No way, baby. I promise no one's watching.

August 19, 2008 6:19 PM

Geographer Trevor Paglen, who researches the so-called "black world" of the military (previously: secret military patches, setec astronomy, tracing unmarked military planes, Torture Taxi), is curating a collection of his photos of classified satellite activity, The Other Night Sky, now at the Berkeley Art Museum. He's identified 189 such satellites.
posted by liketitanic (5 comments total)

Perhaps the mods could correct the fifth link there ("Torture Taxi"). Minor typo in the URL.
posted by el_lupino at 9:28 PM on August 19, 2008

The underlying secrets of how the US, and other governments function, have always been a curiosity of mine. Living in the DC area, you can find the subtle hints of things working behind the scenes, right in plain view sometimes. The amount of stuff they don't disclose is mind numbing.
posted by mr.anthony337 at 12:29 AM on August 20, 2008

Relatedly
posted by DU at 4:18 AM on August 20, 2008

That raises an interesting question; how long will it be before spy satellites are camouflaged? I imagine that simply using non-reflective surfaces on the body, and some kind of honeycomb on the solar panels would probably work pretty well.

Which then leads the paranoid conspiracy theorist in me to wonder; how many more than 189 might be up there already using some kind of basic obsfucation techniques?
posted by quin at 10:49 AM on August 20, 2008

quin,

I think making them smaller is an easier way to hide them than making them non-reflective.
posted by lukemeister at 8:31 PM on August 20, 2008