Posted on 05/06/2005 8:40:54 AM PDT by CarrotAndStick
They probably computed them all by their lonesomes. It's not hard to do.
As a test ... if you live in a place where you can see stars at night, go lie in your back yard looking up, at about 10:00 at night. It won't be long before you see a satellite or two headed north to south. That's a satellite in a sun-synchronous orbit, which is the preferred trajectory for imagery satellites (the trajectory is chosen so that it's always the same local time wherever they're flying over, so the shadows will always be about the same length).
India has its own satellites, radars and big cameras, plenty of high tech capabilities, and a whole bunch of really smart folks who can figure out what sort of satellites are flying over, and looking at them.
Believe me ... figuring out which satellites are ours is the easiest part. Covering things up and unpacking them was the hard part.
Can see some stars where I live. Visibility isn't great. Not sure I could pick out a satallite unless I was shown.
I see your point as to why they could.
You can easily pick them out -- they're pretty bright, and they move (fairly quickly), whereas the stars don't.
If you'd like to practice on something really bright, you might try This Site for Space Station sightings (I see you're in NJ, so I just picked Lakewood ... other locations found here).
Anyway, it proves my point at the beginning of the article i.e., if the North Koreans think they can hide their nuke test by doing an underground test, they'l fail.
About the Indian tests, I do not think it was detected as a nuclear test until much later, when the Indian government annnounced news of the test. What was instantly revealed as data about the nuke test was seismological data, and it is not very easy to tell apart a nuke test from an earth tremor.
But I did think that the failure to detect the Indian tests was a major issue, with several articles posted right here on FR about it. Was it all just 'wink-wink'? If you have any info about it being otherwise, I'd be grateful if you gave me the link/s to it.
Here it is:
TITLE: Guess why the AMERICAN CIA allegedly didnt discover INDIA's preparations and explosion of a nuclear bomb ?
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a253650.htm
Old article, and posted on FR when its appearance was a lot different. Hmmm, nostalgia!
>>>Meteors go lots faster, have a tail, and typically burn out very rapidly. A satellite is a bright spot that moves evenly across the sky and is visible for several minutes.
Oh, I think I HAVE seen satellites than. I just assume anything moving is a meteor.
Ok.
And thanks for the link, I am going to try to find the one on Monday with my kids!
It was a huge issue, and rightly so.
Are you suggesting that the U.S. knew beforehand of an Indian nuclear test and looked the other way? If so, it wouldn't suprise me.
I'm merely suggesting. When you have China to take care of, you do need a nearby nuclear power, don't you?
And that would be entirely correct. North Korea has been a much more dangerous threat than Saddam's Iraq for a while. Its army could march on an important trade partner, risking some 20-30K American servicemens' lives in the process. Add in nukes and America had a real reason to get involved. Iraq's ties to terrorists were at best nominal compared to NK and Iran. Hell, Saudi Arabia was a more legitimate target after 9-11 than Iraq because the Saudis financed Al Qaida and made it possible for the destruction on our soil.
You don't have to be a lefty to legitimately oppose the invasion of Iraq. It's common sense that Iran and North Korea were and are more dire threats today than Iraq was.
I would agree if it weren't for the current instability with regard to Pakistan. The last thing the USA wants is for a nuclear exchange b/w you guys and the Pakis.
Oops. "?" = "."
Also, exploding large amounts of TNT is used for calibrating measuring equipment to determine actual yield of the nuclear device when it is detonated.
God help us all, I agree.
Don’t forget the key ingredient. Clinton weakened security to the point workers could take hard drives full of top secret info home, when he ‘improved’ the freedom of information act.
NASA outsourced the help desk???
Which, of course, led the Indians to avoid the obvious signs of detection.
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