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spy satellite

2007-09-11 14:35:02

Re:Easy to replicate

(Score:5, Informative)

by Guppy06 (410832) on Tuesday September 11, @12:59AM (#20549049)

(Last Journal: Thursday May 10, @12:08PM)

"They didn't see it because the Pakistanis (or Indians) were keeping track of satellites and not moving anything when there were unknown ones overhead."

It's not about knowing where the satellites are so much as understanding that, altogether, all the spy satellites will only be able to photograph your little corner of the world for a total of maybe 1 minute out of 1440. Make sure that the trucks from Habib's Fissionable Material Shipping Service are always parked in the same place, in the same position after you're done with them and the odds are in your favor that Langley won't see any difference between two consecutive satellite passes. The rest is basic camouflage techniques that had been used to counter reconnaissance aircraft long before Sputnik.

Realistically, the odds are in your favor if you want to do something small that you don't want satellites to catch and you think a little about what you're doing. They satellites are mostly there to catch gross, macro changes in another country's borders ("Gee, they just moved this tank brigade to their border and a surface fleet has left port!"), but the hopes of catching a single, solitary nuclear device on the move is a crapshot at best. Of course, it may not be an acceptable risk when the stakes involved are you clandestinely testing your first nuclear device, and Langley surely hopes that the fear of "We might see you do it!" gives them second thoughts, but unless they have the Hubble parked at geostationary above your sorry ass, "we have teh sattelitez!" is a bogeyman at best