mirror-textfiles.com/ufo/UFOBBS/0000/046.ufo

SUBJECT: UFO's and the Shuttle                               FILE: UFO46

PART 4

        Video  Encryption:  Hoagland  alleges  that  since  STS-48, all
        external  STS  video has been encrypted and will be  viewed only
        after NASA review and approval. I have checked with a NASA Public
        Affairs  official, and have personally verified, that things (as
        usual)  are not quite what Richard Hoagland alleges.  On  STS-42,
        the  second  flight  after STS-48 (the STS-44  DoD  mission went
        between   them),   the  International   Microgravity   Laboratory
        (Spacelab)  science  group requested that medical  video  imagery
        from  the cardiological studies (sonogram images) be  treated as
        privileged medical information, as all previous audio
        conversations with doctors had been. NASA discovered that having
        to  continuously reconfigure the White Sands TDRSS site and the
        TDRSS satellites back and forth for encrypted video  transmission
        was  a laborous process. Rather than spend all that time, it was
        decided  to go into encrypted mode continuously and  decrypt the
        raw  video at NASA Goddard for immediate release over the "NASA
        Select"  circuit.  Normally, when there was  shuttle  video, the
        White  Sands to Goddard raw video link had been unencrypted, and
        the   Goddard  relay  to  "NASA  Select"  required   no   further
        processing;  but  when  medically-privileged  video  was  to be
        transmitted  (a  new innovation on STS-42,  planned  for  years),
        complex encryption processes had to be initiated on the  shuttle,
        on  the  TDRS  satellites, at White Sands, and  at  Goddard. The
        procedure  for constant encryption was implemented to  avoid the
        cost of many switchovers between modes. But the NASA Select video
        from  Goddard  was  to continue to be decrypted except for the
        medical  transmissions, which were to be openly announced on the
        audio  feed,  just  not piped into a million  homes  and  schools
        nationwide.  Since  then, the NASA Select video  (originating at
        NASA  Goddard,  and containing other sources of video,  too) has
        continued to be transmitted as before, with the only change that
        the  White Sands to Goddard link (which viewers could  previously
        observe  when it was active) is now encrypted. There is no hint
        from air-to-ground conversations that anything other than the new
        (and long scheduled) medical video imagery is being  interrupted.
        And  although  it is encrypted, the White Sands raw feed can be
        observed  to tell if there is a video signal or not on the feed,
        so I am told.

        Conclusion:  The standing explanation, that the objects are near
        the  shuttle, are sunlit, and are affected by the plume field of
        an RCS jet firing, remains valid.

        P.S. Hoagland made a number of other factually erroneous comments
        about  live  planetary  image transmissions.  He says that all
        previously  NASA  planetary  probes  transmitted  live   imagery.
        Actually,  only fly-by probes did that, particularly the fly-by
        probes which had slow transmission rates which took many  minutes
        to build up each image. Probes orbiting other planets (Venus and
        Mars, for example), do not (and I believe, never HAVE)
        transmitted  live imagery, since they are frequently occulted by
        the planet's mass. Each orbit's imagery is stored and dumped over
        a short portion of each orbit, and the imagery data is  initially
        decoded over the next hours and days. Live coverage of the actual
        image transmission would usually be blank, but for a few  minutes
        every few hours would show images flipping across the screen at a
        very fast rate, if there was enough computer power to decode them
        in  this  "real  time" speed. There is no  practical  reason why
        computers have to be built so powerful to keep up with the high-
        speed  dump rate for a few minutes, then rest idle for  the next
        several  hours.  Outside  of avoiding  whines  about  censorship,
        there's no reason to do so.

        Robert Sheaffer - Scepticus Maximus - sheaffer@netcom.com

 Past Chairman, The Bay Area Skeptics - for whom I speak only when
authorized!

     "Mystical explanations are considered deep. The truth is that
      they are not even superficial."


     
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