Should the military restrict space debris information gathered by its classified satellites?

Why would incoming meteoriods, astroids, or space debris be classified? I haven’t a clue. Anyone know?

The funding for the technology that gathers this information is funded by taxpayer dollars. If the technology supplies information that does not need to have limited distribution due to national security issues, then it is clearly in the interest of the citizens of this country to have that information made available.

No, I do not think the Military should restrict such information. The military acts as the acquisition resource here for the private community, which performs the analysis. Private industry does not have the acquisition capabilities (cost justification), and DoD does not have the resources to perform analysis.
However, what concerns me more is the motivation for this policy shift. In my limited (and very ignorant) understanding, I see only three possible causes for this action:
1) pure buearocratic logic, which is an oxymoron by definition
2) something is being placed in the region that that would have national security rammifications if detailed in such a report
3) something has been discovered that, for national security reasons, has been deemed not appropriate for public knowledge

Yes, with a size limit, so we will not disclose our resolution capabilities at this time. Evaluate this every 10 years.

It is amazing the amount of information that can be gleaned from disclosing objects entering the earth’s atmosphere, resolution of the satellite, size and speed of objects able to be detected and of course where “we” are looking at any given time. Just because our tax dollars paid for something does not mean we should have automatic and immediate access to it.

Yes, it should be restricted in most cases. Our defense capabilities are already sold by our politicians for money, and divulging data of this type will do the same thing. Certain enemies of the people of the United States would garner information about our satellite systems and capabilities if we routinely divulge those capabilities. Only in time of danger should this data be made available, and then only in a way that helps the situation without compromising national defense secrets. The Federal government has the paramount job of national defense, which supercedes public safety as redards space debris/falling objects (unless the falling objects are MIRV’s).

No, it shouldn’t be restricted. We are so far ahead of everyone else in technical capabilities such as this that our enemies can’t even put anything up that would be two orders of magnitude larger than our resolving power. A quote applicable to this issue went something like, “We want them to know what we can do. We don’t want them to think we are ten feet tall, we want them to think we are twenty feet tall!”

I don’t know to what extent the international law of space is evolving based upon the Law of the Sea; but human-generated space debris is loosely analogous to shipwrecks, abandoned rigs, loose barges, lost buoys, and other substantial floating or submerged debris that is dangerous to oceanic, coastal and inland navigation. There is a global public interest met in charting it and making as much information as possible openly available to the entire oceangoing community (not just to the citizens of any particular seafaring country).

(I won’t dwell at length here on the fact that even remote areas of our oceans are also heavily polluted by countless tons of relatively “trivial”, small or lightweight, non-biodegradable flotsam (eg, discarded styrofoam containers and plastic 6-pack ties, as well as illegally dumped ships’ waste) that are offensive to mariners and dangerous to many kinds of marine life. There is probably not a space equivalent to that. In space, mainly because of orbital velocities, even tiny items, such as lost bolts or astronauts’ tools, could eventually kill someone or wreck or disable a very expensive space vehicle.)

But the military - even although they’re notorious for stovepiping and clinging to too many secrets, badly kept - may arguably be justified in placing some restrictions on divulging all space junk data acquired by classified satellites. This would be so if classified information about the satellite or its systems could be derived or inferred by an enemy from detailed technical (other than orbital) information released internationally about the debris itself.

The only reason I can think of that makes sense why we might need to restrict the data is that the data released somehow allows our enemies to discern the resolving ability of our satellites’ imaging systems.

I AGREE WITH DR. ROB!!!

This can only be answered with another question. What are they trying to hide? If its junk, why is it classified? Since when are meteors, meteoroids, etcetera, classified? Is the moon also going to be classified soon? How about solar information? Oh no, wait, they are only trying to classify “Fastwalker” information, but the only way to do that is to classify everything…

Another reason why we know less and less about our surrounding planetary neighborhood. I’m sure the Russians, the Indian, Japanese and Chinese are not restricting that kind of information…

We absolutely should share all information about space debris and near earth objects. The consequences of not doing so could be catastrophic. While here on earth we are bound by borders and politics, space has no boundries, thus this is a world issue.

It is simply fascinating that the current administration finds data on asteroids and meteorids to be classified but has no problem opening the archives of the CIA to the world. It is indeed as though we are in backwardsland.

At the moment there are a limited number of agencies that really need the information on space debris. I see no problem in limiting this information to those agencies, domestic or foreign, who are not at odds with U.S. interests. As pointed out, some information about spy satellites could be gleaned from the orbital data, but this could be reduced by randomizing the time delay between detecting and reporting the objects found.

In order to protect the integrity of our gathering information, it is necessary not to divulge what we are capable of detecting. To divulge the information wantonly would unduly compromise our technical capabilities.

The military leadership (this applies to any military or government organization) found out that their commands were providing information that was scientifically significant and that they were doing something useful. By definition, the military had to stop being helpful.

What other logical reason could there be for shutting down such a valuable stream of observations and data in defense of collisions of space debris of all kinds with earth?

WOW! Now there’s change you can believe in. “Transparency, openness and accountablility” … now where did I hear that? Wonder why that evil GW didn’t come up with this plan? Guess he was a little slow, huh?

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that I have really enjoyed browsing your posts. Any way
I’ll be subscribing to your blog and I hope you post again soon!

We have spent billions on star wars laser technology we should use it to blow that crap out of the sky.
Plus the target practice would make money well spent on research and development and other nations may even see the worth in it.

It depends on whether or not the object the junk came from is still classified. I think simply adding the junk to our existing databases and making such information public is mostly innocuous and should not be classified. However, I agree with those who think that how the data is gathered should possibly be protected.

Realitycheck has a great idea. Let’s use our destructive testing, when necessary, to clear some of the debris.

Loved your latest post, by the way.

I think i’ve seen this somewhere before…but it’s not bad at all

Hey, have you seen this news article?
New details about Michael Jackson’s Death Emerge
I was wondering if you were going to blog about this…

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