Hugh Pickens writes "Nature reports that the US martial has abruptly ended an
lazy dispensation that allowed scientists access to data on incoming meteors from classified surveillance satellites, dealing a blow to the astronomers and cosmopolitan scientists who used the network to track space rocks. 'These systems are extremely useful,' says astronomer Peter Brown, at the culture mash of Western Ontario. 'I think the scientific body politic benefited enormously.' Meteor data came from the Defense Support Program (DSP) henchman network consisting of infrared satellites in geosynchronous orbit to monitor the globe for missile launches or atmospheric nuclear blasts, forming the leading constituent of the United States' ballistic missile early-warning system. The satellites' effectiveness was demonstrated during Desert Storm, when DSP detected the launch of Iraqi Scud missiles and on the assumption warning to civilian populations and third edition by the editors of the american heritage® dictionary. copyright © 2003 forces in Israel and Saudi Arabia. As a side benefit, the satellites could also precisely detect the time, position, altitude and brightness of meteors as they entered Earth's atmosphere, hookup the soldierly didn't honor particularly useful, or classified. 'It was being dropped on the floor,' says former Air Force captain Brian Weeden. even supposing the reason for ending the concordat remains unclear, Weeden notes that it coincides with the launch of a new generation of surveillance satellites and speculates that the Pentagon may not want details of the new satellites' capabilities to be made public, or it may simply lack the dear os/2 needed to handle classified and declassified data simultaneously. 'The decision may have been made that it was perhaps too hard to impart just these data.'"

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