Secret Space Program Shows Its Hand

Zen Gardner
June 12, 2012

Who dumps technology more advanced than NASA on to NASA and thinks nothing of it? This admission of at least this segment of a secretive space program is quite revealing. It will probably slip by mainstream media, but sit up and take notice, this is a serious admission here.

NASA gets two military spy telescopes for astronomy

(Washington Post) The secretive government agency that flies spy satellites has made a stunning gift to NASA: two exquisite telescopes as big and powerful as the Hubble Space Telescope. They’ve never left the ground and are in storage in Rochester, N.Y.

It’s an unusual technology transfer from the military-intelligence space program to the better-known civilian space agency. It could be a boost for NASA’s troubled science program, which is groaning under the budgetary weight of the James Webb Space Telescope, still at least six years from launch.

Or it could be a gift that becomes a burden. NASA isn’t sure it can afford to put even one of the two new telescopes into orbit.

The telescopes were built by private contractors for the National Reconnaissance Office, one of 16 U.S. intelligence agencies. The telescopes have 2.4-meter (7.9-foot) mirrors, just like the Hubble, but they have 100 times the field of view. Their structure is shorter and squatter.

They’re “space qualified,” as NASA puts it, but they’re a long way from being functioning space telescopes. They have no instruments — there are no cameras, for example. More than that, they lack a funded mission and all that entails, such as a scientific program, support staff, data analysis and office space. They will remain in storage while NASA mulls its options.

“It’s great news,” said NASA astrophysics director Paul Hertz. “It’s real hardware, and it’s got really impressive capabilities.”

The announcement Monday raised the obvious question of why the intelligence agency would no longer want, or need, two Hubble-class telescopes. A spokeswoman, Loretta DeSio, provided information sparingly.

“They no longer possessed intelligence-collection uses,” she said of the telescopes.

She confirmed that the hardware represents an upgrade of Hubble’s optical technology.
MORE  HERE

Anything fishy here? Two telescopes on mothballs better than Hubble? Are they toying with us? This is just nuts news.

Secret Space Program?

You really think we get the whole story about anything, especially regarding military or technological advancements?

I personally met a man in New Mexico who used to work at the infamous Area 51. You can imagine how I tried to wangle information out of him, but he was tight-lipped. When I came back at him the third time after trying to act indifferent he finally said, “Let’s just put it this way. The stuff I worked on back in the 60′s still hasn’t come out.”

And my impression was he was a low-level tech.

There’s a lot of testimony as well as conjecture about Moon and Mars missions and the like you can read about on line, as well as many other “forbidden” realms of research. That we’re surrounded by technology that far surpasses what has been introduced into the mass mind is a no-brainer, so to speak.

It’s thought that black-op advances are decades if not centuries ahead of “known” technologies.

Read full article here

This article was posted: Tuesday, June 12, 2012 at 11:25 am

Tags: technology, war

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