5 ms·

Didn't 1960s-era spy satellites use physical rolls of film that were dropped back to Earth and caught by planes or helicopters?

acheron 2y ago
Yep! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CORONA_(satellite) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CORONA_(satellite)
- wkat4242 2y ago
  Yeah it was pretty insane, catching it mid flight. Really cool. You can't make that stuff up. Imagine tracking and catching something falling from space using only 60s tracking tech. No GPS. Wow.
  - heavenlyblue 2y ago
    There's no way GPS is more useful than a radio signal from the package.
    - wkat4242 2y ago
      No but the latter only works if you're already in proximity. With the speed these things come down you have to be already in the right vicinity to catch it. This is where GPS+track prediction could help a lot. And why I think it's so impressive.
  - krisoft 2y ago
    I was 15 years old in 2004 when I have guessed the existence of that program :) I was reading a scientific magazine article about the planed return of the Genesis spacecraft’s samples. They were writing about how the probe will float back to Earth under a parachute and a helicopter will catch it mid—air. That plan sounded absolutely bonkers crazy to me and I would have assumed they needed a long process of trial drops to practice this stunt, but the documented evidence shown that they were quite non-chalant about it. Almost as if they have done such things previously. But since there were no public evidence of prior art I assumed some classified spy stuff was what gave them the experience needed to be confident about the skill. (This was 7 years before the declassification of the existence of the KH-9 program)
    - itslennysfault 2y ago
      Elementary, My Dear Watson! (yes, I know it's not a real quote)
      - krisoft 2y ago
        You should see how often I was wrong about stuff though! :D I only wrote about this because later it become clear that I was right. I would never tell you about how much time I spent thinking about how a submarine could use laser back-scatter to track the slightly warmer wake of an enemy submarine. :P Not until they declassify that too.

acheron 2y ago

Yep! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CORONA_(satellite) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CORONA_(satellite)

wkat4242 2y ago
Yeah it was pretty insane, catching it mid flight. Really cool. You can't make that stuff up. Imagine tracking and catching something falling from space using only 60s tracking tech. No GPS. Wow.
- heavenlyblue 2y ago
  There's no way GPS is more useful than a radio signal from the package.
  - wkat4242 2y ago
    No but the latter only works if you're already in proximity. With the speed these things come down you have to be already in the right vicinity to catch it. This is where GPS+track prediction could help a lot. And why I think it's so impressive.
- krisoft 2y ago
  I was 15 years old in 2004 when I have guessed the existence of that program :) I was reading a scientific magazine article about the planed return of the Genesis spacecraft’s samples. They were writing about how the probe will float back to Earth under a parachute and a helicopter will catch it mid—air. That plan sounded absolutely bonkers crazy to me and I would have assumed they needed a long process of trial drops to practice this stunt, but the documented evidence shown that they were quite non-chalant about it. Almost as if they have done such things previously. But since there were no public evidence of prior art I assumed some classified spy stuff was what gave them the experience needed to be confident about the skill. (This was 7 years before the declassification of the existence of the KH-9 program)
  - itslennysfault 2y ago
    Elementary, My Dear Watson! (yes, I know it's not a real quote)
    - krisoft 2y ago
      You should see how often I was wrong about stuff though! :D I only wrote about this because later it become clear that I was right. I would never tell you about how much time I spent thinking about how a submarine could use laser back-scatter to track the slightly warmer wake of an enemy submarine. :P Not until they declassify that too.