Decades later, a Cold War secret is revealed

/decades-later-cold-war-secret-revealed-

  • “My name is Al Gayhart and I built spy satellites for a living” - Yahoo! News
    http://news.yahoo.com/decades-later-cold-war-secret-revealed-152207569.html

    The scale, ambition and sheer ingenuity of Hexagon KH-9 was breathtaking. The fact that 19 out of 20 launches were successful (the final mission blew up because the booster rockets failed) is astonishing.
    So too is the human tale of the 45-year-old secret that many took to their graves.
    Hexagon was declassified in September. (...)
    “They envisaged a satellite that was 60-foot long and 30,000 pounds and supplying film at speeds of 200 inches per second. The precision and complexity blew my mind.”
    Several years later, after numerous successful launches, he was shown what Hexagon was capable of — an image of his own house in suburban Fairfield.
    “This was light years before #Google_Earth,” Prusak said. “And we could clearly see the pool in my backyard.”

    #espionnage #satellites #guerre_froide #etats-unis