Re: Withholding elements - was Re[2]: SeeSat and Kosovo

Mir16609@aol.com
Fri, 2 Apr 1999 10:12:34 EST

In a message dated 4/2/99 07:06:54 AM EDT, kc4yer@amsat.org writes:

>  Actually DMSP is controlled by the Air Force.  However its data is publicy
>  distributed by NOAA and some amateurs have built hardware to receive
>  signals from the DMSP satellites.  During the Gulf War both the U.S. and
>  Iraqi forces used DMSP data for strategic and tactical planning.  Nice of
>  the U.S. to provide that service to Iraq ...

No one would argue about withholding this real time information during a time 
of military conflict.  But USSPACECOM has taken the position of censoring the 
location of these objects during peacetime.    What is sensitive here - the 
location of the satellite or the data that it produces?  I still don't see 
the benefit to withholding the TLEs of the DMSPs during peacetime.  
  
>  STEX may be much more classified then we've been led to believe.  

The program manager was requesting visual observations in January, 1999 after 
the decision to withhold the elsets was made in September, 1998?  This makes 
no sense at all.  STEX has 3 homepages.  If this is sensitive then apparently 
the people who designed, built, launched and operate it were not informed.  

http://hyperspace.nrl.navy.mil/ATEX/STEX_ann_pic.htm
http://home.att.net/~spetch/Stex/
http://members.aol.com/Franknite/stexmain.htm

I cannot believe that these programs are suddenly sensitive.
 
One final nit....
These discussion should probably be moved to UseSat-L:

UseSat-L@lists.satellite.eu.org 

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Cheers
Don Gardner  39.1796 N, 76.8419 W, 34m ASL
Homepage: http://hometown.aol.com/mir16609/
Space Day - 6 May 1999; http://www.spaceday.com/