19th Century Airship Technology for Port Security

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."

Comments

Great...

[Izago909]

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.

massive innefficiency

[samot84aol.com]

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?

Repairs?

[Paster Of Muppets]

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.

Pentagon Hot Air

[Doc Ruby]

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

[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 despicible acts. The fear that Congressperson X authorized paying agent Y with tax dollars to do dispicible act Z to gain the terrorists' trust will come out some day will prevent X from ever authorizing such stuff.
2. Cutting their financial, political, and media connections requires the cooperation of the rest o f the world. And, in case you haven't bee paying attention for the last two years, the rest of the world doesn't like us too much. So don't expect them to jump when we demand that they crack down on terror-related lines of communication.
3. Democratizing the world? That's quite a feat. Quite frankly, I think it's more feasible to cover the atmosphere with spy-airships then it is to convert the entire world into a democracy.

Not completely new

[tm2b]

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.

They could also be good for astronomy

[Michael Woodhams]

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.

Re:I haven't seen this mentioned...

[seanadams.com]

oops, that's in a vacuum. :)

The "Blimp for Security" concept is already here.

[MrSnivvel]

This story 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.