"Space War"

[Phillip H. Zakas]

> John Young Wrote:
> Don't overlook what is reportedly happening on the back side of
> the moon. The URL for an IF-mooncam was posted here a while
> ago. The stream is encrypted but with weak crypto -- the
> crypto-processor is 1968-9 vintage. The cam is part of a data
> package placed on the dark side in a classified operation. Signals
> bounced off a reflector stationed at the very edge of the moon's
> profile.
>
> What else is being done there remains to be disclosed.

Two applications I've heard of:

1.  Here's an excerpt from a US Navy press release:
"Jim Trexler was Lorenzen's project engineer for PAMOR (PAssive MOon Relay,
a.k.a. 'Moon Bounce'), which collected interior Soviet electronics and
communication signals reflected from the moon."
URL: http://www.pao.nrl.navy.mil/rel-00/32-00r.html

2.  On another site: "...The new Liberty was a 455-foot-long spy ship
crammed with listening equipment and specialists to operate it. The vessel's
most distinctive piece of hardware was a sixteen-foot-wide dish antenna that
could bounce intercepted intelligence off the moon to a receiving station in
Maryland in a ten-thousand-watt microwave signal that enabled it to transmit
large quantities of information without giving away the Liberty's location.*
*The system, known as TRSSCOMM, for Technical Research Ship Special
Communications, had to be pointed at a particular spot on the moon while a
computer compensated for the ship's rolling and pitching. The computers and
the antenna s hydraulic steering mechanism did not work well together,
creating frequent problems."
URL: http://www.euronet.nl/~rembert/echelon/db08.htm

phillip