Honestly a recovery rate of 50% on "dropping a thing from space and catching it with an airplane" really isn't that bad.

@jasonirwin4631

4 ай бұрын

Don't forget to add "in the 1960's".

@edwardjones1098

4 ай бұрын

Better rate than my throwing something a meter and catching it tbh

@maruftim

4 ай бұрын

is that success rate just catching with the plane part or the whole thing including retrieving it from the sea?

@FitzChivalryFarseer2

4 ай бұрын

The supposed monkeys would have something to say about that :p

@bathamsteryt

4 ай бұрын

- U.S. Officals

The U-2 is nicknamed Dragon Lady, not Blackbird. Blackbird is the SR-71

@SuperPhexx

4 ай бұрын

You found the 'engagement error'! Contact the production team to receive your gift!

@maruftim

4 ай бұрын

welp, see you in the next HAI mistakes video

@Markyparky56

4 ай бұрын

Was going to say, that "Blackbird" looked a bit bumpy and wrong. None were ever shot down AFAIK either.

@doggonemess1

4 ай бұрын

@@Markyparky56 Nope. And not for lack of trying - the SR-71 famously just went faster when a missile was inbound. But a third of them were lost to accidents.

@TymberJ

4 ай бұрын

My favorite SR-71 thing is how to allow enough room for thermal expansion between "sitting on the ground cold" and "fastest plane ever, supersonic hot", components need room to expand by multiple inches. Its fuel tank literally only sealed up and stopped leaking if the plane was supersonic, they couldn't make one that worked at both ends of temperature range. The challenges of designing around Mach 3 being the *low* end of your range boggle the mind.

Fun fact, Physicists who test xray equipment at hospitals use something similar to test out the resolution of xray equipment. It even uses the same theory, basically you look for which one gets blurry and then that is your useable resolution. Of course the item is made out of metal in this case and has square holes cut into it to mimic the lines, but the theory is pretty much the same.

@QuantumHistorian

4 ай бұрын

It's also the same idea as a bog standard eye test at the optometrist

@tybirous3417

4 ай бұрын

That is a fun fact! Thank you for that

@dantetre

4 ай бұрын

Americans tend to reinvent the wheel all the time...

@Fuego065

4 ай бұрын

There are improvements from the USAF 1951 test pattern (Like using a Siemens star) but somehow it just doesn't want to die

@oksowhat

4 ай бұрын

you literally use same principles to judge your eye

Patrolling the Mojave almost makes you wish for a giant barcode.

@ovrsurge4689

4 ай бұрын

This right here officer, this is the comment I came here looking for.

@scbtripwire

4 ай бұрын

"We ain't found shit!" - Spaceballs

@joshsatterwhite1571

4 ай бұрын

Ave, true to Censors.

@amog8202

4 ай бұрын

We won't go down quietly. The aliens can count on that.

@testickles

4 ай бұрын

@@Repent-and-believe-in-Jesus1which fallout character said that

Did you know that there are also barcodes on the sides of all military vessels in Norway, Sweden and Denmark? It's so as they come into port, they can scan da navy in.

@61rampy65

4 ай бұрын

Ouch.

@nicholasvinen

4 ай бұрын

So when they've finished putting a barcode on one ship, they Denmark the next one to Sweden the deal? There's Norway I'll believe that's true.

@fredericapanon207

4 ай бұрын

Boo! /runs from the room holding one's nose.

@reedr1659

4 ай бұрын

Some real groaners here.

@johnladuke6475

4 ай бұрын

Cut that out right now, before the children start to copy you.

My first thought literally was "probably something to calibrate cameras on satellites"

I have a theory. Brian from real engineering is holding sam hostage, forcing him to make videos. If im right blink twice or list of the 2 most common types of bricks

@harrisonofcolorado8886

4 ай бұрын

Fly Ash bricks, and Engineering bricks.

@MinecraftMasterNo1

4 ай бұрын

Red and grey.

@unoriginalname4321

4 ай бұрын

Sh!t and house

@Bod8998

4 ай бұрын

Ooh hahhahaha

@savageraccoon787

4 ай бұрын

Burnt clay and fire clay bricks

The U-2 was definitely not the Blackbird. That's the SR-71 aka the X-Men plane

@cockatoo010

4 ай бұрын

Right. The U-2 is the dragon lady. A very cool name

@eggsngritstn

4 ай бұрын

I came to say the same.

@longiusaescius2537

4 ай бұрын

@cockatoo010 there's a joke here

1:05 you were COOKING with that line

@lucase.2546

2 ай бұрын

for real

@ttourmalinee

2 ай бұрын

ben never misses fr

@lunainthewoods

Ай бұрын

it caught me off guard so bad i almost choked on my food

While everybody's complaining about mislabeling the U2 spy plane, I'd like to take a moment and ask who made the map at 1:28 because the USSR is missing Ukraine, Belarus, and the Baltic states (which were part of the USSR at this time) and why it's missing the southern half of the Russian far east from Transbaikal to Vladivostok. Seriously, you remember to add the Central Asian SSRs but forget Russia's most important eastern city? Additionally they forgot to add Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan; somebody send this map to Emperor Tigerstar!

@oksowhat

4 ай бұрын

proablly American thinking ussr and Russia are same

@KaitouKaiju

4 ай бұрын

The video did not claim that the map was of the USSR

@varana

4 ай бұрын

@@oksowhat That's not it - sure, they used a modern map (it has South Sudan on it), but tried to make it look more USSR-ish by colouring in the Central Asian republics. So they clearly did _not_ think that, although they failed quite remarkably.

@markymark7247

4 ай бұрын

@@oksowhat see, if it was just mixing up the USSR and Russia I'd understand, but Vladivostok is part of Russia so it's more than just confusing the two

@whard9961

4 ай бұрын

stop yappin bud

My most memorable exam was in optics. We got a page with lines at different densities and were supposed to calculate the resolution of our own eye. I put my exam on the floor and measured the distance between my head and the floor with a ruler. It was great! The exam observer gave me quite some weird looks though...

Loved how you busted that alien conspiracy wide open. Had me engaged from start to finish. Your humor is on point! Can't wait to catch more of your stuff on Nebula.

When I first saw those lines, I thought "calibrating spy satellites." I think I've watches too many educational videos and shows... ...but I think the patterns still exist because _they're still useful!_

@johnladuke6475

4 ай бұрын

They might still be useful, but I wonder if there might be better methods for calculating the resolution of your spy photos.

@LocalGuardsman

4 ай бұрын

@@johnladuke6475 Pretty sure spy satellite tech has advanced quite enough that you can just tell on the fly. Cameras have come a long way.

@agsystems8220

4 ай бұрын

@@johnladuke6475 Calculating is easy, measuring needs something specific. You need to measure to check your calculations are right. Also, define 'better'. These are hard to beat practically in terms of performance, and when they already have the asphalt laid out they are dirt cheap to maintain.

@Nightriser271828

3 ай бұрын

Not to mention, destroying them would undoubtedly have a price tag. It costs nothing to just let them sit, and in the meantime, maybe they could find other uses for it.

There's a mistake at 2:08, the U-2 was referred to as the "Dragon Lady," the SR-71 was referred to as the Blackbird, and it was never shot down.

@paladinhill

4 ай бұрын

Except that the SR's flying out of Kadena Air Base in Okinawa (Japan) were called "Habu" and had snake painted on the tail. Habu is a Japanese snake.

@andersjjensen

4 ай бұрын

It came close once, as engine problems meant they couldn't outrun the Russian interceptors that were headed their way over the Baltic sea. However the Swedes had seen the whole situation on radar (much to the surprise of the US, btw) and sent a bunch of Gripen fighters to rendezvous with the SR-71. The MiGs got cold feet when an entire squadron of Gripens showed up and escorted the SR-71 to a Swedish landing strip.

Who is old enough to remember the good old "TV Test Card" or "Monoscope" that were transmitted on good old analogue TV channels, in order to test and align the good old TV set? Thank you Sam for this video...

how much are you guys willing to bet that the omission of the SR-71 is interaction bait

1:00 how to make a good trans joke

@digitalidoit

3 ай бұрын

Can you please explain the joke? I might be dumb, but I don't understand it. Is it just making fun of the New York times?

@notaco2hu

3 ай бұрын

@@digitalidoitcause people get super mad whenever trans people win at absolutely anything and try to make as big a deal of possible out of it because they’re jealous. It’s unfortunate

@The_DASHER

Ай бұрын

​​@@notaco2huaren't they biologically superior to normal women or have i been misled

@AfungusoftheLungusAmongus

Ай бұрын

​@The_DASHER Sort of. While biological men are (on average) stronger than biological women (on average). However, after transitioning, a trans man will be as strong as if they were a cis man (and same thing for trans women). Before transitioning, I'm honestly not sure how it works out. But what I do know is that there are many other factors that determine your success. In track, for example, height and speed are important, and while gender often groups biological men as taller, it doesn't always work. Biological men can be shorter than biological women. So it makes more sense to have a taller team and a shorter team (but that's just my opinion).

@user-ym4xy6us5e

27 күн бұрын

@@The_DASHER When it comes to sports, the autogynophiliacs are inferior to high-performing men and superior to high-performing women. WHEREAS once there was only sex, and WHEREAS the concept of gender was introduced, and WHEREAS the legal distinction between gender and sex has become muddled, and WHEREAS gender is as easily changed as a Halloween costume, THEREFORE if the goal is to win a trophy, LET IT BE RESOLVED that crooked athletes still will do whatever is necessary to gain the edge.

"large, very harmful shed" is my latest HAI line obsession, haha

I read (most of) a book that was supposed to be about the Cuban Missile Crisis once. I dropped it because getting more than halfway through was still all just technical stuff about the U-2 planes photographing the missiles and very little about the actual crisis. At that point, they were taking photos of ships in transit and unloading in Cuba to get shots of the crates onboard. They would then scour the pictures for anything of _known_ dimensions and calculate the size of the crates. Then they would compare those sizes to known sizes of crates for the Soviet missiles and launch hardware, while also having frequent enough overflights to track where that container went on the island - where it could be used as a baseline to measure still more objects. This whole calibrated-chart thing seems a lot simpler. I bet the guys who had to analyse those photos were real happy to get the upgrade.

@jonathandellasantina7715

4 ай бұрын

You happen to know the name of that book? I feel like I'd be interested in it.

@johnladuke6475

4 ай бұрын

@@jonathandellasantina7715 Afraid not, I read half of it about 20 years ago. If you're into the U-2 it would indeed have been great, but I was a youth trying to understand the play-by-play of what the crisis _was_ exactly.

@jonathandellasantina7715

4 ай бұрын

@@johnladuke6475 Ah, that explains it, then! For some reason I assumed you had /just/ finished half-reading it, haha.

The U-2 "blackbird"? I think you're confusing the U-2 (Dragon Lady) and SR-71 which IS called the Blackbird.

@mrdrummer2564

4 ай бұрын

SR-71 was ready 1966, long after flights over the Soviet Union were stopped after the U-2 incident.

Any film photographer recognized these resolution charts immediately. They’ve been around for much longer than the video suggests. They were used for testing the resolution of camera lenses and film in optics testing for decades before the barcode came along.

Hey, thats the same chart my optician showed me when doing my eye examination! Maybe I'm secretly a spy satellite?🤔

@robertk1701

4 ай бұрын

A possibility. Have you been dropping film canisters? They may resemble containers of monkeys.

@johnladuke6475

4 ай бұрын

Genius! Hiding in plain sight and even the _hardware_ doesn't know it's a surveillance camera.

@vigilantcosmicpenguin8721

2 ай бұрын

Well, the test is to find out whether you are.

@kirk2767

Ай бұрын

How many of us have been asked so many times "are you a robot?" that we're wondering about it?

The British used cricket pitches to calculate resolution early on - they are easily seen from high altitude and a known length, and could use these to calibrate - (prior to the American satellite intelligence) the "barcodes" make sense as I think a cricket pitch may be difficult to make out from that altitude.

fun fact, my grandfather was involved in the Corona satellite program. specifically, analyzing weather patterns to make sure what they were photographing wasn't blocked by clouds.

It's not the U2 blackbird. It's the U2 dragon lady and the SR71 blackbird

@AaronTureRonAbrahamsson157

4 ай бұрын

Uh… okay.

@username65585

4 ай бұрын

See you in this year’s corrections video.

@toahero5925

4 ай бұрын

​@@AaronTureRonAbrahamsson157The blackbird came later, and *never* got shot down, as it flew too high and fast for missiles or fighters to intercept.

HAI: "U-2 Blackbird" Everyone else: "So you have chosen... death."

the jokes keep getting funnier, you/the writers just keep getting better. keep it up sam

You could also do a video on how Sputnik allowed Johns Hopkins scientists to discover the principles necessary to invent GPS.

1:28 oh god this map of the Soviet Union is abysmal I can’t even begin to describe it

It's so interesting to note that this channel actually finds some randomness and makes it so interesting, actually I become so focused for this 6 minutes

2:26 AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Three bar charts for testing optical resolution. I used such like on elephant sea proof poles on remote island locations to measure Rnought - optical turbulence limited optical paths.

0:14 I'm surprised noone has commented about this quite literally being the aphex twin logo

The scientists “working” on Sputnik at 1:15 is doing utter nonsense with his hands. 😂

@cabbelos

4 ай бұрын

The satellite described the experience as out of this world.

My grandfather was in the airplane division of the army before it split and became the US Air Force. He was part of an airplane crew who was tasked to photograph the ENTIRE earth!! His job was retired before they finished due to satellites. I just find that wild!! He went on to teach about photography, xrays, and electronics in the air force before he actually retired.

@PhilLesh69

4 ай бұрын

My high school technical drafting teacher flew navy jets in the 1950s and his job was to map North Korean radar sites by flying in real low at just above the wave tops and then popping up into the radar zone along North Korea's coast to force them to light up their air defense networks. He lost a wingman one time because when the wingman looked to his left his left hand shifted the control stick ever so slightly left, causing his plane to roll left just enough that a wing tip caught a wave, and he went slamming into the ocean at 300+ mph. He told that story to every new class he taught every semester.

‘Making it the first ever transgender athlete’ As a trans person, this is an apt statement because I cannot name a single trans athlete yet even my local newspaper is talking about kindergarten races that are ‘dissuading girls’ from participating (THEY ARE 4)

@twotothehalf3725

4 ай бұрын

+

@DanieleGiorgino

4 ай бұрын

You can tell its a trans joke because it makes no sense and comes out of nowhere.

@BenSammell

4 ай бұрын

@@DanieleGiorginomaking unexpected jokes is like his whole writing style, you just can’t be normal about trans people

@DanieleGiorgino

4 ай бұрын

@@BenSammell Jokes usually make sense.

@SlaughterDog

4 ай бұрын

Though with Sputnik, maybe some of the fear mongering might have actually been based in reality

For metric unit enthusiasts (me), 31k ft = 9.4 km 42k ft = 12.8 km 48k ft = 14.6 km 70k ft = 21.3 km 100 mi = 160.9 km

The Corona launches were mixed in with a civilian space program called Discovery. Classic hiding in plain sight. I remember reading about Discovery as a kid, how they often had to switch payloads because one was not ready for launch. Now we know why.

@johnladuke6475

4 ай бұрын

You'd think they'd have another generation of obsolete Corona satellites by now, so that we could have Hubble 2.

@kennethng8346

4 ай бұрын

@@johnladuke6475 About a dozen years or so ago the NRO gave a couple of unfinished telescopes to NASA with the proviso they not engage in "earth observation" activities. Never did hear where they eventually went.

@deus_ex_machina_

4 ай бұрын

Curious Droid has a great video on this spy programme.

@BetaDude40

4 ай бұрын

@@johnladuke6475 Really the only difference between Hubble and a spy satellite is how fast you can turn the thing. If it can spin fast enough to track the earth's surface, it's a spy satellite. if it can't, it's Hubble.

FYI: Amature radio operators, listening to Sputnicks beeps, soon realized that they could determine how far away Sputnick was, and those gave us the idea of GPS. Or so the sorry goes.

I'm so proud I instantly went "oh its an opticians for aliens".

Hito Steyerl produced a great work of art about these resolution markings.

The U2 was the Dragonlady NOT the Blackbird. The SR-71 Blackbird and its variations were never shot down.

The U-2 and blackbird are completely separate planes. The blackbird was never shot down either. The black program was very successful.

2:04 For those wondering why, it's because the thing he used to represent radar range is actually oversimplified. The U2 was actually detectable by the Soviet radar of that era; Not forever, but long enough that all Soviets could track it somewhat reliably. Problem was that they didn't have the missiles to shoot it down, until that is they completed development of missiles that could fly up to the U2's height and shoot it down.

@jurajsintaj6644

4 ай бұрын

Yep. Its written badly in the video by saying "was immediately shot down", as it absolutely flew for quite a long time over the USSR without the soviet union being able to do anything about it.

@thebestthingbeforeslicedbr8562

4 ай бұрын

The whole "coverage with some gaps" idea is largely untrue. Back then, the idea of "stealth" aircraft wasn't really feasible, and it took until Skunkwork's nighthawk for radar absorbing and deflecting materials or decreased radar image to be developed. The U-2 was no more or less "stealth" than any other high-altitude aircraft. Its only advantage was that it couldn't be engaged by fighters and most SAMs. The SA-2, which was the one that shot it down, was actually specially designed for high-altitude interceptions. But that's just the long way to say you're right lmao.

@edwinhuang9244

4 ай бұрын

@@thebestthingbeforeslicedbr8562 I reworded the detectable by radar part.

I don’t know, this whole video feels like a huge conspiracy made by Earth-buying aliens..

Point of clarification. The one at Fort Huachuca in Arizona is in the Sonoran Desert. There is one in the Mojave Desert at Edward’s AFB. Just nitpicking, great video.

Horrible reasoning behind constructing the return vehicle to look like it could house a monkey. I would absolutely try to open it for the sole reason being it looks like it could house a * monkey * FROM SPACE *

Fun fact: Similar tiny patterns are used to test photolithographic tools to make semiconductor chips

My first reaction was "looks like a camera test pattern".

At 2:08, the photo shows a U-2 Spy plane nicknamed "Dragon Lady," not an SR-71 "Blackbird." 😮

The line from1:00 was so good I had to pause the video as I was laughing so hard. Bravo!

@batatanna

4 ай бұрын

Same lol

@xedbubble

4 ай бұрын

he's so real for that😭

@bmeht

4 ай бұрын

I listened to this joke 3 times and I just.... I don't get it at all. :(

@batatanna

4 ай бұрын

@@bmeht it's because big news channels recently keep making a big thing, in a negative way, of every time a single trans athletes wins to pass the impression this is an actual issue.

@Baconator_JYSN

4 ай бұрын

@@bmeht Because the media seems to obsess over trans people in sports, especially conservative/Murdochian sources (Fox News is an example of this)

I am betting they are still useful for aerial photography of some form

I saw those in NVG testing on the Veritasium channel. I'll guess before watching the video that they're for sattelite optics calibration and testing.

There are lots of USAF 1951 tri-bar charts all over the country, including painted on the tarmac at Wright-Pat. It's a standard optical test target.

Man, you really excel not only on explaining trivia in a fun manner but also building an interesting storytelling throughout the whole script. 🎉

Fascinating and well-presented!

Could you please add metric units to your videos? It's really a hassle to pause videos multiple times and convert units in a different tab. You have millions of subscribers, I am suprised you haven't implemented this earlier, as it would help a lot of your viewers.

Interesting video but you omitted high altitude balloons which fly higher than any aircraft yet remain within the atmosphere. Fun fact: the high resolution film used in American spy balloons was better than anything the Soviets had. Unexposed film from American spy balloons that were shot down was used by the Soviets to photograph the far side of the moon on 7 October 1959 during the Luna 3 mission.

U-2 Blackbird will be in the next HAI mistakes video

Honestly it could just be explained as “an eye test but for spy satellites”

@KaitouKaiju

4 ай бұрын

Even for non spy satellites

It's actually pronounced (in the voice of Portal's Space Core): "Spaaaaaaaaaaace"

2:07 One for the mistakes video! The Lockhead U-2 was nicknamed "Dragon Lady". The Lockhead SR-71 "Blackbird" was it's replacement, operated on 85000ft and was never shot down. It could simply fly away for missiles.

2:08 uhh actually, the U-2 is called the Dragon Lady, not the Blackbird. The SR-71 is designated as the Blackbird

I would assume they're for satellite calibration.

I work in optics and we calibrate our machines with similar artifacts, so satellite calibration was my first guess lol

😂 my random first guess of "For satellite photography" was correct! I guess I'm a giant dork! 😂

2:08 the U2 is known as the "Dragon Lady", not "Blackbird" (which is the SR71)

TLDR: it's like one of those vision charts in the eye doctor office but for satellites

So the aliens know how much Earth is worth?

@Powertampa

4 ай бұрын

Can't be all that much given what condition it is in thanks to humanity

@johnladuke6475

4 ай бұрын

I bet we're overpriced, that's why we're not selling. Off to the discount bin!

Looks identical to a lithography test pattern. I guess that make sense, because both are just testing optics.

The Corona satellite, which didn't launch successfully until 1960, was started as a CIA and USAF joint program but then it came under the control of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) when that agency was stood up in 1961. This video is referencing part of the Controlled Range Network aka CORN. At 0:45 in the top right corner you can see the program name. Also sputnik, which is just satellite or traveling companion in Russian, was more concerning for USA in terms of an ICBM than photos from space as the USSR detonated a nuke much earlier than the USA anticipated.

Excellent video 👍 Thank you 💜

The U-2 has never been called the Blackbird, that was the SR-71. The U-2's codename is "Dragon Lady"

"they're targets for testing the resolution of satellite and aerial photography" doesn't seem like it would take 4 to 6 minutes, so let's see where he's going with this

The U2 wasn't immediately shot down it took years before that happened.

I guessed it was some kind of calibration aid! But beyond that I had no idea. Thanks for sharing.

1:07 has got to be the funniest joke on this channel

As a photographer of many years, I immediately realised they were lens resolution test charts.

... That time I watched on KZread instead of nebula and had to listen to a long ad read about nebula reminding me why I love nebula... And knowing you'd get more sweet sweet coin and job-well-done points, I will go watch it there next

tldw: it's not a bar code, it's a bar target to measure camera resolution quality.

You mean in the Sonoran Desert. The Mojave ends halfway down Arizona.

"black concrete" also known as tarmac :P Or well... tarmac is tar and macadam... but yeah, that's what that is. Not concrete.

1:31 The Resetti x Soviet collab we didn’t know we needed 😂

Please use the Metric System as 200+ countries in the world do.

Ooh finally an error that I found while actually watching the video! That plane, the U2, is nicknamed the Dragon Lady, not the Blackbird. The SR-71 is nicknamed the blackbird. Good video tho

Slight error at 2:09 as it was the u2 dragon lady (the sr-71 blackbird, though it did fly high, was developed later and was more focused on speed)

2:25 the WHAT!? You can't name a space program like that 😂

3:33 Large Harmful Shed is the name of my next Punk Band.

Thank you for not using a generated voice as narrator. I appreciate it.

Can't wait to see this video again in the yearly mistakes video!

If I watch two Half As Interesting videos, does that mean I've watched a full Interesting?

@KaitouKaiju

4 ай бұрын

No, you've watched 2/4 as interesting

4:30 I dont know what you are seeing, but it looks to me that it is blurring at group 0 element 2

2:35 what a missed opportunity to say: 'photo bombed by a fighter jet'

Little did we know, this was actually a bar code used by the super massive space titan that purchased the earth last eon.

That is a bit of a stretch calling these "barcodes". By definition, bar codes contain information. These are more like the photographic test images I used for years.

correction: I don't think the U-2 was called Blackbird. As I remember it , it was the SR-71 that was called BlackBird.

1:59 Getting the relevant types rather than just picking at random, nice. 😊

Brings a new meaning to bogos binted

I don't see how testing and measuring the optical resolution of the film (the smallest line pair that can be resolved) relates to determining the scale in photos taken from the satellite. Yes, the targets are a known size, but you could just as easily drawn a 100m line on the ground and have the same result. The scale also depends on the altitude of the satellite (orbit might not be perfectly circular), the elevation of the target (a runway on a mountain will look bigger than one at sea level), and the angle at which the photo was taken (the satellite may not be passing your target directly overhead, meaning it's looking off to the left or right etc).

@lordquintus1419

4 ай бұрын

A measuring stick doesn't give you resolution, just a measurement. This gives you both, additionally you can take those sample tests of different angles and then get results that way. Altitude isn't going to matter very much as spy satellites tend to have very low eccentricity orbits and most targets are within 3ish km of height of each other which doesn't change much compared to angle changes

Two for two here: Giant Nerd/Dork/Geek and I like listening to your explanations ! 🎉😂