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| Science & Technology |
| Constant Surveillance Of Everyone - For Our Safety |
| 2007-01-21 |
| Last week, a fire ignited at the Akron Airdock that once housed a fleet of Goodyear blimps. Firemen rushed to the 211-foot-tall structure and quickly doused the flames. Reporters and photographers descended on the landmark. Many were surprised to learn the blimps were no longer being stored there. Turns out Lockheed Martin -- the company that gave us the Trident intercontinental ballistic missile -- was renovating the site for an upcoming project when the fire started. It's being turned into a hangar for a prototype airship. If you're frightened of this administration's habit of spying on American citizens, you may want to stop reading. The prototype is called the High Altitude Airship, or HAA. Lockheed Martin Maritime Systems & Sensors in Akron won the $40 million contract from the Missile Defense Agency to build HAA in 2003. It is essentially another blimp. A giant one. Seventeen times the size of the Goodyear dirigible. It's designed to float 12 miles above the earth, far above planes and weather systems. It will be powered by solar energy, and will stay in a geocentric orbit for up to a year, undetectable by ground-based radar. You can't see it from the ground. But it can see you. "The possibilities are endless for homeland security," says Kate Dunlap, a Lockheed Martin spokesperson. "It could house cameras, and other surveillance equipment. It would be an eye in the sky." According to a summary released by the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command, the HAA can watch over a circle of countryside 600 miles in diameter. That's everything between Toledo and New York City. And they want to build 11. With high-res cameras, that could mean constant surveillance of every square inch of American soil. "If you had a fleet of them, this could be used for border surveillance," suggests Dunlap. Launch date: 2009. Of course, mimicking its defense of warrantless wiretapping and phone-log data mining, the government maintains it only wants to protect its citizens from external threats. But as any geek can tell you, blimps were ubiquitous in The Watchmen, the seminal '80s graphic novel in which heroes have been driven underground and Nixon is still president. Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not watching you. |
| Posted by:Anonymoose |
| #10 A composite frame with a nylon cover doesn't reflect radar. And 17 times larger means a 17 times heavier payload but less than 3 times bigger in any dimension. Since the central core with the surveillance gear is always oriented the same way, it would be relatively easy to apply stealth engineering techniques to it. There is always the issue of bistatic radar but most of the baddies don't have it. |
| Posted by: KBK 2007-01-21 22:00 |
| #9 It's designed to float 12 miles above the earth...and will stay in a geocentric orbit for up to a year... Ooooh! Geocentric orbit! As opposed to, say, an areocentric orbit (it's spyin' on us from Mars!), or selenecentric? Also, I'm not quite sure something can be said to be "orbiting" at only 12 miles, especially if it doesn't actually circumnavigate the Earth. Still, what do I know, eh? I thought that floating banana thing was all a gag. |
| Posted by: Angie Schultz 2007-01-21 21:57 |
| #8 My elderly Mom wants to wave back all the time at Dubya, Condi, + FBI-CIA-NSA??? at the other end of our household boom tube ala MATRIX + SKYNET, etal. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2007-01-21 21:54 |
| #7 Must be good for Amerika + USSA - sexy Jessica Simpson = Daisy Duke says she's wants one! |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2007-01-21 21:51 |
| #6 CD- Its possible, all you need is a hull covering that will reflect incoming radar so that internal structre will not give its location away. We have several front line warbirds today that have special coatings on their canopies / windscreens to reflect radar so the various cockpit sructures don't provide a good return. Remember LM built the F-117 and I expect the next gen of faceting will be in play by then. |
| Posted by: USN, ret. 2007-01-21 21:46 |
| #5 It's designed to float 12 miles above the earth, far above planes and weather systems. It will be powered by solar energy, and will stay in a geocentric orbit for up to a year, undetectable by ground-based radar. Yeah, sure. Where do they get these story writers. Something 17 times the size of a GY blimp is not going to be invisible to radar. |
| Posted by: Chuck Darwin 2007-01-21 13:52 |
| #4 I was born to be a Zep pilot. Ima too olde tho now. You bastards, couldn't you have done this 30 years ago? |
| Posted by: Shipman 2007-01-21 12:37 |
| #3 Um, works over Iran, too. Undetectable by ground based radar. At that size, they should be able to put a Keyhole quality camera 10 times closer to the subject for 10 times the resolution. Hopefully Ms. Dunlap is looking for a new position after that; she's not doing Lockheed any good. The contract was from the Missle Defense Agency, which seems reasonable. |
| Posted by: KBK 2007-01-21 12:08 |
| #2 a 14-layer-thick roofing of foil for your car, abode, and head is the ONLY answer! |
| Posted by: Reynolds Aluminum 2007-01-21 12:02 |
| #1 Turns out Lockheed Martin -- the company that gave us the Trident intercontinental ballistic missile -- was renovating the site for an upcoming project when the fire started. It's being turned into a hangar for a prototype airship. If you're frightened of this administration's habit of spying on American citizens, you may want to stop reading. Hell, just Google your address. Get sat photos on line right now. Don't think those are going to get better with HD? Wait till it's live broadcast too. It's just not the government. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2007-01-21 11:42 |