don't lie to yourself.

    • @syberghost
      @syberghost 5 ปีที่แล้ว +57

      I can see your keyhole

    • @bilwisss
      @bilwisss 5 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      and it was rubbish..

    • @72marshflower15
      @72marshflower15 5 ปีที่แล้ว +10

      The spy satellite probably has a laser mounted on its forehead...

  • @alakani
    @alakani 5 ปีที่แล้ว +599

    Wait, the Hubble cost like $2 billion, and that was the bargain basement scratch and dent price. You're telling me we already had like 200 of them pointing in the wrong direction?

    • @samcavanagh7993
      @samcavanagh7993 5 ปีที่แล้ว +158

      economy of scale, man. The first Keyhole satellite was probably $5 billion, but after that it's just a matter of copying and pasting the design.

    • @flybywire5866
      @flybywire5866 5 ปีที่แล้ว +216

      Why do you think the USA have a military budget of 700+ billion?

    • @RWBHere
      @RWBHere 4 ปีที่แล้ว +40

      And all with the same lens defect???

    • @kylebowles9820
      @kylebowles9820 4 ปีที่แล้ว +273

      @@RWBHere what if Hubble was Hubble because of the defect?
      Some army guy: this one is defective, fuck it, just give it to the scientists
      That's about as hard as I can conspiracy haha

    • @engineeredlifeform
      @engineeredlifeform 4 ปีที่แล้ว +40

      @@kylebowles9820 The Hubble conspiracy I heard was that as the lenses were made at the NRO facility, they used an off the shelf lens for Hubble, not the one that was made for Hubble, hence the 'defect'.

  • @IngieKerr
    @IngieKerr 5 ปีที่แล้ว +376

    I loved Katie Mack @AstroKatie 's tweets on the subject
    "It occasionally comes up in astronomy coffee chats that the US has several additional Hubble-equivalent space telescopes; it’s just that they’re all looking down"

    • @3xfaster
      @3xfaster 5 ปีที่แล้ว +18

      Well, that’s how the Jirachi object was discovered in Sands of Kharak!

    • @harbl99
      @harbl99 5 ปีที่แล้ว +17

      @@3xfaster There's a lot of interesting stuff being found in the Sahara in recent years, mainly thanks to satellite imaging. Inb4 "Homeworld was predictive programming".

    • @3xfaster
      @3xfaster 5 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      harbl99 nah, just fantastic inspiration and story telling!
      I know! They are even using satellites to find old mezoamerican temples under the dense jungle foliage in South America!

    • @mikemodest4594
      @mikemodest4594 5 ปีที่แล้ว +20

      If that's the case, maybe they can help me find my car keyes.

    • @parkershaw8529
      @parkershaw8529 5 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      Oh, they even give two leftover mirrors to NASA. One of them is used to build WFIRST.

  • @ItsMeeJon
    @ItsMeeJon 4 ปีที่แล้ว +247

    The black rectangle is 99.99% likely the classification level stamp

    • @deusexaethera
      @deusexaethera 3 ปีที่แล้ว +18

      There is more than one classification level marking on each page of each document like this. More likely it was the title of the image and/or the name of the satellite that captured the image.

  • @raydunakin
    @raydunakin 3 ปีที่แล้ว +222

    Those spy satellites are pathetic compared to the seemingly-miraculous monoculars that are constantly being advertised all over TH-cam lately. ;-)

    • @denvan3143
      @denvan3143 3 ปีที่แล้ว +9

      Hey, I’ll have you know those monoculars were developed at Joe Hopkins University.

    • @Wild1BillS
      @Wild1BillS 3 ปีที่แล้ว +6

      Ad Blockers work wonders

  • @octowuss1888
    @octowuss1888 5 ปีที่แล้ว +548

    "leghlaHchu'be'chugh mIn lo'laHbe' taj jej"
    "A sharp knife is useless if the eye is unable to clearly see."
    Klingon Honor Guard manual.

    • @Redsauce101
      @Redsauce101 5 ปีที่แล้ว +92

      Actually it translates as "I'm walking on your keyboard because my dinner is late".

    • @brianxavier8873
      @brianxavier8873 5 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      What sort of language is this?

    • @Myrddnn
      @Myrddnn 5 ปีที่แล้ว +20

      @@Redsauce101 good one, Beth. I know cats that do that.... But don't ever compare a Klingon to a cat. At least not to his/her face.

    • @Redsauce101
      @Redsauce101 5 ปีที่แล้ว +10

      @@Myrddnn IKR especially one of those funky new ones, no cat wants to be compared to them.

    • @robdoucet8129
      @robdoucet8129 5 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      @@brianxavier8873 Klingon

  • @sailordolly
    @sailordolly 5 ปีที่แล้ว +23

    Interestingly enough, the Space Shuttle was partly designed around the KH-11 satellites--part of the design requirement was that it be capable of launching or retrieving one. This was back in the days where data transmission rates were so slow (tens of kilobits per second) that it would have been faster to physically access the satellite in order to get the data rather than wait for the download.

    • @gordonrichardson2972
      @gordonrichardson2972 5 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      sailordolly Some of the earliest satellites used phonographic film dropped by parachute.

    • @trolleriffic
      @trolleriffic ปีที่แล้ว

      @@gordonrichardson2972 KH-8 Gambit 3 (hi-res film satellite) was used until 1984 and the last KH-9 Hexagon (wide area medium res film satellite) launch but blew up in 1986. Gambit 3 routinely achieved better than 10cm ground resolutions - best was likely almost 6cm.

    • @tachikomakusanagi3744
      @tachikomakusanagi3744 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +2

      It's taken 4 years but finally a space nerd emerges to tell you you are wrong.
      The space shuttle cargo bay design was based around the KH-9 Hexagon film based system, not the KH-11 Kennen. Remember the space shuttle design process far predated the finalised KH-11 specifications.
      (pushes glasses back up on nose)...

  • @montoyo
    @montoyo 5 ปีที่แล้ว +92

    "Damaged support vehicle" ... "Damaged Safir mobile-erector-launcher" ... -Damaged propellant"
    That's a lot of damage

  • @norgtube
    @norgtube 5 ปีที่แล้ว +655

    The blacked out area is normally where the classification goes.

    • @interstellarsurfer
      @interstellarsurfer 5 ปีที่แล้ว +137

      Probably asset ID and timestamp as well. 👌

    • @LordDragox412
      @LordDragox412 5 ปีที่แล้ว +327

      POTUS: Aaand snapped! Uh oh, it says "Classified" in the top left, better edit that out... Done! Totally unclassified, thank you Kanye very cool!

    • @rachelslur8729
      @rachelslur8729 5 ปีที่แล้ว +7

      @@LordDragox412 lol

    • @dkosmari
      @dkosmari 5 ปีที่แล้ว +91

      @@LordDragox412 As Scott said, it's highly improbable Trump had the sense to black out anything. It was approved by the intelligence staff.

    • @joshsat9106
      @joshsat9106 5 ปีที่แล้ว +84

      @@LordDragox412 lucky for him he has the power to declassify anything he wants.

  • @georgehill8285
    @georgehill8285 5 ปีที่แล้ว +21

    It’s absolutely fascinating to me how much people are able to work out about a satellites capability and orbit just from a little bit of information gleaned from multiple sources. A really fascinating video.

  • @lordchickenhawk
    @lordchickenhawk 5 ปีที่แล้ว +415

    1 Hubble pointed at the Heavens... 100 pointed at the Earth... I think that says everything you need to know about our condition as a species

    • @MrGoatflakes
      @MrGoatflakes 5 ปีที่แล้ว +6

      Not to mention, didn't Hubble spend a lot of time, you know, actually pointed at earth?

    • @evolicious
      @evolicious 5 ปีที่แล้ว +60

      That's not even remotely true, there are millions of telescopes on earth pointed to space and a few thousand pointed at earth (not to mention most are communication and weather satellites). Take your pseudo-intellectualism and throw it in the garbage, becasue it's not only broken, but also worthless.

    • @MrGoatflakes
      @MrGoatflakes 5 ปีที่แล้ว +19

      @@evolicious did you not hear the part where Hubble objective mirror was limited to 2.4m *because they could use the same facilities used to grind mirrors for the literally hundreds of spy satellites that had been up there since the 60s?!* Yet until fairly recently the Hubble was of a kind. And even then much of its time was spent imaging unknown targets (presumably on earth) for "classified military missions".
      EDIT: Redundant words

    • @MrGoatflakes
      @MrGoatflakes 5 ปีที่แล้ว +13

      @iccabobb when the particles are smaller it doesn't change the energy released. Which is why people that know something about chemistry dismiss nano thermite as just the random word salad of buzzwords it appears to be. Nano particle size could make the reaction go faster, be easier to ignite or something like that, but it can't increase the energy per kilo you get from reacting aluminium solid with iron oxide to form molten iron metal and mostly alumina slag.
      The best you could hope for is for less unreacted aluminium and iron oxide at the end. Something that isn't a problem with this reaction if it's done in a suitable vessel as evidenced by thermite welding done routinely for at least seventy years by railways the world over.
      It could also theoretically make the go faster, which would make it more explosive, releasing the same energy over a shorter time. But this also doesn't stack up, because thermite isn't very energy dense, only about half as much heat energy by weight as TNT. And in fact the reason it's such a good incendiary for some applications is _because_ it reacts so slowly in comparison to an explosive. So it gets to transfer that heat to set fires.
      TNT itself by the way is about half as energy dense as gasoline or jet fuel. And fuels burn relatively slowly compared to TNT, releasing a far greater part of their heat to a larger structure, weakening it to collapse, rather than just blowing a chunk out of it.
      So four times the heat, thousands of times to transfer it, you do the math. _Any_ sort of thermite is going to be many, many times less effective at causing a structural collapse per weight than fuel. And we know from the flight plans and manifests there were thousands of pounds of it, literally multiple tons, burning, in fact raging out of control for tens of minutes across the entirety of multiple levels, on both towers, live on TV. And then they collapsed, also live on TV. And while jet fuel burning in air without oxygen or a forced blast of air, which again, maybe that quantity can make it's own superheated air blast, but regardless it can still heat it to a cherry red, causing it to lose all strength and collapse as we saw, _I_ saw, hundreds of millions if not billions of people saw, live on TV. Of a building whose plans, methods and materials of construction were well-known, a matter of public record many decades before the event, the subject of many films, books memoirs, etc.
      That's why people ignore and even despise truthers, because their theories ignore the facts and betray a staggering lack of technical competence.
      When there is enough unexplained and shaddy shit in the _official account,_ namely that some Saudis, some of whom "used to work for" Saudi intelligence, and some Egyptians did it with the blessings and prayers of one of the CIA's "former" top assets in Afghanistan.
      Which justified an invasion which eventually had US, British, Australian, etc. boots literally guarding poppy fields for the farmers, only to have some years later an opiate and opioid abuse epidemic across the West -not at all like- exactly like earlier conflicts and proxy wars in Central and South America followed by a cocaine abuse epidemic and before that a heroin abuse epidemic following the conflicts in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.
      All of it with the stink of the CIA and top military brass following it like the miasma of shit that follows grandma since President Trump took away her percosed.
      Open your fucking eyes man. Conspiracy theories that are able to be instantly dismissed by an educated man literally were invented by the CIA so they could get away with far, far, worse and point and laugh at anyone that tried to call them out.
      Basic science and modern history are more accessible than ever and often for free or at a low cost. Often from actual universities. Conspiracy sites are usually instantly spottable as completely full of bullshit by someone that applied themselves or even took an interest in highschool level science. There isn't now a reasonable excuse to parrot patent absurdities. If you do you are acting as the unwitting agent of those that want to throw even more and heavier chains around your neck by discrediting you and converting your powerful informed political voice into laughable mad ranting that no one will take seriously.
      Done to you with your active and enthusiastic participation by people that although they call themselves patriots and Americans are in fact an anathema, poisonous to and ideologically opposed to the idea that ordinary people should be the captain of their destiny. Which could be called that idea which the United States of America was founded and predicated on.

    • @MrGoatflakes
      @MrGoatflakes 5 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      @iccabobb why tho? Why use thermite, when it is clearly inferior to a jet full of fuel? To avoid detection maybe, because if you light it with something that can't be traced (I don't know what, perhaps a laser or some other compound that didn't have a recognisable chemical signature, you would just get well iron and aluminia. But it seems totally redundant, pointless, prone to discovery and well, pointlessly redundant...

  • @Foxbat131
    @Foxbat131 5 ปีที่แล้ว +403

    I appreciate your views and not getting into the political climate side of things, Scott. Thanks for keeping it squarely on the science!

    • @ProFettMoHaMett
      @ProFettMoHaMett 5 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      ProFett MoHaMett is not happy.

    • @Idiomatick
      @Idiomatick 5 ปีที่แล้ว +31

      Orange man bad.

    • @pappi8338
      @pappi8338 5 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Lol

    • @mankeez5892
      @mankeez5892 5 ปีที่แล้ว +6

      @@Idiomatick Orange man bad

    • @chunkyification
      @chunkyification 5 ปีที่แล้ว

      What? like Newton's 2nd law and thrust pushing against a vacuum?

  • @NapoleonDynamiteer
    @NapoleonDynamiteer 5 ปีที่แล้ว +146

    2019 Spy satellites - "Reads time on your watch"

    • @MaximeHaineault
      @MaximeHaineault 5 ปีที่แล้ว +19

      That's so 2009.. Now it actually synchronize with your watch to get better focus and audio while an AI is analyzing your emails ;)

    • @49Freds
      @49Freds 5 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      Yes...but it's easier to pull the time and everything else off your cell phone...

    • @deadringer6759
      @deadringer6759 5 ปีที่แล้ว +6

      The Russians just bought a clock.

    • @ossiedunstan4419
      @ossiedunstan4419 5 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      @@deadringer6759 Don`t you mean the russian`s just stole a watch plan from swatch and think their ahead of time now.

    • @brianhurt3801
      @brianhurt3801 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      Only in the movies, keep watching

  • @amiraizen6973
    @amiraizen6973 5 ปีที่แล้ว +15

    The resolution is probably better than 10cm/pixel:
    1. It was shot at almost 45 deg angle which adds a lot to the distance.
    2. Print and/or conversion to compressed format (such as jpg) which cause a lose of the fine details.
    3. The image might be presented as wavelet for fast loading on the PC screen, thus, might not show the highest wavelet scale.
    4. the image shown on twitter is probably compressed either.
    Thus, the original image might have much higher resolution than estimated.
    About the resolution limit:
    1. The lens diameter and wavelength determine the maximal classic resolution.
    2. the Atmosphere and satellite movement do attenuate the resolution. using non-linear deconvolution methods they might be successful reducing its effect drastically.
    3. there are computational methods for super resolution, so the classical limit might not be the absolute limit here.

    • @marvindebot3264
      @marvindebot3264 3 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

      It has to be. you can clearly see chainlink fence posts, those are usually 50cm/2 inches thick.

  • @pietrobinda
    @pietrobinda 5 ปีที่แล้ว +305

    Hello Scott! It's too much if I ask you to make a video on the Spy Satellite evolution? Spy space!

    • @lord_bermondsey
      @lord_bermondsey 5 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Sadly that is unlikely, though I bet Scott would do a bang up job. Either he has not worked in this filed, in which case he would be citing sources like Wikipedia, and some of that is wrong. Or he has, and his confidentiality agreements would prevent him from discussing it.

    • @hagerty1952
      @hagerty1952 5 ปีที่แล้ว +14

      Curious Droid did one about a year ago that was pretty accurate, although it was just the early programs (KH-1 to about KH-9). I used to work as ground support for KH-8, so I can vouch for the accuracy (at least for that one program).

    • @tommypetraglia4688
      @tommypetraglia4688 5 ปีที่แล้ว +6

      He could but then then last scene of the video would be of Scott being bagged up and dragged off by 2 MIB and hand reaching for the camera

    • @lord_bermondsey
      @lord_bermondsey 5 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@hagerty1952 Awesome! 8's were before my time. The earlier platforms were largely declassified, and so there is a good amount of info available. The SCI compartment that protected them was dismantled, too - which helped.

    • @trolleriffic
      @trolleriffic ปีที่แล้ว

      @@lord_bermondsey The KH-8s were incredible. Ground resolutions routinely better than 10cm from 1977 onwards and likely even as low as 6cm on occasion.

  • @4NIC8IN
    @4NIC8IN 5 ปีที่แล้ว +280

    That's just the spotting camera for the ZUMA satellite that "failed to reach orbit" last year.

    • @thomasmaxfield8953
      @thomasmaxfield8953 5 ปีที่แล้ว +59

      Yeah I'm certain they have better tech up there. My father worked on JWST years ago and when discussing the opening of the mirror with engineers from NG they admitted to already opening up a larger one...

    • @sebbes333
      @sebbes333 5 ปีที่แล้ว +14

      Yeah "failed" to reach orbit...
      (it was all planned, they took the next shuttle instead)

    • @4NIC8IN
      @4NIC8IN 5 ปีที่แล้ว +18

      @@thomasmaxfield8953 Haha ya. That's supposed to be the most advanced space tech ever built and the Grumman guys: "Oh ya, you should see the one we're playing with. It's already in space!" Which is kind of scarry when you think about it. If it's top secret and it has a bigger mirror... They're not looking at earth.

    • @4NIC8IN
      @4NIC8IN 5 ปีที่แล้ว +39

      @@sebbes333 Oh I'm sure it went up in the vehicle they said it went up in. I just find it strange that when SpaceX was asked about the loss of a 4 billion dollar satellite, they responded with "It wasn't our problem, the vehicle preformed nominally. So! You guys all coming out next week for the maiden flight of Falcon Heavy?" And then that was the last anybody ever heard about it... Haha, funny stuff

    • @DurzoBlunts
      @DurzoBlunts 5 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      @@thomasmaxfield8953 pretty same as my buddy said i knew who worked for westinghouse in the 60s to 80s.

  • @jsnyper4357
    @jsnyper4357 4 ปีที่แล้ว +9

    I was an Army Imagery Analyst 25 years ago, I can only imaging the image quality today.

    • @PhilbyFavourites
      @PhilbyFavourites 3 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      Sir that’s a great surname for a person involved in accuracy 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

  • @peter4210
    @peter4210 5 ปีที่แล้ว +791

    -Launches secrets spy satelite
    -Release secret picture on twitter
    -Internet reverse engineere satelites detail

    • @DeeSnow97
      @DeeSnow97 5 ปีที่แล้ว +178

      There were about 8 years between points 1 and 2 there, and about 8 seconds between 2 and 3

    • @zj6074
      @zj6074 5 ปีที่แล้ว +84

      @@DeeSnow97 And that's why you don't post spy satellite images on the internet. :P

    • @iQKyyR3K
      @iQKyyR3K 5 ปีที่แล้ว +11

      @@zj6074 but let's not tell 'em that, it's much better getting some of those details

    • @Y.M...
      @Y.M... 5 ปีที่แล้ว +17

      I like the guy, but we need a smarter and more tech savvy president next time lmao

    • @mitchellroberts7954
      @mitchellroberts7954 5 ปีที่แล้ว +64

      @@zj6074 releasing them means nothing. Counterintel from other nations knew years before this picture was released on twitter, it is their job after all.

  • @Astronomy_Live
    @Astronomy_Live 5 ปีที่แล้ว +94

    One correction; Thierry Legault has also taken images of astronauts on spacewalk during STS-133. He disputes Ralf's spacewalk images on the basis of diffraction limits and claims they're artifactual from over-enhancement of the raw images. It seems to me that Dawes' limit would allow a 10" telescope to resolve the length of an astronaut as slightly more than a point-like light source so I'm not sure I agree with Thierry's objections, but there's no disputing that Thierry has also imaged astronauts on EVA. It's also pretty undeniable that Thierry's images are of even higher quality, and he has also captured the X-37 and a few other classified satellites. For my part I'm also developing an open source satellite tracking program to simplify the process of tracking these objects with off-the-shelf telescope hardware by using computer vision techniques to rapidly autoguide on sufficiently bright satellites (magnitude 4 and brighter seems to be readily doable).

    • @aitorbleda8267
      @aitorbleda8267 5 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      You could also use automatic tracking and supersampling..

    • @Astronomy_Live
      @Astronomy_Live 5 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      @@aitorbleda8267 I played around with an experimental program to do automatic stacking and a rolling average stacked video. It works pretty well but since it doesn't filter out poor quality images, sometimes it can produce blurry results during moments of bad seeing or high vibrations. I'm still playing with it, but if I can figure out how to do quality estimation I could probably improve results quite a bit by dropping poor quality frames from the stack.

    • @zakelwe
      @zakelwe 5 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      Considering that they thought of asking whether a national US ground based tracking optical system could potentially see a broken RCC tile on STS 107 I'm guessing their photo's would knock Theirry and Ralfs "snappy's" into a cocked hat.
      I'm also guessing this photo is not the highest res that can be achieved. It has almost certainly be dumbed down.

    • @Blox117
      @Blox117 5 ปีที่แล้ว

      @Roy bob *CIA wants to know your location*

    • @Lotantio
      @Lotantio 5 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      "I'm developing a program that helps Average Joes who want to track spy satellites" Man I love the internet

  • @Treblaine
    @Treblaine 5 ปีที่แล้ว +162

    "You know the Hubble Telescope
    that looks up to the stars? They've got over a hundred spy satellites just as good looking down at us. That's classified." - Gene Hackman's character in Enemy Of The State.

    • @WN_Byers
      @WN_Byers 5 ปีที่แล้ว

      90s...

    • @nicestguyinhouse6112
      @nicestguyinhouse6112 5 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      Now it’s thousands and almost definitely better quality now aswel

    • @LaithSmadi1
      @LaithSmadi1 5 ปีที่แล้ว +25

      They've got millions , one is in your pocket , with at least two cameras and 2 mics .

    • @jihadjoe
      @jihadjoe 5 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      He knew what was goin' on!

    • @leandrog2785
      @leandrog2785 5 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      @@LaithSmadi1 That's not nearly as good as the Hubble. Seems like you didn't quite get OP's comment.

  • @James-hb8qu
    @James-hb8qu 5 ปีที่แล้ว +5

    In this one video Scott has demonstrated more journalism than all of the other media outlets combined. Pure facts with a context given for the goal of understanding and not pushing a narrative. It reinforces my view that journalism needs to be moved under the school of science/engineering as journalism is supposed to be about the unbiased collection, analysis, and presentation of information. Science, while not perfect and still sometimes influenced by politics, comes closest to that nowadays.

  • @LockeRobsta
    @LockeRobsta 5 ปีที่แล้ว +473

    Scott Manley - Leaving politics at the airlock.

    • @cmdann8
      @cmdann8 5 ปีที่แล้ว +27

      Yea. Not like it was trump that snapped that pic either. Shadow of the hand is too large.

    • @MichaelS-vy1ku
      @MichaelS-vy1ku 5 ปีที่แล้ว +7

      lol don't kid yourself, around the last election every video scott made had some angry rant about america in it and he still gets visibly irritated every time he talks about it.

    • @springbok4015
      @springbok4015 5 ปีที่แล้ว +18

      You can be sure he doesn’t agree with the Trump administration.

    • @springbok4015
      @springbok4015 5 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      vin 950 kind of necessary, otherwise you have an ignorant mass voting for the wrong thing. Unfortunately it’s necessary.

    • @springbok4015
      @springbok4015 5 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      @rusty nuts That's quite obviously not what I'm saying. We live in a world of hyper-influence via social media and in a difficult time politically. If people with a brain stop taking a stance and making it at least known when applicable, then we wind up with a greater sphere of influence for the side that doesn't need it. It's important either way and to pretend like politics doesn't feature is akin to burying your head in the sand and letting those without brain to continue trashing what's left.

  • @TheBreezus
    @TheBreezus 5 ปีที่แล้ว +28

    I love this channel...I came for the KSP content I stayed for the knowledge!

  • @dragonzander4443
    @dragonzander4443 5 ปีที่แล้ว +177

    This picture (of the picture) was taken in the white house situation room. You can see several other screens in the reflection and the chairs along the bottom. Interesting to see what goes on behind the screens.

    • @rachelslur8729
      @rachelslur8729 5 ปีที่แล้ว +7

      cool

    • @ShroomKeppie
      @ShroomKeppie 5 ปีที่แล้ว +35

      "Did you see that dog licking its balls in the background?"
      "First thing I noticed, man."

    • @blaster-zy7xx
      @blaster-zy7xx 5 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      Delusional claim.

    • @DeTuks
      @DeTuks 5 ปีที่แล้ว +8

      i can imagine trump taking the picture and posting in on tweeter while the rest of the adults are discussing important stuff..

    • @swirvinbirds1971
      @swirvinbirds1971 5 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      @@bigj2637 even if they failed to collude (they attempted to do so) they still showed an attempt to and a willingness to collude and then later came out and told us he would collude if he thought the information was good.
      Dirty as claimed and it's sick you all still defend his actions and words

  • @droplifter3435
    @droplifter3435 4 ปีที่แล้ว +27

    6:45 A Spy Satellite being launched on a rocket that 'does a burnout' at launch, then goes on to take a picture of an Iranian rocket that exploded on the pad...
    Absolutely no chill, USA.

    • @mytech6779
      @mytech6779 3 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      It needs to do a burnout to get enough traction for the required acceleration.

    • @honkhonk8009
      @honkhonk8009 2 ปีที่แล้ว

      Spy sattelite equivalent of a Hellcat bruh

  • @sebbes333
    @sebbes333 5 ปีที่แล้ว +429

    * aliens watching earth *
    "These Hu-Man-s must be stupid, their astronomy satellites are pointing in the wrong direction?!"
    (That's why they never visit, we are "That" planet)

    • @arsarma1808
      @arsarma1808 5 ปีที่แล้ว +26

      Sion wonder how aliens would get to space without ever developing an understanding the importance of recon.

    • @ankush-kl2nf
      @ankush-kl2nf 5 ปีที่แล้ว +40

      I know this is a joke but any alien looking at us will be looking at a planet where people are using sword to fight

    • @jetison333
      @jetison333 5 ปีที่แล้ว +24

      @@ankush-kl2nf Depends on how far away they are looking at us.

    • @flinchous5228
      @flinchous5228 5 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@ankush-kl2nf uh
      guns?

    • @elbarrineau
      @elbarrineau 5 ปีที่แล้ว +13

      @@flinchous5228 speed of light, if they're 1000's of light-years away then all they'd see is us fighting with swords

  • @thebigpicture2032
    @thebigpicture2032 5 ปีที่แล้ว +170

    That Klingon patch was dope!

  • @Daidalos777
    @Daidalos777 5 ปีที่แล้ว +124

    Everybody's talking about spy satellites and all i'm hearing ist Scott Manley getting involved in KSP2 :D

    • @drivejapan6293
      @drivejapan6293 5 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      I like your priorities! 👍

  • @moose2577
    @moose2577 5 ปีที่แล้ว +12

    I love the "better the devil you know" patch lol

  • @GalileoAV
    @GalileoAV 5 ปีที่แล้ว +107

    Love the pictures of burning man getting built at 1:45, good addition.

    • @5thgearouttahere
      @5thgearouttahere 5 ปีที่แล้ว +7

      Thanks mate I was curious about that. They did a nice job for a bunch of hippies with heatstroke 😋

    • @BrokenSymetry
      @BrokenSymetry 5 ปีที่แล้ว

      Right? I was totally convinced it was Burning man, but couldn't believe he snucked it in here

    • @MattH-wg7ou
      @MattH-wg7ou 5 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      @Spence P lol not sure if serious

    • @jonslg240
      @jonslg240 5 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      Wow thank you, I was wondering what that was. "I've never seen a refugee camp structured so well" I'd thought

    • @scottmanley
      @scottmanley  5 ปีที่แล้ว +14

      I live in the Bay Area - many of the people I know have been at least once.

  • @SmokiesDen
    @SmokiesDen 5 ปีที่แล้ว +180

    It's a shame even though the nro gave nasa 2 NOS keyholes to use as Hubble's back in 2011 we still don't have them outfitted and launched.

    • @gelu88
      @gelu88 5 ปีที่แล้ว +51

      We have one of them outfitted. It's the wfirst project which is an Infrared telescope like James Webb. No launch date left, but it's under construction

    • @andersforsgren3806
      @andersforsgren3806 5 ปีที่แล้ว +8

      There were quite some rebuilding to do, and the cost of that.
      As a spy satellite do not quite do the same kind of work needed for astronomy,
      I happened to read all about that at the time, even the somewhat crazy idea of sending one of them to Mars.
      And that idea were not all nuts, as it could do surface imagining in a quite similar way then - less changes needed.
      But yes one might fly as Faiz pointed out.

    • @seanwatts8342
      @seanwatts8342 5 ปีที่แล้ว +6

      We DO. They're just not publicized. Trump saw a MUCH BETTER image than he tweeted.

    • @maytronix7201
      @maytronix7201 5 ปีที่แล้ว

      Do you three have your black belt in scary nerd knowledge? Cuz your talking above the heads of billions... you know, the rest of us...

    • @seanwatts8342
      @seanwatts8342 5 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@maytronix7201 No, just years of military service.

  • @tomrobertson3236
    @tomrobertson3236 5 ปีที่แล้ว +15

    Look at the crisp shadows from the poles
    Gives a better idea of resolution

    • @JosePerez-bi4ge
      @JosePerez-bi4ge 5 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      Yeah and the probably degraded the photo quality and shifted it a bit... One can only imagine the quality that truly exists

    • @marvindebot3264
      @marvindebot3264 3 หลายเดือนก่อน

      Or the actual poles, fence posts are not six inches across they are two inch usually and you can count them easily.

  • @peccatumDei
    @peccatumDei 5 ปีที่แล้ว +32

    Scott, if you've not been to the Air Force Museum near Dayton, Ohio, you definitely must go.

  • @Tesskr95
    @Tesskr95 5 ปีที่แล้ว +85

    Jeesh, sub-10cm resolution. I did a bit of work on earth observation images during my internship, and that was the kind of resolution I could only dream off (golden standard for civilian images seems to be around 50cm for comparison).

    • @Y.M...
      @Y.M... 5 ปีที่แล้ว +19

      My old man used to work with the folks who make this kind of hardware back in the 70s. Cutting edge used to be being able to see the infrared signatures of aircraft on a runway. That stuff is ancient compared to today. I can't even imagine.

    • @klardfarkus3891
      @klardfarkus3891 5 ปีที่แล้ว +31

      The government funds a lot of technology development through DARPA. Developers agree to provide secret government the sole use of the technology for like ten years and then they are free to sell publicly and make tons of money off technology funded by taxpayers. So the stuff we think is so new coming into the market now has been used by the CIA for ten years.

    • @johnfrancisdoe1563
      @johnfrancisdoe1563 5 ปีที่แล้ว +19

      Rau Kenneth There's also a clause in US patent law, that if your invention gets classified, you get those extra years added to the usual patent duration.

    • @knownas2017
      @knownas2017 5 ปีที่แล้ว +18

      @@klardfarkus3891 So you're telling me the CIA already has a PS6? Kappa

    • @death_parade
      @death_parade 5 ปีที่แล้ว +7

      10 cm is seriously amazing. Indian spy satellites have only managed 25 cm so far. Better than the civilian gold standard you talk about, but much behind NRO. We need to improve............

  • @stevepoling
    @stevepoling 3 ปีที่แล้ว +5

    The SALT 2 treaty placed constraints on the diameter of Soviet ICBMs. Verifying compliance fell to the KH-11 satellites. To do this, the KH-11 had to have a resolution of 5 cm. This figure (from decades ago) is confirmed by your analysis of these images.

    • @trolleriffic
      @trolleriffic ปีที่แล้ว

      5cm was also the lower limit imposed by the atmosphere itself. The KH-8 got down to about 6cm in its very best images and was routinely better than 10cm from 1977 onwards.

  • @cola98765
    @cola98765 5 ปีที่แล้ว +383

    So you want to tell me US have more hubble-like telescopes, but all but one are pointed at the ground?
    EDIT: BOY this comment exploded...
    Just so everybody knows I *do* know that US have spy satellites. What I *didn't* know is that they are this large.
    I *do* know about this maximum resolution thingy, but I didn't bother to calculate it for 10cm resolution from 400km orbit for visible light.
    I know those telescopes are completely different in design, only similar mirror and general form factor, but even if pointed at stars they wouldn't give any usable image.
    I'm not mad at US for having spy telescopes. For me it's simply an impressive piece of technology.

    • @aoi9365
      @aoi9365 5 ปีที่แล้ว +142

      Yup. They've built a bunch over the years, some likely powered by rtg's or even next-gen reactors (depending what size tin-foil hat you're comfortable wearing). But they're not building anymore Hubble telescopes 'cuz Freedom! That's what a few hundred billions dollars of space program would look like; five hubbles, three JWST, multiple space-plane launches, etc etc

    • @surprisedchar2458
      @surprisedchar2458 5 ปีที่แล้ว +93

      Well how else are we supposed to accurately identify British tea shipments to throw into Boston Harbor?

    • @Cragified
      @Cragified 5 ปีที่แล้ว +88

      Same mirror size but completely different performance design. These things couldn't see much beyond NEO unlike Hubble for a massive laundry list of reasons that you'll have to beg Scott to go over cause I don't have the time.

    • @Bill_N_ATX
      @Bill_N_ATX 5 ปีที่แล้ว +55

      tpodole, In a word, Yes. Not only was the HST built using the same basic mirror as the KH satellites, it shared the same basic bus design. The difference in the mirrors and designs is in focal length. The HST is designed to look at an infinite distance and the KH are designed for a few hundred KM. It’s thought that the newer generation imaging says have multiple mirrors in an array so that they can imagine ever smaller objects. In addition they also use different wavelengths to light which are then computer shifted for analysis.

    • @jshepard152
      @jshepard152 5 ปีที่แล้ว +38

      It's not aliens who have nukes pointed at our population centers.

  • @richiecuzzz1
    @richiecuzzz1 5 ปีที่แล้ว +60

    Imagine the satellites in the works or the one's we dont know about. Great video on the capabilities of U.S. spy satellites!

    • @joecambodia1326
      @joecambodia1326 5 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      Yes, now are enemies know exactly what’s looking at them and can take counter measures. See how that works?

    • @another1commenter770
      @another1commenter770 5 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Id like to think its hyperspectral analysis ranging from low infrared to gamma ray allowing density, material, and chemical composure at a 10cm per pixel rate however it will just be 5cm pixels in sudo color and infra red over huge area's with much higher data rate. like the gigapixel photos but from space.

    • @lord_bermondsey
      @lord_bermondsey 5 ปีที่แล้ว +17

      @@joecambodia1326 Any enemy that did not know that in 2019 is simply not paying attention.

    • @iowafarmboy
      @iowafarmboy 5 ปีที่แล้ว +6

      @@lord_bermondsey precisely. Any enemy worth their salt probably has every spy satellite VERY accurately tracked and treat them as though they can count your nose hairs.
      Probably why the US had the "failed" ZUMBA sat launch. They probably even had a dummy sat that they let fall back to earth.

    • @lord_bermondsey
      @lord_bermondsey 5 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      @@iowafarmboy I have been surprised by how frequently none of the collection targets seem to care. I think at this point everyone just assumes that there is an overhead EO / IR / SAR asset at most times, and you just have to get on with it.

  • @TheBushdoctor68
    @TheBushdoctor68 5 ปีที่แล้ว +30

    9:38 look at that paint burn from the rocket before it takes of! Scorched the left side completely black.

    • @toasterbathboi6298
      @toasterbathboi6298 5 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      It burns the foam on the delta 4, which is a normal thing for delta launches

    • @TheBushdoctor68
      @TheBushdoctor68 5 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@toasterbathboi6298 Oh, it's a foam layer, not paint? I had no idea. It looks quite amazing going up in flames though.

    • @toasterbathboi6298
      @toasterbathboi6298 5 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      @@TheBushdoctor68 it is quite beautiful I must say, especially the one launch were it was actually burning for a few seconds after liftoff

    • @TheBushdoctor68
      @TheBushdoctor68 5 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      @@toasterbathboi6298 Oh wow.. Glad I'm not an astronaut. I would instantly max out the capacity of my space suit to absorb fluids. ;)

  • @GoatzAreEpic
    @GoatzAreEpic 5 ปีที่แล้ว +81

    I love being spied on, makes me feel important and wanted. Thanks Sattelites

    • @JerryEricsson
      @JerryEricsson 5 ปีที่แล้ว

      If you do no wrong, you should never fear the police.

    • @BrownOnline
      @BrownOnline 4 ปีที่แล้ว +10

      @@JerryEricsson Unironically using a fascist phrase? Did you not pay attention in school?

    • @JerryEricsson
      @JerryEricsson 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@BrownOnline Indeed, I paid attention in college, I paid attention in the police academy, and I paid attention for the 24 years I served on the police department.

    • @portaccio
      @portaccio 4 ปีที่แล้ว +6

      @@JerryEricsson that explains you penchent for Nazis slogans.

    • @kennyg1358
      @kennyg1358 4 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      @@JerryEricsson because police are the perfect arbiters of right and wrong.

  • @MrWhiteVzla
    @MrWhiteVzla 5 ปีที่แล้ว +69

    That's the most interesting tweet President Trump has made so far. And thanks to Scott, we learned all the cool tech behind the photos!

    • @woolfoma
      @woolfoma 5 ปีที่แล้ว +24

      Idk, Cofefe

    • @tommypetraglia4688
      @tommypetraglia4688 5 ปีที่แล้ว +9

      @@woolfoma
      That's covfefe to you my good man.
      But lest we forget "Presidential"
      Frickn illiterate moron

    • @MIck-M
      @MIck-M 5 ปีที่แล้ว

      @jeffmack57 It's 'fly safe' not 'safe space' ya tool.

  • @jshanker2005
    @jshanker2005 3 ปีที่แล้ว +13

    *Why these rockets are not called Phoenix is beyond me*

  • @worldsedge4991
    @worldsedge4991 5 ปีที่แล้ว +19

    I didn’t know about the previous commercial images. I think “somebody” saw them and said “Pssht! I can blow these out of the water!” - Kinda like that old story about an SR71 over Los Angeles subtly bragging about their velocity.

    • @NemoConsequentae
      @NemoConsequentae 5 ปีที่แล้ว +9

      The SR71 wasn't going to say anything, until the Navy fighter trumped all the civilian aircraft. Then it was just an Air Force v Navy thing...
      It was an early flight in the pairing of the pilot & navigator & the pilot who wrote about it wasn't yet sure if they would work well together. He wanted to put the Navy pilot in place, but wasn't sure how his new nav would take it. Then he knew they were a good match, as he heard his nav make the ground speed request...

    • @majorwingnut8879
      @majorwingnut8879 5 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      @@NemoConsequentae LA speed check

  • @artistjoh
    @artistjoh 5 ปีที่แล้ว +4

    I like the contrast between mythology and reality. The urban myths suggest that the satellites can read the number plates on cars and presumably determine whether or not we ordered the steak at an outdoor restaurant. The reality is amazing enough, but a long way from reading our number plates, seeing the shine on our bald heads, and seeing if we are wearing jeans or not.

    • @DoktorWeasel
      @DoktorWeasel 5 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      And the power of the myth is on full display in the comments here, with people insisting this must be one of the low quality photos for public consumption because they 'know' satellites can read license plates.

    • @Cousin-Eddy
      @Cousin-Eddy 5 ปีที่แล้ว

      Never show all your cards until it's time for war

    • @trolleriffic
      @trolleriffic ปีที่แล้ว

      @@Cousin-Eddy There aren't any cards when the laws of physics very clearly limit your capability.

  • @Toqueville2023
    @Toqueville2023 3 หลายเดือนก่อน

    Learning more and more. Wonderful to hear someone who enjoys what they are discussing.The enjoyment actually communicates intellectual interest.

  • @Deamon93IT
    @Deamon93IT 5 ปีที่แล้ว +38

    This brings the memory to when Picard told the Cardassians "we'll be watching".
    Nerd references aside the image is quite impressive, especially if compared to the others made by civilian satellites.

    • @captainyossarian388
      @captainyossarian388 5 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      Why do you think the Remler Array was near the Cardassian border in TNG? :) Picard can espouse all he wants that it wasn't used to spy on the Cardassians, but I'm sure some of the time it WAS.

    • @acardenasjr1340
      @acardenasjr1340 5 ปีที่แล้ว

      We all know the cardassians were funneling weapons.

    • @PaddyMcMe
      @PaddyMcMe 5 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Lol people been watching the Kardashians for years now.

    • @TheBreezus
      @TheBreezus 5 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@PaddyMcMe lol so meta...

    • @ATW878
      @ATW878 5 ปีที่แล้ว

      HA! watched that episode yesterday. "We'll be watching" then swivels chair menacingly

  • @acestapp1884
    @acestapp1884 5 ปีที่แล้ว +9

    That orbit would allow them to use stereo imaging to extract 3D models of the earth's surface.

    • @scottmanley
      @scottmanley  5 ปีที่แล้ว +12

      They already do this.

    • @StevenBanks123
      @StevenBanks123 4 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      If only we could reach the surface and make even MORE detailed measurements.

  • @Captain1nsaneo
    @Captain1nsaneo 5 ปีที่แล้ว +2

    For anyone interested in the legal angle; the president posting something classified happened several years earlier in this presidency and it was resolved by pointing out that the president is the ultimate source of classification. So if the president makes something pubic it becomes declassified by that action.

  • @TraditionalAnglican
    @TraditionalAnglican 5 ปีที่แล้ว +5

    Scott - This is the LOW RESOLUTION image from the satellite! Any reconnaissance satellite made after 2001 should be able to get 5 cm/pixel...

    • @trolleriffic
      @trolleriffic ปีที่แล้ว

      That's been possible since the 80s.

  • @dennismckee6162
    @dennismckee6162 5 ปีที่แล้ว +16

    "Better the devil you know" ! That's rather a chilling motto for a government program. Referring to the patch with Latin, "Melior diabolus quem scies" and Phoenix rising from the flames.

    • @trolleriffic
      @trolleriffic ปีที่แล้ว

      It's not really when you know the story behind it. Because Boeing screwed up the FIA program, the optical part of it was taken off them and given back to Lockheed who ended up doing a kind of emergency build of a pair of modernised KH-11 satellites to bring the constellation up to date. These came in way under budget and showed that as far as the NRO were concerned it was a case of "Better the devil you know (Lockheed)" than the devil you don't know (Boeing).

  • @pliskenmovie
    @pliskenmovie 5 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    Spent 9/2 at the Museum of Flight. Got really emotional looking at Buzz Aldrin's helmet and gloves. Seeing the enormity of an F1 engine in person was quite the experience.

  • @OldCurmudgeon3DP
    @OldCurmudgeon3DP 5 ปีที่แล้ว +18

    Always be mindful of your image composition when taking photos. A picture really is worth a thousand words; a novel when you look past the obvious content.

  • @polaritDK
    @polaritDK 5 ปีที่แล้ว +23

    I have always believed hubble to be a keyhole, pointing the 'wrong' way

    • @leandrog2785
      @leandrog2785 5 ปีที่แล้ว +8

      Keyholes are Hubbles pointing the wrong way

    • @davyautrey
      @davyautrey 5 ปีที่แล้ว

      Kenneth Due I wonder if that’s why they ground the mirror wrong on Hubble and needed to send up the repair mission.?

    • @trolleriffic
      @trolleriffic ปีที่แล้ว

      @@davyautrey No. They're quite different. The Hubble mirror was made by Perkin Elmer who had never made a space-qualified mirror of that size before - genius move by NASA to give the contract to a company that had obviously low-balled the bid, which had no track record of making these optics and which was proposing a totally new method of making and testing the mirror. The stupidity is off the charts! Meanwhile the backup mirror contract was give to Kodak who had made all the spy satellite optics and still do (the division responsible was sold off and is now part of L3Harris), and who unsurprisingly made it absolutely perfect.
      Seriously, what is the point of changing the Hubble design to make use of existing proven manufacturing capability and then not giving the contract to the company with that capability? I can't begin to comprehend how anyone at NASA thought that made sense. The fact is the agency didn't get anything like the criticism it deserved for that screw up.

  • @CorrieBergeron
    @CorrieBergeron ปีที่แล้ว +1

    In the mid-1950s the USAF developed the Boston Camera for use on the massive RB-36 reconnaissance bomber. It used 18x36-inch film and had a focal length of 20 feet. I've seen a photograph of a golf course taken by the camera from 40,000 ft. You can read the Spalding logo on the golf ball. That was 70 years ago.

  • @threeparots1
    @threeparots1 5 ปีที่แล้ว +14

    If you are still in the Seattle area, there is the Museum of a Flight Restoration Centre and they have a Comet 4C being restored..along with many other near items. It is in Everett on the south side of Paine Field in a nondescript hangar .

  • @alexeikafe5388
    @alexeikafe5388 5 ปีที่แล้ว +4

    When I saw the explosion, I RAN

  • @jarodstrain8905
    @jarodstrain8905 5 ปีที่แล้ว +2

    Scott, I love the way that you can take a crazy moment and look at the beauty of accomplishment.

  • @user-vi3fy2cc9z
    @user-vi3fy2cc9z 3 ปีที่แล้ว +3

    2021: face recognition sattelites

  • @interstellarsurfer
    @interstellarsurfer 5 ปีที่แล้ว +39

    So this is what a 'Hubble class' imager looks like, when pointed at Earth.
    I bet the image x monitor x cellphone camera conversion lost 95% of the useful resolution. 🤣

    • @michaelbiggs4313
      @michaelbiggs4313 5 ปีที่แล้ว +6

      It is completely impossible to tell the maximum resolution from this image. They wanted the output to be a usable size. That means it was probably reduced from the original image. Considering the reflection it looks like it was a poster that was hung on the wall. The stupid part is, Iran can use it to tell much more than we can. The usable resolution is roughly the width of the top rail of the fence or better.

    • @Choice777
      @Choice777 5 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      The top of the fence at 7 o clock can't be more than 4 or 5 cm thick and it's in the photo.

  • @brunonikodemski2420
    @brunonikodemski2420 3 หลายเดือนก่อน

    I worked the last of the Deltas and Titans, where we used old assets from years past, and refurbished them to be used reliably for the last launches. This was hard, since some of these missile assets were so old, that the plastic insulation in some of the wiring would actually crumble off, when pushed lightly. We replaced thousands of pieces of wire, checked all electrical components, replaced many, and gave them a "mild" shaker test to verify durability. To my knowledge, none of the boxes which we rebuilt ever failed, nor did the missiles. The last Titan-4 launch had many of our crew at the base, to see the final farewell of these system, the most reliable ever built.

  • @OlliWilkman
    @OlliWilkman 5 ปีที่แล้ว +7

    The Latin motto "melior diabolus quem scies" means "better the devil that you see", which is a twist on the old phrase "better the devil you know", i.e. a bad thing you know about is better than one you don't.

    • @mitchellroberts7954
      @mitchellroberts7954 5 ปีที่แล้ว

      Keep your enemies closer ;) so you can see them

    • @trolleriffic
      @trolleriffic ปีที่แล้ว

      @@mitchellroberts7954 It's a reference to Lockheed and Boeing, not Iran. Boeing screwed up the FIA program and the optical part of it was taken off them and given back to Lockheed who did an emergency build of two updated KH-11 satellites so the NRO were the ones realising that the devil they know is the better option.

  • @SocksWithSandals
    @SocksWithSandals 5 ปีที่แล้ว +11

    When you get a clear night it's amazing how many polar satellites you can see now. Like one every couple of minutes.

    • @ChiDraconis
      @ChiDraconis 5 ปีที่แล้ว

      This is correct; On any evening - selected to show the effect; I will guess at 10:1 over airborne

    • @cplpetergriffin1583
      @cplpetergriffin1583 5 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Yep, as someone who lives in the middle of nowhere with no lights....I can confirm

    • @alainmaury5941
      @alainmaury5941 5 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Even more if you observe close to the pole. Remember that during a cruise in Antarctica, I saw at one moment about ten satellites in the sky at the same time.

    • @jujenho
      @jujenho 5 ปีที่แล้ว

      I am 70 now. In the late fifties, when the first satellites were launched, people used to sit down in plazas to watch them pass overhead at night. Although there were so few of them, it was relatively easy to spot one, you need not wait too much. I wondered why they are nor visible now. The answer seems clear: Virtually nobody looks for them any more. They have become too common.

  • @illuminati.official
    @illuminati.official 5 ปีที่แล้ว +2

    If this KH-11 is getting close to the theoretical (i.e. diffraction-limited) resolution for a 2.4m primary mirror in space-based images depicting features on the ground, that would seem to imply that it is using adaptive optics to compensate for atmospheric distortion. That's a pretty interesting fact.

    • @gordonrichardson2972
      @gordonrichardson2972 5 ปีที่แล้ว

      TIMELESS USERNAME Hubble did not need adaptive optics since it was above the atmosphere. All large telescopes that look through the atmosphere (up or down) will benefit. Looking up is harder, because most of the turbulence is close to the surface.

  • @LibertarianJRT
    @LibertarianJRT 5 ปีที่แล้ว +17

    Never underestimate the value of actually seeing something to confirm what sig-int and hum-int tells you is happening.

  • @thedarkcorrupter
    @thedarkcorrupter 5 ปีที่แล้ว +12

    That resolution is insane for 8 years old spy satellite tech, but I'll be honest I'm equally interested in how your visit with the team working on ksp went. Did you give advice or was it a just meeting the team kinda thing?

    • @trolleriffic
      @trolleriffic ปีที่แล้ว

      The NRO was routinely achieving better than 10cm ground resolutions with their KH-8 Gambit 3 satellites from 1977 onwards. Those images were in B&W only though.

  • @Noone-jn3jp
    @Noone-jn3jp 9 หลายเดือนก่อน

    When Scott calls you a “Gaming Nerd” it’s high praise

  • @mumblbeebee6546
    @mumblbeebee6546 5 ปีที่แล้ว +5

    Thanks for this, especially the reference to Ralf, that sent me into some rabbit holes... *click* ... *click* .... "how did it get so late??!"
    So apparently some satellites in highly elliptic orbits have their perigee below the orbit of the ISS... I never got my head around orbital mechanics, but yours evidently does not struggle at all. Worth a video about how the 'traffic' works up there? Are there traffic wardens? Is there a 'orbital commuters forecast'? I suppose any new object in orbit means everyone else has to buy a newer supercomputer to model all of the orbits for a few decades ahead, before even thinking of adding to the crowd?

    • @MrMattumbo
      @MrMattumbo 5 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      This would be very interesting, I always wondered about that after my KSP save started getting more and more choked with debris and satellites I started having near misses within a Km or two (and that was just when I was paying attention). IRL it must be a massive undertaking to catalog and track everything up there to prevent accidents (especially for the ISS). I imagine they also want to keep enough separation so that the Russians can't use DSLRs to photograph a passing Spysat from the ISS (gotta be mindful of your roommates lol).

    • @johnfrancisdoe1563
      @johnfrancisdoe1563 5 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      MrMattumbo The tracking is apparently done from one of the main NORAD facilities. Probably because they need to know which radar blips are not incoming nukes. Of cause the USSR had a similar team, and there's a UN treaty about how to register your spacecraft before launch.

    • @mumblbeebee6546
      @mumblbeebee6546 5 ปีที่แล้ว

      John Francis Doe I read that too, and it makes sense. What I am interested in specifically is the modelling of trajectories for the future. I you want to place a new object into a specific orbit, you need to calculate the risk of unintentional encounters. I know space is huge and mostly empty - but not that empty anymore, and with design and build time of 10-20 years for a satellite, that surely must be
      art of the funding evaluations?

  • @O-M-0
    @O-M-0 5 ปีที่แล้ว +9

    Thank you Scott, very cool!

  • @DurzoBlunts
    @DurzoBlunts 5 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    Ive known westinghouse engineers from the cold war era and it was crazy hearing his stories about what was capable then. I can only imagine this isnt the most current or best in our Arsenal.

  • @gcm4312
    @gcm4312 5 ปีที่แล้ว +12

    I hope there wasn't any loss of life on the Iranian space program... Brazil had a similar accident in 2003 and it basically killed it's space program along with the 21 dead engineers..

  • @nedlabarbara1898
    @nedlabarbara1898 5 ปีที่แล้ว +4

    I was told in the 80's that if you where reading a newspaper a satellite image would have sufficient resolution to tell what paper you where holding.
    I don't think what we are shown is anywhere close to what can be seen.

    • @stormtrooper9404
      @stormtrooper9404 5 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Ned Labarbara Well... since my last check,physics laws did’nt change in these last 30 years.
      Unless you are watching too many CSI’s ;)

    • @nedlabarbara1898
      @nedlabarbara1898 5 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@stormtrooper9404 I didn't say you could read the text. Just that you could tell what edition it was.

  • @guardrailbiter
    @guardrailbiter ปีที่แล้ว +1

    alternate salutation:
    "I'm Scott Manley... and the NSA is definitely keeping an eye on me."

  • @Name-ps9fx
    @Name-ps9fx 5 ปีที่แล้ว +22

    Imagine the first triple-rocket booster launch....just as the main engines light up, several fires appear about halfway up, then the fire engulfs the bodies of the rockets....finally the main engines lift the craft up and away from impending doom...
    To me, it was reminiscent of the Challenger booster failure.

    • @Rems19
      @Rems19 5 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      If the first time you fire your boosters is the time you actually launch your rocket, you have 100% chance of failure because you didn't test anything :D

    • @bik3r230
      @bik3r230 5 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Instead of the main engines lifting the craft up and away from impending doom they lifted it up into impending doom

    • @theashpilez
      @theashpilez 5 ปีที่แล้ว

      VZ_ 342 Challenger was frozen solid. Thirty foot iceicles knocked off before launch.. The designers knew this would occur . Human error

  • @anluifb
    @anluifb 5 ปีที่แล้ว +6

    Small correction: the resolution is actually set by atmospheric seeing, NOT the diffraction limit.
    That is, the fluctuations in the index of refraction of different blobs of atmosphere make it so the light does not follow a straight path. This is the same reason that stars twinkle. The diffraction limit in radians is roughly wavelength divided by mirror diameter. If this was the limiting factor, then making a larger spy satellite would give better resolution.

  • @Jetpower485
    @Jetpower485 5 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    Piecing together what satellite took the image blew my mind. You can keep your TV detective dramas, I want more of this kind of sleuthing, in space!

  • @Joe-xq3zu
    @Joe-xq3zu 5 ปีที่แล้ว +27

    @6:00 ". . . It was a contract given to Boeing, and five years later they were ridiculously behind schedule and over budget."
    This seems to be the case with just about every government contract to boeing in the last 50 years, WHY do we keep giving money to these companies?!?! These Cost+ contracts have got to stop, because all they seem to do is encourage companies to drag their feet and drive up costs as much as they can get away with.

    • @ZimZam131
      @ZimZam131 5 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      You may not believe this, but cost overruns and schedule delays are caused by government dictated processes. I've been working for govt contacts my whole career and we can always get the job done faster and cheaper if we could just do it our way. But we only get paid if we follow the the process.

    • @jlwilliams
      @jlwilliams 5 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Depending on what size tinfoil hat you wear, it might be possible to speculate that some of these “over-budget” projects are just a way of covertly funding black programs.

  • @peterispuritis
    @peterispuritis 5 ปีที่แล้ว +4

    Thanks, Scott, as soon as I caught the news, I was sure that you'll cover it. And you did. You're like family.

  • @floydfanatics9965
    @floydfanatics9965 5 ปีที่แล้ว

    Amazing! No politics whatsoever, in the video or in the comments. Scott Manley, the only peaceful part of TH-cam 😊✌

  • @dunamoose3446
    @dunamoose3446 5 ปีที่แล้ว +7

    I was in Seattle a couple days ago!
    Also went to museum!

  • @loritracy1385
    @loritracy1385 5 ปีที่แล้ว +14

    Are we supposed to see this?! I'm smart enough to have found it facinating & too stupid to understand most of it! Carry on...

  • @clark9992
    @clark9992 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    Starting back in the 60s, I remember the public go-to source for information on satellite orbits, secret launch sites etc, came from, believe it or not, Kettering Grammar School, in Kettering England. I don't know if they still carry on the tradition. I haven't heard them mentioned in ages.

    • @williamchamberlain2263
      @williamchamberlain2263 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      Weird.
      My dad lived in Corby for a few years. No space launch info, but he said their was pretty good fishing round that way.

  • @WhitefoxSpace
    @WhitefoxSpace 5 ปีที่แล้ว +12

    I really wanted to include this segment into my weekly space news video, trying to dodge the politics. Thanks for your take as always Scott.

  • @homomorphic
    @homomorphic 5 ปีที่แล้ว +4

    I was on site for the NROL-71 launch

    • @brianwaffle
      @brianwaffle 5 ปีที่แล้ว

      I live near VAFB and the launches from the south side of base are an awesome sight. And now that Space X has SLC 4 (Space Launch Complex) we have been getting some awesome views of the launch and landings. SLC 3 has done some beautiful shots and we look forward to many more.

  • @rommelsantiago2899
    @rommelsantiago2899 5 ปีที่แล้ว +2

    Satellites in the 80s can read the license plates on a car and thats a fact. That pic does not give a true resolution thats why it was cleared for public view

    • @turningpoint6643
      @turningpoint6643 5 ปีที่แล้ว

      I've read that same statement a few times in various places. "READ" is the operative word though since I've seen zero proof its true. And to actually read a license plate the satellite would have to be positioned at a large angle to any license plate to read it. That angle means a much greater distance to the object than directly over head. As Scott already pointed out in this video, photo images can only be zoomed in so much before the optical physics and maximum data per pixel make the image blurry. So I very much suspect it was untrue in the 80's and maybe still impossible to do so even today. I've been wrong a few times before though. :-)

  • @daffidavit
    @daffidavit 5 ปีที่แล้ว +12

    An "eight year old" snapped this picture. Can you imagine what an adult can do?

    • @mostlymessingabout
      @mostlymessingabout 5 ปีที่แล้ว

      Run a country? 🤔

    • @snuffeldjuret
      @snuffeldjuret 5 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      @bingo_fuel but an adult would be able to less than an 8 year old then.

    • @ankush-kl2nf
      @ankush-kl2nf 5 ปีที่แล้ว

      @bingo_fuel no

    • @daffidavit
      @daffidavit 5 ปีที่แล้ว

      @bingo_fuel Yeah, but what can the new ones do? Nobody has a clue but those in the know. And you don't know.

  • @superdupergrover9857
    @superdupergrover9857 5 ปีที่แล้ว +5

    Just curious, do we know for certain (aside from the incredible coincidence) that this picture was taken from a satellite, and not, say, a secret stealth aerial drone that happen to be in the same spot in the sky relative to the launch site?
    BTW, I am not saying it actually was a drone. I am just curious as to the *theoretical* possibilities.

    • @scottmanley
      @scottmanley  5 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      Occam’s razor cares little for your conjecture

    • @superdupergrover9857
      @superdupergrover9857 5 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      @@scottmanley I did say "aside from the incredible coincidence", but yes, I feel the razor burn.

    • @tonysouthern3017
      @tonysouthern3017 5 ปีที่แล้ว

      Doesn’t Occam’s razor only kick in if all the other possibilities are explained away? I think the question sdg posted has merit.

    • @Stopes.
      @Stopes. 2 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      That’s like arguing that the audio recording from a wire tap could be from a guy who broke into the house, hid in a closet, recorded the conversation, then got back out. Why? When we already have devices planted/abilities to remotely activate nearby cell phone mic’s etc.

    • @trolleriffic
      @trolleriffic ปีที่แล้ว

      @@tonysouthern3017 Why fly a secret drone in Iranian airspace where it could be spotted and possibly shot down (either way it would cause a major incident) when a satellite can do the job risk free?

  • @74360CUDA
    @74360CUDA 5 ปีที่แล้ว

    Hard to say if this was the best Scott Manley video ever but it's certainly in the top 5. I learn so much and said WOW 57 times.

  • @BaronVonQuiply
    @BaronVonQuiply 5 ปีที่แล้ว +10

    08:15 Almost creepy. You think you're all alone, 200 miles away from prying eyes, and there's some guy with a telescope looking at you.

  • @jshepard152
    @jshepard152 5 ปีที่แล้ว +17

    How cool. The Boeing plant tour in Everett is interesting if you haven't been.

    • @ParkerUAS
      @ParkerUAS 5 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      A full day could be spent at Everett between Boeing and Flying Heritage. Both are worth it for anyone with even a remote interest.

    • @Psibr1
      @Psibr1 5 ปีที่แล้ว

      The Flying Heritage Combat Armor Museum is certainly worth a visit if you're doing the Boeing tour. Something like 1/2 a mile away. Ton of walking for the Boeing tour just to get to the places where you can do an overview of the place. Insanely huge building.

  • @piotrd.4850
    @piotrd.4850 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    "Bro, can you spare a Hubble?" - at some point NRO donated two spare sattelites to NASA and I think at least one of them is (or was) in process of refurbrishment and rebuilding into a telescope.

    • @scottmanley
      @scottmanley  4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      And one of those is being converted to WFIRST except The whitehouse keeps cutting its funding.

  • @fuckednegativemind
    @fuckednegativemind 5 ปีที่แล้ว +4

    There is also Thierry Legault (a french astrophotographer famous for his photos of the ISS, spy sat and other man-made and celestial objects) who has captured an astronaut on EVA during STS-133.
    He also have really detailled images of Lacrosse satellites, X-37B and KH-13 (USA-186).

  • @altebander2767
    @altebander2767 5 ปีที่แล้ว +3

    Maybe their new systems use something like synthetic aperture radar. I think ESA recently published some images of their system and it was even able to show the fuel inside of fuel tanks.

    • @MrGoatflakes
      @MrGoatflakes 5 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      I'm guessing it has every capability they could imagine and fit to available launch vehicles and that made sense through the atmospheric window. I'm talking the equivalent of side scan/SAR radar but at optical frequencies, IR, microwave and perhaps terahertz (don't know the window on that), using the sun, moon, stars and even terrestrial EMF sources as the source of illumination and possibly using real time full spectral analysis of each pixel.
      Also they have meta materials that have a negative refractive index published in open literature in the microwave, which apparently through a process I'm not aware of can break the diffraction limit, and image features both substantially smaller than a wavelength and image features with greater resolution that should be expected from the diffraction limit. This is old news from 2009 or something,
      I was sceptical of the last so I discussed it with one of my lecturers that was a chemist turned computer scientist and he said he was also sceptical and he discussed it with another of the faculty that was a solid state physicist turned computer scientist and he said that it was indeed possible and the previously supposed hard diffraction limit and limit against resolving things smaller than what is it? 1/4 wavelength at best? were both predicated on the supposed non existence of negative refractive indexes at the time those arguments were put forward.
      Something which doesn't appear possible with a single material so was dismissed at the time (just before and around the turn of the twentieth century), but which was successfully created at microwave frequencies at least using (fairly chunky, in the millimetre range) metal/insulator composites. More akin to a distribute circuit actually than what we imagine material properties to be. Who knows what is possible with sub nanometer fabrication? I'm sure the CIA or NSA or whoever is at Vandenberg except the USAF knows...
      I'm guessing it's possible they have even managed to retain phase as well as amplitude on some or all of this EMF collected, and thus are able to perform optical inferometry perfectly and without error or ambiguity, or are able to make heuristic or AI guesses at this information, in real time given the quite prodigious processing capabilities we have now. And that they also have quite an impressive set of AI eyes scanning all this data and flagging unusual/unrecognised or recognised features of intelligence value and sends it all automatically to be a human eyeball based on a complex set of clearances, interests, geographic region being surveyed work groups, task forces and operations potentially impacted, all done using a massive database that is actually more akin to a knowledge discovery and representation AI that has components that operate like an expert system, components based on traditional data analysis and statistics, data mining and those that do more neural network type analysis. Both of the guided and unguided type.
      Oh and this is all connected via the same knowledge discovery and representation/data mining to the global surveillance of the internet and cell traffic and every other source of information you can imagine, open or clandestine.
      But hey, that just what I would try to do given near unlimited budget and talent and knowing what I a somewhat informed non expert knows. Who knows what else those crafty fuckers have come up with?
      I think gravitational telescopes using lasers are likely also deployed to image density of the earth to resolutions probably considered infeasible to most researchers out of the loop. Because if nothing else you can shoot lasers from satellite to satellite, hundreds of them literally separated by larger than the diameter of the earth, and make a gravitometric inferometer of quite unprecedented scale. Useful for finding tunnels? Probably they can use those lasers for active LIDAR scans as well if needed...
      Who knows, I do know they also have a special low frequency radar reported in the popular scientific press for the express purpose of finding tunnels, that have also been successful as a tool for archaeology finding cities buried in silt and sand, etc..Which gives you an idea of the tremendous resolution if it can detect walls a brick thick under many meters of fill. And now we don't have to worry as much about long wavelengths=poor resolution, perhaps they can see even more?
      Though I don't entirely buy this whole negative index thing, it would also seem to violate the Nyquist limit? Which sounds suspiciously like the information equivalent of getting infinite heat out of a thermodynamic process. Any information coding is physically bases and so must follow things like the second law of thermodynamics? But this would appear to be broken by say modulating a EMF arbitrarily more complicated than it's frequency, reducing entropy of some physical system arbitrarily, and for work that is low and in fact work doesn't increase the more order you create. Seems to violate thermodynamics. But such a capacity is implied if you can resolve infinitely small sub wavelength features because you could for instance encode a surface with your information and reflect the wave off it and image it with your negative refractive index lens?
      Although perhaps rather than do away with a diffraction limit and allow resolution of arbitrarily small sub wavelength features it simply improves diffraction limiting and sub wavelength resolving of features by a factor of negative index, and thus improves them (and potential bandwidth of signals) by a given but very finite factor?

    • @trolleriffic
      @trolleriffic ปีที่แล้ว

      SAR on recon satellites has been a thing for decades. Starting in the late-80s they launched a series of Lacrosse radar imaging satellites that operated until 2005.

  • @XKK85
    @XKK85 4 ปีที่แล้ว

    That set phrase would rather read "Quo melius nosti diaboli"
    Somehow you can translate this rocket-science pseudo-latin into: "Limited spoils playing dice with a goddess. Silence! Experience!"
    Awesome video Mr. Manley, thx alut

  • @AngryRockMan
    @AngryRockMan 5 ปีที่แล้ว +3

    So if it really can do 5-7 cm imagery, that means this satellite could literally see me flipping it off. Neat.