Space

6.9K

United States President Donal Trump was at it again on his favorite outlet Twitter. On August 30 he posted a highly detailed picture of the unfortunate aftermath of an Iranian Safir rocket on the El Khomeini launchpad.

Analyis of the picture, shows that it is not the original digital datafile. It has clearly been photographed as scatter from the flash from the camera is visible in the center. In the top left hand, some details have been blacked-out, and this is perfectly straight, so this points at a digital operation performed on the data file from the camera with which the photo was taken.

Obviously not obvious for the president, based on this picture, the highly classified performance of a clandestine US satellite has been revealed. Based on the shadows from the poles and the known geolocation of the El Khomeini launchpad, the time of observation can be determined, plus or minus a few minutes. Based on the ellipticity of the observed launchpad, which is circular, based on Google Maps pictures, in combination with the compass in the top right, both the azimuth and elevation of the observation can be fixed.

Using freely available tools for Satellite Orbit simulation like STK, and the knowledge from the Amateur Spysat community, one could quickly identify the USA 224 satellite as being a so-called KeyHole satellite. Conclusion is that the photo that Donald Trump twittered, was taken from a distance of 382 km. As from Google Earth, the launchpad is 60 mtr in diameter, one could conclude that the resolution is at least 10 cm per pixel, or even better as it is a photo of a photo.

Using some basic optical diffraction limit equations from a bachelor physics class, reveals that the Keyhole satellites have an aperture of at least 2.4 mtr, which is of course no surprise as this is also the Hubble Space Telescope aperture. In 2012, the US Spy Agency NRO, that operates the KeyHole satellites, already passively hinted that this was (at least) their aperture diameter, as they offered NASA an unused telescope to be used for its future WFIRST infrared telescope. Another revealing item is the image quality of the picture, clearly the NRO has some clever algorithms, and maybe even adaptive optics on-board, to counter the effects of turbulence on sunlight propagation through the atmosphere. Below the resolution of 50 cm from Low-Earth Orbit this becomes a cumbersome subject.

So back to the politics. Why on Earth would Donald Trump show off this incredible capability? As president, he has the right to declassify such information, but nonetheless, this will not stop Iran from trying to reach Orbit with an Earth Obervation satellite (and of course at the same time obtaining a ballistic missile capability). As Trump basically always lies, one starts to suspect that the opposite has happened, i.e., the US (or their local ally Israel) has destroyed the Safir Launcher.

Internal to the US, to me, revealing this picture is clearly a middle finger to the US Intelligence Community who he believes is behind a lot of attacks since he was a presidential candidate.

In any case, IMHO it shows that Donald Trump is category 5 ...... (please fill in the blanks) and should be impeached ASAP.

PS: more info on the analysis of the photo via the twitter thread from Cees Bassa and the blog by Marco Langbroek.

5.5K

The High Frontier by Gerard O'Neill is a book that was gifted to me in 1998 by Dr. James Burke, a retired Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) veteran and a livelong Space Advocate from the Planetary Society. I have read bits and pieces over the years, but now I made it from cover to cover during my holiday on the island of Texel last week.

As the book was written in 1976, it tells a story of a post-Apollo era US Civil Space Programme looking for a new meaning after the grandiose cold war victory. In those days, the US Civil Space Programme, and particularly the Human part of it, was awaiting for the Space Shuttle to come online. A future is depicted in the book where maybe in the mid-90s there could be a first large sphere, orbiting the Earth (and the Sun) at the Lagrangian L5 region of Space. Hundreds of colonists would be living and working there to build Space Based Solar Power (SBSP) satellites, to provide the energy thirsty Earth of cheap energy. Everything would be build from Lunar and Asteroidal materials, so the deep gravitational well of the Earth would not bear its toll on the aspirations of the colonists.

In his futuristic considerations of how this future could work, he makes an interesting statement on Money. He speaks about electronic money called SHARES (on page 9):

"...... Our housing, food, clothing, and the rest are purchased in SHARES (Standard High-Orbital Acquisition-units Recorded Electronically) so our Earth salaries just accumulate in the bank....".

Could this quote be one of the first references for Bitcoin? I mean, O'Neill clearly understood that the colonists should be very smart, and that electronic money could best be used, instead of sending up coins and bills from Earth under the control of a Earth bank. A few pages later, he lists a number of principles that would be key attributes of technical solutions [in general]. One of these reads (on page 17):

"...A technical "improvement" is more likely to be beneficial if it reduces rather than increases the concentration of power and control...".

I don't think he specifically meant to address this principle for the SHARES concept, but my wild guess is that this highly intelligent man sure had some more ideas on the SHARES concept, than just the witty acronym.

One of the triggers for re-reading the book is because of a documentary that is being produced as we speak: Gerry.

There is a number of people that I know from my International Space University (ISU) network that are being (or have been) interviewed for Gerry: Rick Tumlinson, Peter Diamandis and Loretta Whitesides. Through the book, I have learnt about the Space Studies Institute (SSI) that Gerard O'Neill founded, and how this movement grew rather fast in the seventies. I also found that this organisation still exists as of today through this website but honestly, I think it kind of marginalized. I am curious to learn what really happened with this organisation, and why the whole in-Space manufacturing prophecy remained in the feasibility study paper phase? Why has no country demonstrated a basic Space Based Solar Power capability in the last 40 years? The International Space University (ISU) was founded in 1988 and is a thriving organisation. There is much overlap between the SSI and ISU. Why have they never joined forces? Was there ever an attempt? Just hoping here that the documentary will shed some light on these questions?

The book I was gifted, was issued in 1989, and has an appendix called Perspective - the view from 1988. The appendix seems driven by frustration that the US Civil Space Programme is not going the ways of the SSI. But he is not really harsh on the Space Shuttle programme whilst it has been clear now, that it was really the Space Shuttle programme that eated a lot of money away from the true High Frontier. Strangely, he doesn't mention the 1986 Space Shuttle accident at all, surely a key event in those days. Another strange thing is that, while he is very clear on Nuclear power (in his opinion Nuclear doesn't have a future in Space, and on Earth where it suffers from Environmentalism), strangely enough, he doesn't mention the Tsjernobyl nuclear disaster, taking also place in 1986. The questions arises: Where was Gerard O'Neill in 1986?

Another interesting thing I have learnt, is that he started a company called GeoStar in the 80s, and that he made the unusual arrangement to allocate 85% of GeoStar's founding stock to SSI. GeoStar was enabled by a patent by Gerard O'Neill and intended to be used for navigation of aircraft. The company ran into trouble and filed for bankruptcy in 1991. A tragedy is that Gerard O'Neill died in 1992 of Leukemia which was diagnosed back in 1985. He sure would have been a very interesting person to talk to in these days.

3.7K

This week is 50 years since the historic Apollo 11 human mission to the surface of the Moon. I have been very busy with the media over the last days who want to cover this anniversary. The more I talk about it, the more I get a bit angry.

I realize more and more, that Apollo 11 was too quick and too soon. Yes, it was a marvelous demonstration of US technical superiority. It showed the world that anything could be done, as long as you stick to doing it. The only thing is, after 6 Apollo missions to the Moon, humans basically stopped exploring Space apart from setting up shop in low Earth Orbit (LEO) with the International Space Station. We didn't put up a human base on the Moon. We didn't put boots on Mars. We didn't explore the Asteroids. That is all still in the future. Why? With the exponential growth of scientific knowledge and technical achievements since Apollo, it could have all been done, and bring humanity even more prosperity.

Apollo was driven by a political motive fuelled by the cold war. This motive has now disappeared but apparantly, that is what you need to accomplish these great achievements. That makes me sad.

Another thing that I find worrying, has to do with the historic recollection of how the Apollo programme came to be. People remember the great US architect for Apollo: Werner von Braun, and think he was just a great friend of Walt Disney. What they often don't realize, is that this man was the technical mastermind of Hitler's V2 bombs used in WW2. They were launched from the The Hague area, very closeby were I live, and cost the lives of many, in the factories in Germany, in the Hague and in London, the destination of the bombs. Yes, the US was one of the liberators that helped removing Hitler and his awfull Nazi's. But the US was also thinking about a future place in geopolitics, and for that, they captured the Nazi scientists that they could use, to help out on US National security agenda. Werner von Braun was one of them, and it seems that a whitewashing for his past actions was done, and to make him into the Apollo hero that he became to be.

Space

Your Top Groups