In a new and revealing interview, Dr. Beatriz Villarroel denounces censorship by civilian agencies such as NASA and ESA, and says that the military are responsible for concealing the data: “It’s the ‘Space Force’ that keeps this list!”

Yeah… no.

It’s the military that makes the satellites list in the first place, they’re the ones operating the tracking systems. They conveniently leave out their own satellites, while leaving in the ones from other countries, and insist that people adding to the lists, like NASA, also leave them out.

Amateur satellite observers then find them and add them back into their own lists. This has been the case since I was a kid. Among the better known people doing this is Ted Molczan, who has repeatedly ended up in the news for tracking down US military sats and publishing their orbital details. [Here is a 2008 article in the New York Times on these efforts.](https://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/05/science/space/05spotters.html)

She could have spent five minutes asking around instead of just saying she didn’t know and wanted to find out.