DARPA looking for citizen sky-watchers

A reader has alerted The Register to a story that passed us by last week: the launch of a DARPA program recruiting amateur astronomers to help identify and catalogue space junk. Launched here, the SpaceView project would add “citizen scientist” efforts to more expensive space junk searches like the Space Surveillance Network …

[Anonymous Coward]

I didnt become an engineer to pollute the solar system....

then why did you?

[Christoph]

Space junk only?

And they will of course use this only for tracking space junk, and wouldn't dream of using the data to track active military satellites owned by other countries.

[I. Aproveofitspendingonspecificprojects]

If it was Britain...

It would be to track d-i-y boffins with a view to taxing telescopes.

Or worse.

[BrazzaB]

BrazzaB

For 'Space Junk' read 'foreign spy satellite'

[David Pollard]

Looking for ET?

At first I thought it was that they were starting a search for extra-terrestrials.

[John Brown (no body)]

I'm up for this

The program is looking for sites with equipment that could be upgraded to collect observations under remote control, which would act as a single distributed world-wide sensor. Where a site is selected for inclusion in SpaceView, DARPA will provide the equipment to turn it into an automated observatory."

Well, I've got an old pair of binoculars (only one lens cracked). I'll be quite happy for DARPA to upgrade my equipment and make it into an automated observatory at their expense.