“The [Department of Defense] paid $100,000 to sponsor a strategy workshop in September featuring a session called 'Did Jesus die for Klingons, too?' on the theological threat to Christianity that the discovery of life on other planets might pose.”
—Your taxpayer dollars at work, ladies and gentlemen.
DARPA's new spy satellite could provide real-time video from anywhere on Earth
physorg.comDARPA’s new spy satellite could provide real-time video from anywhere on Earth
“It sees you when you’re sleeping and knows when you’re awake” could be the theme song for a new spy satellite being developed by DARPA. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s latest proof-of-concept project is called the Membrane Optical Imager for Real-Time Exploitation (MOIRE), and would provide real-time images and video of any place on Earth at any time — a capability that, so far, only exists in the realm of movies and science fiction. The details of this huge eye-in-the-sky look like something right out of science fiction, as well, and it would be interesting to determine if it could have applications for astronomy as well.
MOIRE would be a geosynchronous orbital system that uses a huge but lightweight membrane optic. A 20-meter-wide membrane “eye” would be etched with a diffractive pattern, according to DARPA, which would focus light on a sensor. Reportedly it will cost $500 million USD for each space-based telescope, and it would be able to image an area greater than 100 x 100 km with a video update rate of at least one frame a second.
DARPA says the program aims to demonstrate the ability to manufacture large membranes and large structures to hold the optics flat, and also demonstrate the secondary optical elements needed to turn a diffraction-based optic into a wide bandwidth imaging device.
Read More: http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-12-darpa-spy-satellite-real-time-video.html
