God only knows. Those in charge of classification review are influenced by the "no harm if I do it" mentality. When in doubt, classify. Nothing more upsetting, in all ways, than a classification "spill." (I've had to mop up after one of those after my unclassified work was deemed classified retroactively.) And then it is a pain to make an argument to declassify, so it is kind of an institutional-cultural one-way valve.
The extent and nature of orbital debris was not that well-known in the 1960s (and was much less developed than it is now). The person who classified the account probably didn't know much about the subject.
This transcript actually talks about booster, debris and the bogey, which is referred to as "actual sighting"
The wording gives the impression that the crew were told they might have to keep an eye out for "actual sighting" of something specific.
Would be interesting to know if subsequent missions reported similar sights (would confirm orbital debris theory) or whether subsequent sightings of orbital debris was fundamentally different than this one.
I remember seeing camera images aftward-looking from second stages and so forth, and the amount of particulate debris from a staging event was surprising. Supposedly, the surveillance radars track objects with a radar cross-section equivalent to a golf ball. The catalog is huge. I can't imagine the headache in keeping it up to date (they compute and record the orbital ephemeris for each object).
Ues, because its time to tweak the "want to believes" comfirmation bias. Apparently what is coming is going to be so negative that some people need to hild on to this idea of little green men. And from the comments it looks like it works. All the sheep are being duly distracted.
Any idea why this transcript was released and instead locked away?
God only knows. Those in charge of classification review are influenced by the "no harm if I do it" mentality. When in doubt, classify. Nothing more upsetting, in all ways, than a classification "spill." (I've had to mop up after one of those after my unclassified work was deemed classified retroactively.) And then it is a pain to make an argument to declassify, so it is kind of an institutional-cultural one-way valve.
The extent and nature of orbital debris was not that well-known in the 1960s (and was much less developed than it is now). The person who classified the account probably didn't know much about the subject.
This transcript actually talks about booster, debris and the bogey, which is referred to as "actual sighting"
The wording gives the impression that the crew were told they might have to keep an eye out for "actual sighting" of something specific.
Would be interesting to know if subsequent missions reported similar sights (would confirm orbital debris theory) or whether subsequent sightings of orbital debris was fundamentally different than this one.
I remember seeing camera images aftward-looking from second stages and so forth, and the amount of particulate debris from a staging event was surprising. Supposedly, the surveillance radars track objects with a radar cross-section equivalent to a golf ball. The catalog is huge. I can't imagine the headache in keeping it up to date (they compute and record the orbital ephemeris for each object).
Ues, because its time to tweak the "want to believes" comfirmation bias. Apparently what is coming is going to be so negative that some people need to hild on to this idea of little green men. And from the comments it looks like it works. All the sheep are being duly distracted.