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The top secret URSALA, RAQUEL, and FARRAH satellites (2025)

306 points · 162 comments · Bluestein

  1. Almondsetat · · focus · HN ↗
    The incredible and futuristic technologies the US managed to deploy decades before the competition reminds me of the story of how the NRO gifted NASA a couple of their old decommissioned satellites in 2012 and they turned out to be basically upgraded Hubble telescopes pointed at earth. The US from the 90s to the 2000s had multiple Hubble-level telescopes just for spying while NASA was fighting for scraps to study the entire cosmos.
    1. reacharavindh · · focus · HN ↗
      The thing that always leaves me flabbergasted when I read such fascinating facts of such great technological power held by the US is that they seem to always waste it.... :-(

      If they had such "eyes" on our earth, couldn't they have clearly spotted those Methane emissions from Turkmenistan well earlier than the UN MARS program did? or many "beneficial" to humanity things I cannot even think of right away.

      Even militarily... US wanted to avoid the Hormuz Strait closure.. I think that was a clear enough military goal. Could nt they spot where the mines are, and where the attacking positions are from their mighty tech instead of this prolonged war? As in, the strikes they did already - couldnt they have taken out all attacking capacity right away if they had such powerful tech eyes?

      1. refurb · · focus · HN ↗
        You’re falling for the fallacy of “if I can’t see it must not be happening”.

        Not to mention if it were made public, how could it be done without exposing the technology?

        “US govt sees massive methane emissions”

        “How?”

        “Uhh, satellites.”

        “Which ones?”

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