Page 167 - Elana Freeland - Under an Ionized Sky

range of ecosystems, from the tropics to the high northern latitudes.”
The question remains if these industry and research instruments are actually “dual use” for
planetary surveillance. The Cloud-Aerosol Transport System (CATS) on the International Space
Station (ISS) employs LiDAR to measure location, composition and distribution of aerosols,
pollution, “dusty plasma,” smoke, and other particulates in the atmosphere, while the ISS-
RapidScat radar scatterometer gauges solar winds. Then there’s the “fleet of 17 NASA Earth-
observing missions currently [providing] data on the dynamic and complex Earth system” like
the Global Precipitation Measurement Core Observatory, the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2, the
Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment III (SAGE III), the Lightning Image Sensor (LIS), the
Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI), the ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal
Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS), etc. 151 All of these programs employ
multiple sensors to taste, touch, see, hear, and smell all that is going on around and below them.
Earlier, I discussed microscopic sensors narrower than a human hair, each with its own
antenna and power source, released into the environment since at least 2002. Micron-thin Global
Environmental MEMS (GEMS)—MEMS being microelectromechanical systems—collect “real-
time atmospheric data essential for weather forecasting” (weather engineering) and meet military
standards for radar reflection, according to staff scientist John Manobianco at the aerospace
sciences and engineering division of Ensco, a systems integration and research corporation:

As a cloud of such probes dispersed on wind currents inside a storm, they would measure atmospheric pressure,
temperature, humidity and other factors with real-time, 3-D resolution not possible with radar or satellite sensors,
Manobianco told United Press International. Computer models show the sensors would stay aloft for days if released
from several miles up in Earth’s atmosphere, he said, and other missions are possible. 152

NASA’s monitoring of Earth’s “vital signs” and military surveillance are at least kissing
cousins. CATS was built by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland;
ECOSTRESS, a high-resolution multiple-wavelength thermal imaging spectrometer, is managed
by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) in Pasadena, California; LIS (lightning imaging sensor)
was developed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama; and SAGE III
by NASA’s Langley Research Center (Virginia) and Ball Aerospace (Boulder, Colorado). All are
NASA and therefore military intelligence, not just ecological do-gooders. Dual-use technologies
go hand in glove with full spectrum dominance. ECOSTRESS and CATS may actually be more
about checking on Cloverleaf’s impact having on the “vital signs” of the Earth and its
inhabitants. We must learn to read military contexts carefully omitted from media releases in
order to understand what actually lies behind NASA space weather programs.

From space, streaks of white clouds can be seen moving across the Earth’s surface. Other tiny solid and liquid
particles called aerosols are also being transported around the atmosphere, but these are largely invisible to our eyes.
Aerosols are both natural and man-made, and include windblown desert dust, sea salt, smoke from fires, sulfurous
particles from volcanic eruptions, and particles from fossil fuel combustion. 153

Surveillance by satellite depends upon sensors [visible light, ultraviolet (UV), infrared (IR),
or radar technologies] tracking missiles above or populations and individuals below. I mentioned
ASAT Brilliant Eyes with its long-wavelength infrared detector focal plane in the SDI
surveillance satellite system. Later, it was renamed the Space and Missile Tracking System
(SMTS), and now it is a low earth orbit (LEO) component of the U.S. Air Force Space Based
Infrared System (SBIRS). William R. Burrows in Deep Black: