CHAPTER 8
The Air Force WS-117L project continued pursuing the televisual scan technology, and in 1960 was given the designation SAMOS (Satellite and Missile Observation System). SAMOS 2 successfully photographed strategic sections of Soviet Russia, enabling realistic estimates of military installations. Reconnaissance satellites gradually became larger and more equipped to obtain minute details. New designations were given to a growing population of “Key Hole” (KH) satellite recon systems. Area-survey satellites (KH-5), and close-inspection satellites (KH-6), infrared reading area-surveys (KH-7), and multispectral close-looks (KH-8), were to have been eventually followed by the MOL (Manned Orbital Laboratory). This military reconnaissance outpost was cancelled in 1970. Soon thereafter, the KH-9 was launched (1971). This satellite was 50 feet in length, 10 feet in diameter, weighed 29,000 pounds, and was equipped with cloud-piercing RADAR. KH-11 (1976) was 64 feet in length, 10 feet in diameter, weighed 30,000 pounds, and utilized Farnsworth technology. The photo-multipliers used starlight to see night views with the clarity of full sunlight Their digital imaging systems provided extraordinary detail.
DSP (Defense Support Program) satellites are placed in opposed geosynchronous orbits which provide continual watch over world events. Each contains a 12 foot Schmidt telescope, and 2000 IR detectors. DSP satellites can detect missile launches within 60 seconds, rendering the DEW line obsolete. DSP satellites are vulnerable however. Their sensors can easily be destroyed by the single flash of any powerful ground based laser system. Indeed, there were developed a series of satellite-destroying weapons; rail guns, shrapnel bombs, and high-pulse laser systems. ASAT (Anti Satellite Weapons) systems can be guided into orbital proximities of enemy satellite packages and directed to completely disable them. It was during this time frame that extremely sensitive gamma ray detectors were developed, sensors designed to locate such sources in orbit or on the ground from orbit. The degree of sensitivity in these sensors is extraordinary, permitting several much publicized X-Ray and Gamma Ray geophysical profiles. These public relations “disclosures” are nothing less than admissions, security leaks of the military potential for which these satellite sensing systems have been deployed. Able to focus on the most minute ground movements of radioactive material, such systems constantly survey political “hot spots” which may stimulate the development of nuclear arsenals among third world territories.
TRW was contracted to devise and deploy radiation-detecting satellite systems (1961) VELA (“watchman”) satellites were launched in 1963. Nuclear detectors were placed aboard DSP satellites in 1970. DSP satellites detected two separate 2 kiloton nuclear shots over the Antarctic in 1979. South Africa was accused of testing nuclear weapons, an allegation which their Prime Minister promptly denied. These satellite systems also function to watch space for the deployment of orbital nuclear materials, probable weapons packages. The likelihood that nuclear weapons are in orbital positions was so high that Space Shuttle Program was initiated. Reconnaissance satellites had already observed the deployment of several satellite packages which seemed especially radioactive. It was noted that, contradicting their agreement to halt the proliferation of orbital nuclear materials, the Soviet KOSMOS 954 rained radioactive debris across Canada when it abruptly and uncontrollably fell from orbit (1978). In fact, Intelligence Agencies suspected that the largeSoviet SLAR RADAR orbital systems (Side Looking Airborne RADAR) utilized nuclear reactors to fuel their exorbitant energy needs. NASA development of the Shuttle and the Strategic Defense Initiative were not coincidental events. Indeed, they were the final phase of the RAND survey which had been initiated in 1946.
There are tactical applications of each satellite system, an application which cannot be denied. NAO directed ITSS (Integrated Tactical Surveillance System) actively tracks and reports ship movements through RADAR scanning methods. Piercing cloud cover and the darkness of night, these sea-scanning systems watch more than surface movements. TEAL RUBY satellites are equipped with extremely sensitive IR equipment, utilizing active cooling agents to maintain their sensitivity. These satellites can discern the actual identity of aircraft and missiles at the moment of their launch. But while these methods enable a tracking of surface movements and some IR detectable subsurface movements, there are means now available for “seeing through” ocean water with unerring accuracy. Orbital Gamma Ray detection systems can track the movement of nuclear weapons-bearing submarines despite their excessive depths. Gamma Rays are not deterred in passage through seawater. In the eyes of these special new Gamma Ray sensors, deeply submerged nuclear submarines appear as bright as spotlights. This singular fact propels us into the final phase of our discussion, one whose unquestionable implications are enormous in scope and ramifications.
SPACE EXCHANGE
The state of art required by military “watchers” was a reliability factor only obtained through the hard precision afforded by machines. Only robotic machines, FT .TNT and PHOTINT systems, could be depended upon to provide continuous reconnaissance of selected geopolitical regions. Toward these objectlves, the great number and diversity of reconnaissance satellites emerged. Designed, developed, and launched in great throughout the days of SDI, the function of certain newer systems have not been addressed. The real function of most new satellite systems is not immediately recognized by those having no access to the Patent Archives. Why has the espionage of space become the absolute mainstay of modern military arts? Certainly for their clarity, access, detail, and geopolitical insulation, space espionage systems can achieve objectives which human agents cannot. But are there deeper reasons, reasons which only patent access can truly redefine and illuminate?
Military intelligence once relied absolutely on the hissing and crashing waves received through transcontinental relay stations and Ionospheric Backscatter systems. Complete reliance on wave energy applications maintained a completely inefficient communications systemology, even as Tesla stated. The development of space technologies, more specifically the development of communications satellites, replaced the cumbersome overland relay stations and mammoth Ionospheric Backscatter systems within a decade. The military usually dismantles its installations as quickly as it assembles newer state of art technologies. To fall behind the state of technological art is a defense weakness, an inherent failure in primary defence initiatives which cannot be tolerated among superpowers. All world Houses have been enslaved to the dictates of technology, a headlong pursuit into the dictates which technological potentials alone direct. International military groups are in fierce competition.