[FPSPACE] "Lifting the Veil" more comments.

[Edwin Cameron]

Sven Grahn <svengrahn at telia.com> wrote:
   
  But the [Cosmos 21] graph is still wrong.
  -----------------------
  Sven,
   
  As I read my previous comment regarding Cosmos 21, I can see that my wording may have caused some confusion.  If the spacecraft downlink signal was intercepted, the collectors certainly would have known by virtue of the antenna tracking whether or not the source was in low-earth-orbit.  If it was an intercept of the command uplink, then it could only be assumed that the spacecraft was receiving the "communications en route" or that the Soviets did not yet know their probe was stuck in low-earth-orbit and were sending commands in the blind.  There is no way now to determine which it might have been, uplink or downlink, if either.
   
  Of course, there could be a mistake on the graph, but how can we tell if this one is wrong?  Those simple polished bar graphs were generally prepared only for the upper brass and most often by art departments using the analysts' results, not by the analysts who were working the problem.  Mistakes did happen and continue to happen.
   
  Even when the analysts prepared overhead presentations for their own technical briefings, things could go wrong.  In 1988, a new analyst under my direction hastily prepared an overhead view graph (transparency) of an analog lateral accelerometer strip chart from a small tactical missile, copying by hand the telemetry channel to the view graph.  During her presentation, a skeptical competing analyst asked about a prominent bump in the strip chart.  It had not been noted by other analysts who had seen the same original data.  What my fledgling had done was hold the transparency down over the original strip chart and with a permanent marker trace the data, around the tip of her finger at the point where her finger had overlapped the telemetry trace.  Needless to say, there was a good bit of laughter, but she never repeated that mistake!
   
  Cheers,
  Ed