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acquire such classified items which were allegedly It resulted to the National Geodetic Satellite Pro-
meant for spying purposes. gram (NGSP) in 1964, whereas the constant tussle
between these two agencies, one was supposedly
Ethics and conclusion civilian and the other was military, made their rela-
Let us ask one simple question before concluding tionship messy and untidy. According to the declas-
this article. Since Space Shuttles were used to carry sification and document 37, this resulting conflict
spy satellites ( most of these items are still classified was brought to the attention of President Johnson
and are shrouded with mystery ), does that mean in 1968 where it was written: “ ...two differing forces
NASA plays an active role in intelligence operations? attempting to achieve same data validity for seem-
The answer is: NO. ingly different purposes bot with and without classi-
One cannot and should not accuse NASA of taking fication of data. The Department of Defense continu-
part an active role in spying operations, whereas it ally strives to reduce geodetic and gravimetric errors
is also true that NASA had secret relationships and for purposes of improving our target accuracy in
tie-up with intelligence agencies like CIA, and mili- our weapon systems and thereby classifies both the
tary agencies like DoD and NRO. They had a very tight processes involved and results achieved. The scien-
co-operation in many classified fields and at the tific community spearheaded by NASA, on the other
same time, they had bickered a lot on many issues hand, is attempting to derive similar geometric and
geodetic data with similar accuracies, on an unclas-
sified basis, ...”
nasa had designed data from their own satellites such as CORONA and
Why the conflict? DoD refused to share the raw
shuttles that carried us SECOR. We can guess the reason. Intelligence agen-
cies and military agencies never trust a supposedly
spy satellites to orbit. civilian space research agency like NASA.
Finally, I would like to question the motivation
declassified documents of NASA’s scientists and engineers; the motivation,
which is based on ideas of right and wrong: ethics.
More than 17 thousand people work for NASA on
depict a disgraceful various levels, among them, many are academic
people attached to reputed universities. Do they play
relationship between an active role in espionage or any intelligence related
operations? No. Definitely not. But they are part of a
nasa and cia, the dod system that passively perpetrates those actions.
Were they forced to take part? I don’t think so.
and nRo Could they leave midway? Yes, there are lots of NASA
whistle-blowers — former employees. They didn’t
like what was going on inside NASA. I think these
academic people take part for two reasons – one is
money and the second is respect and social status.
Not only to the American people, to the rest of the
such as geodetic and geometric data. world NASA is next to God. NASA people are always
The geodetic data are needed to determine the special, they do amazing things.
size and shape of the Earth and for other purposes, It is now partly true. The declassified document
so civilian scientists need such data. On the contrary, shows us one of the most amazing secret relation-
the Department of Defense ( DoD ) requires it for the ships in the world. We are stunned to know that
exact targeting of long-range missiles to kill people. NASA has a secret relationship with Intelligence,
Since it is a common platform NASA and DoD Spying and Military agencies like CIA, DoD and NRO!
came to an agreement to build such satellite. The
declassified document 35 is the proof that NASA The writer is an author and data journalist. As a
and DoD established the joint ANNA geodetic satel- published author, Microsoft’s community contributor
lite program in 1960 to help meet their joint needs. award winner Sanjib Sinha has written several books,
However, it was also true that NASA refused to including the best selling security books like Beginning
enter into that agreement and refused to participate Ethical Hacking with Kali Linux and Beginning
until the DoD agreed that most of the data would be Ethical Hacking with Python for Apress.
unclassified. letters@tehelka.com

tehelka / 31 january 2019 22 www.tehelka.com