Date: Sat, 13 Dec 2014 12:37:06 -0500
From: mark <whitroth at 5-cent.us>
To: wsfa-forum at yahoogroups.com, WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: [wsfa-forum] Rocket launch patches ...
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

On 12/12/14 12:12, Michael Walsh walshmichaelj at gmail.com [wsfa-forum] wrote:
> "A purple-haired sorceress holding a fireball. A three-headed dragon
> wrapping its claws around the world. A great raptor emerging from the
> flames.
>
> No, these are not characters from a Magic: The Gathering deck. They
> are avatars depicted on the official mission patches made for the
> National Reconnaissance Office (NRO)."
>
> http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/creepy-kitschy-and-geeky-patches-us-spy-satellites-180953562/
>
Too bad the author is semi-clueless. "The elements - water fire and wind"?
That should be air, not "windw", and, since it's a spy sat, it's looking at Earth.

Then, I could make some guesses, none of which is great fun: trident? Perhaps
it's watching for targets for the Trident nuclear-armed subs? at any rate, I'd
assume it was observing ocean "targets of interest", like ships and subs.
Right, and the fireball in the hand makes me even more sure that it's for them.

"Hard to hide a launch" - yeah, my late ex used to laugh at the "secret"
Shuttle launches for military missions. You *could* see a Shuttle going up 200
miles away....

Looking at some of the patches... GEEZ! "Nothing is beyond our reach", with
what *may* be an octopus, with tentacles everywhere? Is this the US, or the
Nazis or the Stasi? And, given them, the obvious other alternative is Cthulhu
(and if you don't think folks who work for them don't know who Cthulhu is...)

She doesn't show what she calls the "Allseeing Eye"... I just want to know
*which* Allseeing Eye. Digression: back in the sixties, by the late sixties,
Tolkien had been translated into ...was it 37? languages already... including
Vietnamese. Those of us in the streets couldn't have had a better metaphor
than the VC, in the black pj's (and presumably hairy feet) against... on
division of the South Vietnamese Army chose, as their insignia... the Lidless
Eye of Sauron.

mark