Let's suppose you were an expert in optical design for space systems -- lenses, mirrors, coolers, detectors, electronics, thermal design -- and worked at NASA o

Let's suppose you were an expert in optical design for space systems -- lenses, mirrors, coolers, detectors, electronics, thermal design -- and worked at NASA on a space telescope. When that space telescope (say it was Hubble or Spitzer) was launched, you would be looking for another project. That's a small world. Maybe you would talk to a friend who works for intelligence agencies and find out what they are looking for. And the reverse happens too. If you've explored the design space for an intelligence agency, you would be well-positioned to re-use that knowledge for a space telescope. You mention the classification barrier, but the basic physics drivers will be more apparent the second time around. Case in point: Larry James (http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/about/bio_james.php http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/about/bio_james.php), who is the Deputy Director for JPL, but who used to be Air Force Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance at the Pentagon, and who before that was a Shuttle payload specialist. He's a technical executive, but there are pure technical examples as well. OK, and a second example, of a segmented mirror demonstrator: http://www.nps.edu/About/News/NPS-New-Home-for-Giant-Segmented-Mirror-Space-Telescope-.html http://www.nps.edu/About/News/NPS-New-Home-for-Giant-Segment... ("NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, named for the former NASA administrator and scheduled for launch in 2014 [erp!], will deploy the next generation of SMT technology on a mission to image light from the earliest galaxies in the universe.")