Way longer than that. The first KH-11 satellites that Hubble shares its design with were in orbit in the late 1970s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KH-11_KENNEN

We see a few bits and pieces released to the public of optical/infrared wavelength mirrors and hubble-like hardware from IMINT systems. One thing that's never really been shown to the public, not even 50 year old 1970s era stuff, are photos/examples of the SIGINT systems that the NSA likely has in orbit. Or good details of other things that also fall within the RF engineering domain like synthetic aperture radar satellites to monitor naval activity, construction activity like digging bunkers, etc.

If you think the public DEM/DSM datasets like the ASTER GDER v3 or SRTM GL1 V3 are pretty good, I would bet that the DoD has things far more accurate than those as digital models of the surface and built environment of the earth's surface.

There's always infinite resources available to defend and expand powerful people's power.

The thing that always leaves me flabbergasted when I read such fascinating facts of such great technological power held by the US is that they seem to always waste it.... :-(

If they had such "eyes" on our earth, couldn't they have clearly spotted those Methane emissions from Turkmenistan well earlier than the UN MARS program did? or many "beneficial" to humanity things I cannot even think of right away.

Even militarily... US wanted to avoid the Hormuz Strait closure.. I think that was a clear enough military goal. Could nt they spot where the mines are, and where the attacking positions are from their mighty tech instead of this prolonged war? As in, the strikes they did already - couldnt they have taken out all attacking capacity right away if they had such powerful tech eyes?

That's where the new Roman Space Telescope came from

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Grace_Roman_Space_Telesc...

Maybe that is the reason the initial Hubble did not have focus on infinity? Ok, very speculative, but the link comes to mind immediately.

I mean NASA's budget was/is minuscule in comparison to defense spending so I am not surprised.

One of the NRO optical imaging system gifts (from the canceled NRO Future Imagery Architecture reconnaissance satellite program) is in the recently launched Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.

https://science.nasa.gov/mission/roman-space-telescope/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Grace_Roman_Space_Telesc...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_National_Reconnaissance_O...

> technologies the US managed to deploy decades before the competition

We don't know that. The competition (USSR/Russia) also keeps secrets, and not being a free society, has much less reason to publish them later.

They gifted solely the mirrors.

I can't find great sources for the story, but I saw a claim that the NRO purchased NeXT stations through backchannels in a quantity that was financially significant for NeXT's survival.

I didn't know about this, that's interesting

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I am not entirely convinced. Was not Hubble damaged and got an upgrade lateron? I mean it could be possible that NASA is starved, but the repair involved other countries too, and I don't think the USA could keep mega-super-duper technology hidden from others in the long run. And NASA often wants more money - just take the whole search for life on planets. This is so pointless - life exists already here. What is the addiction to want to find life outside of the planet? Other than, of course, getting more money, which is understandable, but it doesn't answer the question. (Not that I am against better technology; the rationale just does not convince me at all here.)