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The thing that immediately jumped into my head is coded military use. Especially since they mention the printer being based on a military design. It's still ra

The thing that immediately jumped into my head is coded military use. Especially since they mention the printer being based on a military design. It's still rather obscure, if not still secret, just to what extent we were actually using the shuttles in their intended military capacity. But when designed, the military use was expected to be much much higher than what panned out. This printer would be high on the list of the weight budget, to the point that I wonder if it wasn't critical protocol to some still secret military use, similar to the teletype nuke codes / orders on a sub. Running over the audio system also makes me curious if it was strictly unencrypted comms, or if it could plug in to a decrypted steam. Were they clear broadcasting coded messages, or encrypted-broadcast clear messages (or both or neither). IIRC, NASA used to have at least some 'private' comms with astronauts that were in the clear, but they basically just didn't rebroadcast to the public or publicize those currently used frequencies, and just sort of trusted those in the know not to listen in.

samstave 3y ago
[flagged]
- dylan604 3y ago
  what a useless post and your last sentence is just made up from thin air. if you believe any of that, you probably think the earth is flat, the moon landing was shot on a film stage in hollywood. a simple web search will show the actual reasons for the shuttle disasters.
- DaSHacka 3y ago
  > I think Challenger was sabotage Mind explaining your reasoning? As someone not very familiar with the details, I'm curious
  - samstave 3y ago
    As much as Dylan wants to denegrate my post: I have always believed the Shuttle was sabotaged. I watched it live when it happened when I was a kid and followed all aspect from the lead up (we voted for Kristy in my school IIRC) -- but there has always been a lot of weird strangeness about the shuttle and the demise of its occupants. Ant to Dylan - relax - I can speculatively hold dystopian-sci-fi what-ifs without your other slanders. Its a fun and more entertaining topic than most movies. I said I do not know what happened, I said I believe the challenger was sabotaged, with my disclaimer that I do not know. The theories about the astronauts being alive are silly but well crafted fiction. Dylan got triggered a bit to hard by my comments. -- The reason I feel the challenger was sabotaged is also backed up by CIA documents: https://i.imgur.com/ylDBcDH.png https://i.imgur.com/ylDBcDH.png https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP88B00443R001904460005-6.pdf https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP88B00443R0019044... But Ill let Dylan do his own research. >Plus "do his own research" is awfully adjacent to the Q-unacy. That was the joke, jeasus. as he is the one accusing me of being flat-earth moon denier. Read the linked PDF from the CIA FFS. Its a fun theory and that has multiple articles linked from the 80s. So a "simple web search" of shit that went down in the decades before the internet isnt as simple, nor reliable as one would hope. However - I am sure Dylan Called Google and knows all about it.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - fred_is_fred 3y ago
      You don't need Soviet sabotage when you have poorly engineered parts and a NASA administration that ignores engineering recommendations to stop the launch. What you believe or not is not germane to the facts and whether you watched it as a kid or not does not make you an expert.
    - bb611 3y ago
      > Read the linked PDF from the CIA FFS. Its a fun theory and that has multiple articles linked from the 80s. Readers should note that while the declassification source is the CIA, this was simply a note from a retired Army Lt. General pitching space related projects from a private think tank. He had no insider knowledge or intelligence at the time, which is why this whole memo can be declassified - it's pure speculation. Fortunately for us, we don't need to delve into speculation, because Challenger had an extremely robust and well documented investigation process which established a clear cause, which was very much not Soviet malfeasance.
    - dylan604 3y ago
      If by calling Google means doing a simple search using their platform, sure, I called them: https://www.google.com/search?q=Shuttle+Challenger+report https://www.google.com/search?q=Shuttle+Challenger+report The very first result is a very official looking link to a .gov site. The second link is to the wikipedia article on the investigation. The third link is to a link from NASA. These are not QAnon level "does his own research" level results like your quippy thoughts. So, compared to you, yes, I do know all about it. I know people that worked on the shuttle missions and were in mission control on the day of the Challenger disaster. They lost friends that day. I'm seemingly orders of magnitude closer to it than "i saw it live on TV as a kid".
kens 3y ago
As far as cryptography, the military AN-UGC/74 teleprinter worked with cryptographic equipment such as TSEC/KG-30, KG-84, KW-7, and KY-57 [1]. You'd send the data stream into the crypto equipment and then to the teleprinter. However, the modifications for the Space Shuttle would have prevented this. Specifically, the FSK demodulation boards for the Shuttle were wired directly to the communication UART board, so there was no place to plug in the crypto box. [1] https://radionerds.com/images/e/e0/TM_11-5815-602-24.pdf#page=19 https://radionerds.com/images/e/e0/TM_11-5815-602-24.pdf#pag...
walrus01 3y ago
> The thing that immediately jumped into my head is coded military use. Especially since they mention the printer being based on a military design. a significant portion of the funding for the shuttle came from the USAF, and one of its capabilities (to capture and return a large satellite) was a USAF requirement. They even went as far as building an entire launch pad for it at Vandenberg, which came very close to being used.
mandevil 3y ago
STS definitely encrypted all comms- voice, data, telemetry, and printer for the classified portions of all missions (that would be STS-51C, STS-51J, STS-27, STS-28, STS-33, STS-36, and STS-38 along with parts of STS-39 and STS-53). My assumption is that the decryption happened upstream of the teleprinter- the teleprinter was definitely chosen because they thought it would be useful to print things for all missions, not because it provided special encryption for military purposes. When they did classified stuff everything was encrypted. Basically, printers are really useful. They are heavy and they can break, but are tremendously useful.

samstave 3y ago

[flagged]

dylan604 3y ago
what a useless post and your last sentence is just made up from thin air. if you believe any of that, you probably think the earth is flat, the moon landing was shot on a film stage in hollywood. a simple web search will show the actual reasons for the shuttle disasters.
DaSHacka 3y ago
> I think Challenger was sabotage Mind explaining your reasoning? As someone not very familiar with the details, I'm curious
- samstave 3y ago
  As much as Dylan wants to denegrate my post: I have always believed the Shuttle was sabotaged. I watched it live when it happened when I was a kid and followed all aspect from the lead up (we voted for Kristy in my school IIRC) -- but there has always been a lot of weird strangeness about the shuttle and the demise of its occupants. Ant to Dylan - relax - I can speculatively hold dystopian-sci-fi what-ifs without your other slanders. Its a fun and more entertaining topic than most movies. I said I do not know what happened, I said I believe the challenger was sabotaged, with my disclaimer that I do not know. The theories about the astronauts being alive are silly but well crafted fiction. Dylan got triggered a bit to hard by my comments. -- The reason I feel the challenger was sabotaged is also backed up by CIA documents: https://i.imgur.com/ylDBcDH.png https://i.imgur.com/ylDBcDH.png https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP88B00443R001904460005-6.pdf https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP88B00443R0019044... But Ill let Dylan do his own research. >Plus "do his own research" is awfully adjacent to the Q-unacy. That was the joke, jeasus. as he is the one accusing me of being flat-earth moon denier. Read the linked PDF from the CIA FFS. Its a fun theory and that has multiple articles linked from the 80s. So a "simple web search" of shit that went down in the decades before the internet isnt as simple, nor reliable as one would hope. However - I am sure Dylan Called Google and knows all about it.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - fred_is_fred 3y ago
    You don't need Soviet sabotage when you have poorly engineered parts and a NASA administration that ignores engineering recommendations to stop the launch. What you believe or not is not germane to the facts and whether you watched it as a kid or not does not make you an expert.
  - bb611 3y ago
    > Read the linked PDF from the CIA FFS. Its a fun theory and that has multiple articles linked from the 80s. Readers should note that while the declassification source is the CIA, this was simply a note from a retired Army Lt. General pitching space related projects from a private think tank. He had no insider knowledge or intelligence at the time, which is why this whole memo can be declassified - it's pure speculation. Fortunately for us, we don't need to delve into speculation, because Challenger had an extremely robust and well documented investigation process which established a clear cause, which was very much not Soviet malfeasance.
  - dylan604 3y ago
    If by calling Google means doing a simple search using their platform, sure, I called them: https://www.google.com/search?q=Shuttle+Challenger+report https://www.google.com/search?q=Shuttle+Challenger+report The very first result is a very official looking link to a .gov site. The second link is to the wikipedia article on the investigation. The third link is to a link from NASA. These are not QAnon level "does his own research" level results like your quippy thoughts. So, compared to you, yes, I do know all about it. I know people that worked on the shuttle missions and were in mission control on the day of the Challenger disaster. They lost friends that day. I'm seemingly orders of magnitude closer to it than "i saw it live on TV as a kid".

kens 3y ago

As far as cryptography, the military AN-UGC/74 teleprinter worked with cryptographic equipment such as TSEC/KG-30, KG-84, KW-7, and KY-57 [1]. You'd send the data stream into the crypto equipment and then to the teleprinter. However, the modifications for the Space Shuttle would have prevented this. Specifically, the FSK demodulation boards for the Shuttle were wired directly to the communication UART board, so there was no place to plug in the crypto box. [1] https://radionerds.com/images/e/e0/TM_11-5815-602-24.pdf#page=19 https://radionerds.com/images/e/e0/TM_11-5815-602-24.pdf#pag...

walrus01 3y ago

> The thing that immediately jumped into my head is coded military use. Especially since they mention the printer being based on a military design. a significant portion of the funding for the shuttle came from the USAF, and one of its capabilities (to capture and return a large satellite) was a USAF requirement. They even went as far as building an entire launch pad for it at Vandenberg, which came very close to being used.

mandevil 3y ago

STS definitely encrypted all comms- voice, data, telemetry, and printer for the classified portions of all missions (that would be STS-51C, STS-51J, STS-27, STS-28, STS-33, STS-36, and STS-38 along with parts of STS-39 and STS-53). My assumption is that the decryption happened upstream of the teleprinter- the teleprinter was definitely chosen because they thought it would be useful to print things for all missions, not because it provided special encryption for military purposes. When they did classified stuff everything was encrypted. Basically, printers are really useful. They are heavy and they can break, but are tremendously useful.