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NROL-76's mission patch[0] seems rather mundane. NRO patches are normally a bit more cryptic and bizzare. I wonder how many people at SpaceX are cleared to kno

by rl3 10y ago

NROL-76's mission patch[0] seems rather mundane. NRO patches are normally a bit more cryptic and bizzare. I wonder how many people at SpaceX are cleared to know what the payload is. What are the finer points of payload integration in such a situation? Does Elon even know what his own company just launched? [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NRO_launches#/media/File%3ANROL-76_mission_patch.jpg https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NRO_launches#/media/...

whatshisface 10y ago
NRO-39's patch (the one in the wiki article) caused a small controversy - the tentacles enveloping the world seemed like pretty poor taste in light of Snowden. They probably decided that their PR team needed to see them first from then on.
- lobster_johnson 10y ago
  To be fair, some of the patches for the NRO missions seem weirdly aggressive, with a bunch of different animals all clutching the earth. They've had bird claws (presumably an American eagle), a tiger, a three-headed bird monster, and even a big green dragon. It's odd that tentacles were somehow considered worse taste.
  - Para2016 10y ago
    After reading up on some of the patches and their hidden meanings, the octopus could have been largely symbolic. For example, there could have been 8 components of the mission and the octopus has 8 arms. Something like that. Here's some background on why I think that might be possible: "The patches’ relative obscurity changed in 2000, with the launch of a payload known as NROL-11. The mission patch depicted what appeared to be owl eyes peering down at the Earth, where four arrow-shaped vectors, two per orbit, made their way across Africa. Three of the vectors were white, and one was dark. Based solely on studying the design, civilian satellite watcher Ted Molczan hypothesized that the patch showed a failed satellite (the dark vector), and that the newly launched satellite would take its place. Sure enough, after the launch a new satellite appeared just where Molczan predicted. Pearlman, who reported on the story at the time, says that NRO at first told him “no comment” when he contacted them. About 30 minutes later they called him back and asked him not to publish the story. Pearlman told them no dice, and in the end, the NRO spokesman told him that the patches were just morale-builders for those who work on the launches." http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/creepy-kitschy-and-geeky-patches-us-spy-satellites-180953562/ http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/creepy-kitschy-...
  - fit2rule 10y ago
    Why you would expect good taste from war-mongers and military-industrial profiteers, I can't fathom. This sort of gauche pageantry is par for the course from those groups who consistently are getting away with heinous activities they deem too scary for the rest of us mere mortals to know about.
  - zardo 10y ago
    >It's odd that tentacles were somehow considered worse taste. Anticnidarianism is alive and well.
- colordrops 10y ago
  Furthermore I believe the front tentacle is touching Iran.
jessriedel 10y ago
The general philosophy of classified information is that it's revealed on a need-to-know basis. Except for a few crude simplifications at the lowest level, there is no fixed heirarchy where you've just given all the info you want below some level. The folks at SpaceX, including Musk, probably got exactly the minimal amount of classified info they needed to safely launch the thing into orbit, e.g., the orbital parameters, its weight and exterior features, its robustness to vibrations and the like, the electronic interface for monitoring its health, etc.
cdkee 10y ago
What happens if SpaceX wants to do business with a foreign government? Is that permitted? Of course, that would presume that a foreign entity would trust a US company for sensitive payloads in the first place, but just a thought I had as corporations become multi-national, global entities.
- pmontra 10y ago
  They already had international customers. The list of previous and future missions is at http://www.spacex.com/missions http://www.spacex.com/missions No explicit foreign governments in the list and I don't know if there is any kind of inspection of what gets sent to orbit.

by rl3 10y ago

whatshisface 10y ago

NRO-39's patch (the one in the wiki article) caused a small controversy - the tentacles enveloping the world seemed like pretty poor taste in light of Snowden. They probably decided that their PR team needed to see them first from then on.

lobster_johnson 10y ago
To be fair, some of the patches for the NRO missions seem weirdly aggressive, with a bunch of different animals all clutching the earth. They've had bird claws (presumably an American eagle), a tiger, a three-headed bird monster, and even a big green dragon. It's odd that tentacles were somehow considered worse taste.
- Para2016 10y ago
  After reading up on some of the patches and their hidden meanings, the octopus could have been largely symbolic. For example, there could have been 8 components of the mission and the octopus has 8 arms. Something like that. Here's some background on why I think that might be possible: "The patches’ relative obscurity changed in 2000, with the launch of a payload known as NROL-11. The mission patch depicted what appeared to be owl eyes peering down at the Earth, where four arrow-shaped vectors, two per orbit, made their way across Africa. Three of the vectors were white, and one was dark. Based solely on studying the design, civilian satellite watcher Ted Molczan hypothesized that the patch showed a failed satellite (the dark vector), and that the newly launched satellite would take its place. Sure enough, after the launch a new satellite appeared just where Molczan predicted. Pearlman, who reported on the story at the time, says that NRO at first told him “no comment” when he contacted them. About 30 minutes later they called him back and asked him not to publish the story. Pearlman told them no dice, and in the end, the NRO spokesman told him that the patches were just morale-builders for those who work on the launches." http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/creepy-kitschy-and-geeky-patches-us-spy-satellites-180953562/ http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/creepy-kitschy-...
- fit2rule 10y ago
  Why you would expect good taste from war-mongers and military-industrial profiteers, I can't fathom. This sort of gauche pageantry is par for the course from those groups who consistently are getting away with heinous activities they deem too scary for the rest of us mere mortals to know about.
- zardo 10y ago
  >It's odd that tentacles were somehow considered worse taste. Anticnidarianism is alive and well.
colordrops 10y ago
Furthermore I believe the front tentacle is touching Iran.

jessriedel 10y ago

The general philosophy of classified information is that it's revealed on a need-to-know basis. Except for a few crude simplifications at the lowest level, there is no fixed heirarchy where you've just given all the info you want below some level. The folks at SpaceX, including Musk, probably got exactly the minimal amount of classified info they needed to safely launch the thing into orbit, e.g., the orbital parameters, its weight and exterior features, its robustness to vibrations and the like, the electronic interface for monitoring its health, etc.

cdkee 10y ago

What happens if SpaceX wants to do business with a foreign government? Is that permitted? Of course, that would presume that a foreign entity would trust a US company for sensitive payloads in the first place, but just a thought I had as corporations become multi-national, global entities.

pmontra 10y ago
They already had international customers. The list of previous and future missions is at http://www.spacex.com/missions http://www.spacex.com/missions No explicit foreign governments in the list and I don't know if there is any kind of inspection of what gets sent to orbit.