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Path: utzoo!linus!necntc!ames!amdahl!oliveb!sun!concertina!fiddler
From: fiddler%concertina@Sun.COM (Steve Hix)
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.crypt
Subject: Re: satellites
Message-ID: <38798@sun.uucp>
Date: 14 Jan 88 00:39:23 GMT
References: <873@uop.edu> <2166@umd5.umd.edu> <4910@well.UUCP> <1952@netsys.UUCP> <531@srs.UUCP>
Sender: news@sun.uucp
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In article <531@srs.UUCP>, lee@srs.UUCP (Lee Hasiuk) writes:
> 
> Actually, this may not be completely true.  According to the 'The Puzzle
> Palace', some reconnaissance satellites have the capability of ejecting
> film cannisters which can be picked up by airplanes as they fall to Earth.
> This technology was developed in 1960.

The old Discover series of satellites, generally launched from
Vandenberg AFB, tossed down film cannisters after they had
exposed all the film (most of the time).

The exposed film, drifting down with a parachute off the coast
of someplace like Hawaii, would be snagged in mid-air by
either a HC-130 or a large helicopter towing a trapeze-like
device.  There was usually time to make several passes before
the thing hit the water.  (When that happened, whoever pulled
the short straw got to go swimming.)

The disadvantage of this system (while nobody could intercept
and decode any transmissions) was that you had to wait some
variable amount of time before the polar-orbiting satellite
was in a position to launch its package where you wanted to
be.

It's probably cheaper to dump a radio signal down to one or
more ground stations (once you have them built, anyway) than
sending a plane 600 miles out to sea to catch a film drop.
(Somewhat quicker, too.)

	seh