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2011-12-27 Science & Technology

Decades later, a Cold War secret is revealed

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Posted by Steve White 2011-12-27 00:00|| E-Mail|| Front Page|| [11130 views ] Top

#1 I heard from a friend of mine who was in the Russian military that they had a manned satellite to do the same thing. Probably not as nice pictures though. :-)

Posted by gorb 2011-12-27 00:16|| 2011-12-27 00:16|| Front Page Top

#2 Wouldn't a manned satellite be a spacecraft?

Posted by gromky 2011-12-27 02:50|| 2011-12-27 02:50|| Front Page Top

#3 and given that the soviet union collapsed from internal forces, a lot of this high tech spy stuff was almost certainly unnecessary

Posted by Lord Garth 2011-12-27 06:59|| 2011-12-27 06:59|| Front Page Top

#4 The Soviets didn't need satellites because they could just send a guy from their embassy with a car and binoculars.

We're not a police state, and they were.

Posted by gromky 2011-12-27 08:14|| 2011-12-27 08:14|| Front Page Top

#5 given that the soviet union collapsed from internal forces, a lot of this high tech spy stuff was almost certainly unnecessary

Really, Lord Garth? You're quite sure of that?

I'm not. For one thing, those satellites gave us significant negotiating power in arms limitation talks. And not only with regard to nuclear weapons. They, along with defectors, allowed us to judge the hideous extent of Soviet bioweapons research - as evidenced, among other things, by the effects of the leak of weaponized anthrax at Sverdlosk, an event that the Soviets denied happened but for which we had photographic evidence, courtesy of "this high tech spy stuff". (We later also verified the mind boggling extent of their bioweapons manufacturing program - they had huge amounts of several agents weaponized and stockpiled.)

Had the US not had the capabilities to detect and on occasion to demonstrate that we could detect key Soviet assets and behaviors, the USSR would not have collapsed internally nearly so quickly, if at all.

Posted by lotp 2011-12-27 08:39|| 2011-12-27 08:39|| Front Page Top

#6 Corona and Gambit. But neither had the resolution or sophistication of Hexagon

True, but a bit misleading. Hexagon's great advantage was its ability to take panoramic scans in which each frame had high resolution. Upon command from ground controllers, film sequences were exposed, cut, wound, placed in cannisters and dropped for surreptitious recovery. Several of the Hexagon vehicles made multiple scans with very high-value mission impact.

We take repeated use for granted with digital imagery. It was an amazing engineering and operational feat with film. These systems were complex and were used only for the most important reconnaisance missions where imagery was crucial but we could not risk use of U2s.

The Soviets lied, cheated on signed treaties and proliferated greatly. Imagery and ELINT systems helped us catch them at it and counter some of that behavior.

Posted by lotp 2011-12-27 08:47|| 2011-12-27 08:47|| Front Page Top

#7 ..yes, but never used to humiliate and dismiss their agents and useful idiots in America who continuously pushed for more useless treaties and agreements only designed to hobble American security. With the record at hand we should have used it to brand the creatures as socially and culturally unacceptable as slavers in the aftermath of the Civil War.

Posted by P2Kontheroad 2011-12-27 09:06|| 2011-12-27 09:06|| Front Page Top

#8 Oh, agreed P2K. Agreed, heartily.

Posted by lotp 2011-12-27 09:08|| 2011-12-27 09:08|| Front Page Top

#9 I was involved with the sensor hardware. The clearance interviews were unforgettable.

Posted by KBK 2011-12-27 19:40|| 2011-12-27 19:40|| Front Page Top

#10 I worked the other end. I looked at several dozens of miles of that imagery during my 26 years in the Air Force. I first worked this in 1970, and I also worked some of the last actual mission (the one before the last launch, which didn't make it). There was an article on Smithsonian, I believe, that showed the actual satellite. The monster is HUGE! It was an achievement that let us track the development and deployment of every Russian weapons system since the T-70 tank. It was one of the crowning achievements of US Intelligence.

Posted by Old Patriot 2011-12-27 20:26|| 2011-12-27 20:26|| Front Page Top

#11 One thing you have to understand, and this marks the difference between US intelligence and that of most other countries. Virtually every inch of that imagery was scanned from each mission. Ninety percent of the work was done by kids under 25.

My unit (1st TAC Recon Squadron) set an all-time record for tactical intelligence during a NATO Tac Eval in 1987. That didn't surprise the examiners half as much as the average age of the unit's PIs was 24, even with me at 42 bringing up the average. And yes, the security clearances for satellite imagery were something else!

Posted by Old Patriot 2011-12-27 20:30|| 2011-12-27 20:30|| Front Page Top

#12 BTW, most of the Soviet "COSMOS" satellites were spy satellites. Their resolution was about a third of ours at best. The book "Deep Black" has some good information about our early photo satellites. Some of what is talked about in there is true, some of it isn't. Definitely worth a read, though.

Posted by Old Patriot 2011-12-27 20:33|| 2011-12-27 20:33|| Front Page Top

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