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United States Technology

19th Century Airship Technology for Port Security 295

Posted by samzenpus from the eye-in-the-sky dept.
fenimor writes "Airships - known today mainly for advertising flyovers at football games - are the core of a new coastal surveillance system in development for the the U.S. Department of Defense. These stationary platforms 25 times the size of a Goodyear blimp will be equipped with an array of cutting-edge equipment for remote sensing, communications, and risk analysis, providing surveillance coverage over a surface area of 500,000 square miles from an altitude of 70,000 feet."
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19th Century Airship Technology for Port Security More

19th Century Airship Technology for Port Security

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  • Almost as good as Anatidocphobia (Score:5, Informative)

    by ackthpt ( 218170 ) * on Wednesday October 13, 2004 @06:48PM (#10518968) Homepage Journal
    2005: Somewhere, somehow a blimp is watching YOU!

    Currently the USCG employes a pair of blimps "Fat Albert" [cruisingguide.com] on Cudjoe Key [boonedocks.net] to watch for dope smugglers, air traffic, etc.

    Ob: SovietRussia: For Soviet Russia YOU spy on the blimp!

    • A terrorist with a really big slingsghot.

    • Cheaper Solutions (Score:5, Informative)

      by Lev13than ( 581686 ) on Wednesday October 13, 2004 @07:12PM (#10519167) Homepage
      There are much cheaper alternatives in the works, such as the High Frequency Surface Wave Radar [drdc-rddc.gc.ca] being developed by Raytheon Canada [raytheon.ca] and Defence Research Development Canada [drdc-rddc.gc.ca].

      The big problem with conventional radar is that it only works in line-of-site, but Raytheon's SWR-503 Surface Wave Radar [raytheon.ca] uses high-frequency radar waves that "wrap" around the curvature of the earth. The system has been proven to detect and track aircraft, surface vessels and icebergs out to 500 km from the shore in a sector of up to 120 degrees. Suspicious objects can be investigated by satellite, surface ship, patrol aircraft or very cheaply & covertly via unmanned drone [dreo.dnd.ca].

      Canada plans to install an array of radar installations along the East Coast in order to provide a seamless picture of all maritime activity occuring in the country's economic zone. Similar research is being carried out in the US, Australia and other countries. This seems like a much more effective use of resources than a massive blimp installation

      • Re:Cheaper Solutions (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Ironsides ( 739422 ) on Wednesday October 13, 2004 @07:32PM (#10519316) Homepage Journal
        You mention Icebergs and maritime activity. But most drug smugler boats are less than 8 feet above water at the top while most icebergs and any ships worth tracking are at least 40 feet at the top. Can the radar work with such a small profile? Also, will it work in high seas? Even normal weather in the north atlantic has at least 8 foot swells when you get out to sea. Will it still work then?

        • Re:Cheaper Solutions (Score:3, Informative)

          by Lev13than ( 581686 )
          You mention Icebergs and maritime activity. But most drug smugler boats are less than 8 feet above water at the top while most icebergs and any ships worth tracking are at least 40 feet at the top. Can the radar work with such a small profile?

          Manufacturers claim it can:
          - AMS [amsjv.com] says that their system can track small high-speed craft [amsjv.com].
          - Raytheon claims that it has proof-of-concept that their system can detect "go-fast boats, fishing boats, large support vessels, rigid hull inflatable boats, jet skis, as well
      • The system discussed in the article involves a fleet of airships communicating with an array of sensors installed inside cargo containers so they can scan the contents of the containers. Over-the-horizon radar may be an interesting subject, but it's not a cheap alternative way to do this and has nothing to do with the article.

      • Re:Cheaper Solutions (Score:2, Informative)

        by kootsoop ( 809311 )
        Australia has been using an over-the-horizon radar with a range of about 3000 km for a while now. See http://defence-data.com/features/fpage37.htm for info.

      • There are much cheaper alternatives in the works

        Being cheap would be counterproductive to the aim. The aim is to be able to go the the taxpayers and say you have spent X Billion on this big visable thing. Intelligence work using nifty gadgets may get better results, but strip searching grannies at airports gets noticed and shows that you are doing something for the children of the homeland.

        It's the same reason we have face recognition systems that can be easily fooled actually being purchased for airpor

      • There are much cheaper alternatives in the works
        Canada plans to install

        So let's use the blimps now, until these come online.

        Or, adapt and redploy the OTH-B [globalsecurity.org].

      • Re:Cheaper Solutions (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Relifram ( 607656 )
        Small correction: The surface radars in question actually use low frequency "radar waves" (no such thing, it's radio waves). Correctly: the system uses HF RF (HF band RF) which is a considerably lower frequency band than most modern radars operate at. At a guess these HF radar systems will suffer from problems of low resolution, making them less suitable for detection of small targets than an S or X band airborne system would.
      • There are much cheaper alternatives

        If you RTFA, it talks about monitoring surveillance devices inside containers:

        A terahertz (THz) detection system that can be deployed inside cargo containers is central to the project. Already under study at NJIT, THz electromagnetic radiation can be used to detect and identify explosives and biological agents even concealed in sealed packages, since THz radiation is readily transmitted through plastics, clothing and other non-metals.

        Also of course, it'd cover a pretty

    • According to an article by Jock Gill on Dave Farber's list, there was a camera blimp over New York City during the Republican National Convention. No indication of who they were watching, what they did with the pictures, privacy issues, or anything, but it wasn't just a Goodyear football-watching blimp.

  • Duh. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 13, 2004 @06:49PM (#10518978)
    It really is SO obvious that they need to put some giant laserbeams on this shit.

  • As long as.... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by IanDanforth ( 753892 ) on Wednesday October 13, 2004 @06:49PM (#10518979)
    I can find out where they are and have the option of not being tracked I'm ok with this. Otherwise we just have Big Brother gone lighter than air. -I
    • I don't think you'll have a problem figuring out where it is. This thing is the size of 25 Goodyear blimps, and, even if funded by the US military a camera always needs line of sight to take your picture.
    • At 25 times the size of the goodyear blimp I think finding it will be the easy part. avoiding it, however, might be harder.

    • Why? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by bleckywelcky ( 518520 ) on Wednesday October 13, 2004 @07:53PM (#10519485)
      You don't know all the positions of the government's satellites, why should you care about the blimps? And no, this isn't a tinfoil hat theory. Do you have any idea how many payloads are launched each year and described only as a "4000 kg to 6000 kg chunk of mass"?

      Remember that satellite photo of the 9/11 ground zero area that could show vehicles and people? Think that's the best the government has ... lmao ... think again. It's amazing the things you learn when you get into defense - and then it's funny seeing people squirm about something so trivial as a blimp floating along the coast.

      • Re:Why? (Score:3, Informative)

        by ckaminski ( 82854 )
        Yes, but enough people track these things that the orbits themselves can be found, not necessarily the function (yet sometimes the function can be determined by the type of orbit).

        IIRC, NORAD tracking data includes classified satellite orbits.
  • Sounds like a really good terrorist target to me.. In fact anyone with an air rifle could do some damage!

    • Re:Terrorism (Score:5, Funny)

      by multiplexo ( 27356 ) * on Wednesday October 13, 2004 @06:54PM (#10519022) Journal
      Sounds like a really good terrorist target to me.. In fact anyone with an air rifle could do some damage!

      If a terrorist has the know-how to build an air rifle that has a range of 14 to 16 miles then he's probably going to be going after some other targets.

      I for one welcome our new blimp-borne overlords (There! I had to say it!).

      • Re:Terrorism (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Moraelin ( 679338 ) on Thursday October 14, 2004 @04:43AM (#10521943) Journal
        You'd be surprised what you can do with a little knowledge of physics.

        Let's start designing a really good airgun. Or actually describe something which already exists.

        First let's remember that you can only accelerate something via gas pressure to the speed of the gas mollecules themselves. Any faster, and the gas will literally be left behind.

        So we'll want to maximize the velocity of those mollecules. The energy of one of those little buggers depends on temperature. But that's not our ticket. Our ticket is noting that at the same energy (hence temperature) the less mass you have, the more velocity is needed to achive that energy.

        Hence, you'll want a very lightweight gas. Hydrogen or helium will do just nicely. So we'll build a hydrogen gas gun.

        Now to compress the helium. Well, have the airgun's barrel, which is a thin tube. We'll also have a much larger tube with a piston to compress the gas.

        Think: a syringe. We push the piston in the large syringe body, to shoot a tiny sting through the tubular needle. Of course, at a much larger scale.

        We'll also need to push the piston really hard, to create a lot of pressure. An explosion will do that just nicely.

        It's really much like a conventional gun with a twist. Instead of the (relatively) heavy gasses from the explosion directly pushing the projectile, we compress hydrogen with them and the hydrogen pushes the projectile.

        It's a very large device and very much a one shot gun, because reloading it takes ages. As such fairly useless against either ground targets or aircraft. (Against aircraft you really want something which sprays a lot of bullets.)

        It also accelerates a dart to miles per second velocities. Theoretically, you could shoot at a sattellite in low orbit with it, except you would need to aim very very well. However, to punch a hole through a huge stationary blimp, it's perfect.

        It's also low tech. A lot lower tech than rail guns. Any third world country could build one, if they wanted to. Heck, theoretically you could build one in your back yard. (But in practice the police would want to know about all those explosives you're buying.)

        Until now, well, there was no problem for which it would be a solution. Now those blimps are just the problem for it.
    • 70,000 feet.. Damned good rifle you got there.

      Nevermind that holes the size of your fist wouldnt matter much anyway......

      • Re:Hell of an air rifle.. (Score:3, Informative)

        by macz ( 797860 )
        The Goodyear blimp comes back with massive holes in it from every game. Everything from Rednecks with deer rifles, to bird strikes rip the hell out of it every time it goes up.

        Do a blimp search at http://www.ntsb.gov/NTSB/query.asp and you can see that since 1962, there have only been 23 accidents in the US and only 2 of them have been fatal. These things are well nigh indestructible.

      • Actually you could get away with much smaller rockets than that, since you're only going 1/3 as far up and don't have to carry passengers, just enough incendiaries to cause trouble.

  • Will Angelina Jolie be commanding one of these (Score:4, Funny)

    by Travoltus ( 110240 ) on Wednesday October 13, 2004 @06:52PM (#10519008) Journal
    when Britain starts making 'em?

  • Meanwhile... (Score:2, Flamebait)

    by Black Parrot ( 19622 )

    ...the workaday needs of security and counterterrorism continue to go underfunded.

  • Great... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Izago909 ( 637084 ) * <tauisgod@g m a i l . com> on Wednesday October 13, 2004 @06:54PM (#10519024)
    So now we have even more national security data that we can't monitor in real time. What good is all this info supposed to be if we can't use it to stop a problem before it happens? Technology is great at recording, storing, and retrieving information, but I don't see a database server walking down to the beach to make an arrest. Are the politicians considering an increase in the Coast Guard, Port Authority, and other applicable agencies? If not, all this new technology won't do much good.
    • What good is all this info supposed to be if we can't use it to stop a problem before it happens?

      Blackmail.

      Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the communist part...er... terrorist?
    • How about reconnaissance? You know, keeping a watchful eye, gathering intelligence?

      I know, this can be taken as tongue in cheek, but I'd imagine this would be a primary objective for this thing.
    • The purpose is not to give data to be checked, but to find potential problems in an automated manner. The sensor arrays will be used to find a variety of threats which can be determined automatically and to find them while they are still at sea.

      In particular, they mentioned a technology which would be able give notice about shipping containers which are likely to contain explosive, allowing the coast guard to stop them before they're in port.

      It's less about having more information and more about having th

  • massive innefficiency (Score:4, Insightful)

    by samot84aol.com ( 554299 ) on Wednesday October 13, 2004 @06:54PM (#10519029)
    Dosn't this seem terribly innefficient? I mean, mantaining these things in the air at all times, to do a job that seems to already be done by survelience satellites, airplanes and ground. And how does this reduce the risk to terrorism?
    • Well, it can see further than the ground and means you can probably get rid of the AWACS planes. It's unmanned and the project is far far cheaper than a single AWACS plane.

      • Can these airships move near hostile airspace and direct fighters to targets?
        • These blimps aren't designed for battlefield use, where they could easily be taken out by Stinger missiles or artillery, and where speed and rapid maneuverability are important. (If you need an AWACS plane, _use_ an AWACS plane.)

          Their job is to park near the US borders, with big radars looking for anything suspicious, like boats or small airplanes that might have politically incorrect plant materials or trucks that might have people with politically incorrect skin colors or Canadians invading on snowmobil

  • How cruel! (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I, for one, will not tolerate the Bush administration tethering Michael Moore 70,000 feet above the ocean.

    The possibility of an unprecedented ecological disaster is far too great. (Besides, it'll really ruin the view.) /cue Bush-bash

  • Sell aluminum futures! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Tackhead ( 54550 ) on Wednesday October 13, 2004 @06:56PM (#10519037)
    Wow. Once these things go up, those tinfoil-hat wearing folks will be out of luck.

    Sure, the tinfoil protects them from the invisible mind control lasers, but the reflected solar radiation just makes them easier to target from the air with the onboard plasma cannons.

  • Repairs? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Paster Of Muppets ( 787158 ) on Wednesday October 13, 2004 @06:56PM (#10519039)
    Hmm... Operating at 70,000 feet? How the hell are you meant to repair them? Bringing it back down for maintenance is the only option I can think of, and that will severely reduce your observational capabilities there.

    Also, what if it gets punctured or damaged while at 70,000 feet? Will there be an immediate action plan to send up a replacement? As it's unmanned, I guess this means that every little defect requires a ground-based overhaul?

    Personally, I don't see it working at the moment.

    • If one starts having problems, send up a replacement THEN bring the bad one down.

      No problems that wouldn't be issues with any other technique in use (satellite, helicopter, airplane, etc.)
      • With a coverage of 500,000 square miles, that works out as a circle of radius 400miles. Given an effective range of, say, 750 miles per blimp (need some overlap at the edges at least), and that the US-Mexico border is 3,100km [national-anthems.net], you'd need 5 just for this border. What about the coastlines, or the border with Canada? To do as you suggest, you'd need at least 50% again (so that there is one covering every pair as a bare minimum), as well as as a landing & repair facility not too far away.

        To reiterate my po

    • Re:Repairs? (Score:3, Informative)

      by jd ( 1658 )
      Repairs'll be the least of their problems. At that altitude, they'll have other things on their mind. Not least, the air pressure is much lower, which will mean that the bags holding the helium will be under much greater stress. The quality of the components must be considerably higher than normal, if they plan any prolonged flights.

      The radiation levels up there are also substantially higher than on the ground. Domestic air crews don't fly much about 35,000 feet, but still get enough cosmic rays and other

  • Mr Smithers! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Sean80 ( 567340 ) on Wednesday October 13, 2004 @06:56PM (#10519043)
    Mr Smithers, my devious plan is to block out the sun! Release the blimps!

  • Finally I can sleep soundly (Score:5, Funny)

    by Hoplite3 ( 671379 ) on Wednesday October 13, 2004 @06:56PM (#10519049)
    Whew! Total safety is so close I can taste it! Thanks, guys. Without your cameras everywhere, we'd all be blown up tomorrow. (Well, I'm not sure the one in my bathroom is necessary, but I do store bleach there and it could be used as a weapon if terrorists break into my house.)

  • Pentagon Hot Air (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Doc Ruby ( 173196 ) on Wednesday October 13, 2004 @06:57PM (#10519055) Homepage Journal
    These airships would be a great advance in transportation, cargo, and exploring/inhabiting greater volumes of the Earth's capacity. But how do they protect our ports from some asshole with a stick of dynamite and a scuba tank stowed away a petroleum supertanker? This money and Defense management would be much better spent infiltrating terrorists with spies, cutting their financial, political and media sponsors, and investing in democratizing the tyrannies that pressure the populations from which they recruit. Unless our goal is to keep the Pentagon fat on job corps and science budgets, some state capitalist corporate welfare for defense contractors.

    • Re:Pentagon Hot Air (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      This money and Defense management would be much better spent infiltrating terrorists with spies, cutting their financial, political and media sponsors, and investing in democratizing the tyrannies that pressure the populations from which they recruit.

      That sounds all well in good. But here's the reality of the situation:

      1. Infiltrating terror networks with spies means that we'll be paying "bad" people with your tax dollars. In order to get in good with the terrorists, our agent will have to do some despi

    • Re:Pentagon Hot Air (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Simonetta ( 207550 )
      The intelligence agencies of the USA are extremely embarrassed that they couldn't infiltrate one operative into the Islamic terrorist networks, even though these spent many billions of dollars trying to do so.

      What's even worse is that some 19-year-old stoned-out white hippie freak kid from Sausalito can buy a copy of the Koran at a garage sale, walk into to the Islamic Student Center at San Francisco State saying that "it's a really cool book, but there are some things that I don't understand...", a

  • I haven't seen this mentioned... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Epistax ( 544591 ) <epistax AT gmail DOT com> on Wednesday October 13, 2004 @06:57PM (#10519058) Journal
    What keeps some random person who owns a gun from taking one of these down, exactly? Does the impact get distributed in such a way that it will not be hurt by conventional arms? Do keep in mind that being in American, conventional arms is a 50-caliber sniper rifle capable of going straight through body armor (of several people).

    • Simple (Score:5, Informative)

      by Andy Dodd ( 701 ) <atd7@@@cornell...edu> on Wednesday October 13, 2004 @07:05PM (#10519109) Homepage
      Conventional arms can't easily hit a target a few thousand feet above you, let alone SEVENTY thousand feet.

      Even fighter jets have trouble exceeding 50-60 thousand feet IIRC. Only specialized aircraft (Scaled's White Knight is one such example) can reach these altitudes.
    • Even a 50 caliber (12.7mm) or the old Russian heavy-machine gun the 14.5mm can't come close to this altitude.

      http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ g ro und/m2-50cal.htm

      http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/g ro und/m82.htm

      Maximum effective range on equipment-sized targets: 1800 meters

      Now, in the United States, a 50 caliber sniper rifle isn't a "conventional arm". It's a special application rifle used in the military and by a very small special core of long distance shooters.

      In the Uni
    • So, how far does one of these snipers rifles fire?

    • Re:I haven't seen this mentioned... (Score:5, Funny)

      by seanadams.com ( 463190 ) * on Wednesday October 13, 2004 @07:17PM (#10519220) Homepage
      What keeps some random person who owns a gun from taking one of these down, exactly?

      Gravity.

      It has been called an "unforgiving motherfucker" by the walker-bound elderly, but the fact is, only gravity can protect our prescious airships from the terrorists who seek to destroy our way of life.

      Let's suppose you've got a nice powerful 50 cal that fires at 2000 feet per second.

      physics [ucsd.edu] tells us that it'll take 2000 feet per second / 32 feet per second per second = 62.5 seconds to reach it's max height.

      Then we can figure out how high that is with this equation:

      distance = initial speed * time - ( 1/2 ) * acceleration * time^2

      2000 * 62.5 - 0.5 * 32 * 62.5^2
      125000 - 62500
      == 62500

      So your bullet will turn around roughly a mile short of the target. :)

    • Could you please name some "conventional arms" that is capable of shooting nearly 14 miles in the air? Or someone who's capable of hitting a target from 14 miles away?
    • I'll just reply to myself since 5 of the 6 people who responded to me said the same thing (some more intelligently than others).

      It doesn't start up there.
    • Surprisingly, real life is not like a Wile E. Coyote cartoon -- putting a bullet into a blimp or airship will not send it wooshing across the sky. The design in TFA is 5 million cubic feet. At a guess, if you put 100 rounds of 50-caliber ammo completely through the envelope, you'd probably have up to 24 hours before the loss of helium would force the ship to land.
    • Conventional projectile weapons are not going to be an issue (see other child posts for the physics). I can see a bit of fun with high energy lasers however. Even a low wattage laser pointer can mess up [naimark.net] a camera. Get your hands on something with a bit more juice and a stationary target...

  • Not completely new (Score:4, Insightful)

    by tm2b ( 42473 ) on Wednesday October 13, 2004 @07:09PM (#10519135) Journal
    In principle this isn't that new, it's an expansion upon an existing program.

    For example, if you check the north Florida (Jacksonville sectional) aviation chart there's an obstacle along the west coast of the state, a border observation balloon at the "bend" between the peninsula of Florida and the pan handle. It has been used for years to monitor the Florida coast against smuggling from the Gulf of Mexico.

    What looks different about this program is that the "balloons" will move at a very high altitude. It's unclear to me why stationary stations aren't sufficient for border monitoring, unless you want to monitor activity by all sorts of people in the interior of the country.

    It does give them another excuse for UFO debunking though.

  • Airships to orbit (Score:3, Interesting)

    by cft_128 ( 650084 ) on Wednesday October 13, 2004 @07:11PM (#10519164)
    This reminds me of JP Aerospace's [jpaerospace.com] plans and ideas for high altitude platforms [hobbyspace.com] to launch airships into orbit. Looks pretty nifty.
  • THz radiation?

    It says in the article it can be adjusted to see through plastics, clothes, etc

    Clothes! Isn't this the same stuff that was responsible for all the X-Ray vision claims? Do we really want sensor platforms over most all of our major cities with the ability to see through people's clothes? I mean, I'm all for having the government check up on my library habits, but this may be taking it a little too far, no?

    • These things have roughly 500-mile range, and yes, millimeter-wave radar is the stuff that Homeland Security wanted before everybody started reminding them that Ashcroft is a prude (so they started pretending they'd use image-processing to block that usage.) If you really believe all the funding applications here, you have to wonder when they'll put up a webcam...

  • Port security, eh? (Score:3, Funny)

    by AaronStJ ( 182845 ) <AaronStJ@gmail.c3.14159om minus pi> on Wednesday October 13, 2004 @07:12PM (#10519172) Homepage
    Port security? I thought we already had that pretty much covered, what with port knocking, firewalls, and ssh tunnelling...

  • They could also be good for astronomy (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Michael Woodhams ( 112247 ) on Wednesday October 13, 2004 @07:16PM (#10519204) Journal
    Astronomers have occasionally used balloon borne telescopes for getting above most of the atmosphere, as it is much cheaper than a satellite. If there is a mass-produced long duration stratespheric balloon/airship available, it could make this much more viable.

    As an aside - the article also discusses "Terahertz imaging." One terahertz corresponds to wavelength of about 0.3 mm or 300 microns - extreme IR, or short sub-millimetre, depending on your point of view.
  • Just what was the significance of that big white ball that followed Number Six? [netreach.net]
  • Spearheading the airship project is Lieutenant General James A. Abrahamson, USAF-Retired, chairman and CEO of StratCom International LLC, who directed both the Space Shuttle program and "Star Wars" Strategic Defense Initiative

  • Starcraft (Score:5, Funny)

    by Lord_Dweomer ( 648696 ) on Wednesday October 13, 2004 @07:48PM (#10519449) Homepage
    "Spawn more Overlords."

    Sorry, had to be said.

  • I often find myself wondering what would happen if the Hindenberg never made the world terrified of airships as methods of mass transportation.

    Surely we would have our flying cars today in the form of personal airships. I mean, I'd feel a hell of a lot safer in one of those than I would with Moller's Skycar or something like that.

    On Slashdot people repeatedly point out "what happens when you have an accident at 1000 feet?" and something like this would make those accidents a lot less fatal. Also probably

  • And what exactly will they be able to see?? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by kevlar ( 13509 ) on Wednesday October 13, 2004 @08:11PM (#10519605)
    At 70,000 ft, atmospheric distortion (looking down) because a huge problem. You might be able to have optics that can make out a license plate in theory, but in practice it wouldn't be possible without some seriously adaptive optics.
  • It seems like every few years, someone trots out an idea to use airships for some mission requiring heavy lift or long loiter time (say, roadless logging or maritime sensor platform). After a while, the idea vanishes.

    I've seen a Goodyear blimp flying along the California coast in a strong crosswind. It was barely under control.

    Until such issues can be answered, airships have no future.

  • The "Blimp for Security" concept is already here. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by MrSnivvel ( 210105 ) on Wednesday October 13, 2004 @09:36PM (#10520094) Homepage
    This story [cnn.com] is about a blimp currently in the skies above Washington D.C. What better way to have surveillance over a population than with a very quiet slow moving craft that can carry a large payload. Unmanned flying drones cost too much, travel too fast, don't have the long flight times, and have the payload capacity. Airships (or blimps) give more bang for the buck.
  • Captain Scarlet worked for an organization whose base was one of these air-platforms:

    cloudbase [spectrum-h...arters.com]


    Funny thing about that guy, Captain Scarlet;

    During the end credits, you would always see him pinned under a pile of boulders, with a lit fuse on a bundle of dynamite just out of his arm's reach [spectrum-h...arters.com],

    Or you'd see him underwater, bound by chains attached to weights pulling him to the bottom as great sharks loomed towards him [spectrum-h...arters.com],

    Or tied up with ropes while a cobra coils, preparing to strike him [spectrum-h...arters.com],

    Or pushed f [spectrum-h...arters.com]

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