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China to Have Over 100 Eyes in the Sky

Posted by samzenpus on from the not-for-all-the-satellites-in-china dept.

gollum123 writes "Reuters reports China plans to launch more than 100 satellites before 2020 to watch every corner of the country, state-run China Central Television quoted a government official as saying Tuesday. A "large surveying network" would be set up to monitor water reserves, forests, farmland, city construction and "various activities of society," a government official said without elaborating. "The aim is that, at any time and any place, we can obtain necessary data on any event through watching the Earth from space," said Shao Liqin, an official with the Ministry of Science and Technology."

21 of 330 comments (clear)

  1. good grief! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    A "large surveying network" would be set up to monitor water reserves, forests, farmland, city construction and "various activities of society," a government official said without elaborating.

    good grief!
    "various activities of society,"

    translation anybody?

    1. Re:good grief! by phrasebook · · Score: 4, Funny

      translation anybody?

      "Just like in your country".

    2. Re:good grief! by mirko · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Exactly, when I was in California, there were many signs like "speed limit enforced by AWAC surveillance" on the streets so I would not dare to say that people are not used to be monitored in others countries.
      BTW I also heard many stories about London's video cameras, so stop being hypocryte if there's one thing we can reproach to the Chinese in this very case it is that they were not the first to use this level of technology to enforce trheir regulations.

      --
      Trolling using another account since 2005.
    3. Re:good grief! by Raphael · · Score: 4, Informative
      I doubt that the resulution is sufficient to track individuals yet.

      With a resolution of 5cm (2 inches) or 10cm (4 inches), the spy satellites can certainly track people. Source: Resolution of a Spy Satellite.

      Note that a satellite does not have to be able to recognize your face to track you (it is hard to see it from the sky anyway). You can be identified by many other details.

      --
      -Raphaël
    4. Re:good grief! by Skater · · Score: 4, Insightful

      So...because something similar (well, not really) happens in the US, we shouldn't be annoyed when it happens in China?

      We don't like it in the US, either, you know...

      --RJ

    5. Re:good grief! by Ubergrendle · · Score: 4, Insightful

      True... but with the exception of a few anti-war protestors being shot in the 1960s, I think the US can be credited with a bit more social restraint in 'managing' societal activities. I don't recall police indiscriminantly shooting and killing a few thousand unarmed protestors ever in your history.

      The US has sunk pretty low in recent years, but still has a far way to go to reach the depravity of Chinese or North Korean societies.

      --
      John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
  2. "various activities of society" by Capt'n+Hector · · Score: 4, Interesting

    How ominous. Was this translated with editorializing in mind, or was this official so tactless as to expose the true purpose of such a constellation?

    --
    Quid festinatio swallonis est aetherfuga inonusti?
    Africus aut Europaeus?
  3. In Soviet China... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny
    In Soviet China the sky watch you!

    //I am so sorry!

  4. Originality by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    I for one welcome our Chinese satellite overlords!

  5. What orbit? by EyeSavant · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What it does not say is what orbit these things will be in. Spy satelites normally are in polar orbit so they cover the whole earth as it rotates.

    Putting these things in geostationary orbit so that they stay in the same place as the earth rotates is probably too high for this sort of thing.

    Hence I guess that these things can spy on the rest of the world, not just China. Or am I missing something?

    1. Re:What orbit? by Zitchas · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Good question, that. Depending on how much they're spending per satelite it's possible they're using geosync orbits, and simply have spent extra to have top end resoltutions. Although they'd still have to have some mobile and/or aiming capability, since even 100 satelites won't be able to keep the entire country within the view of high res cameras. My personal bet would be with a bunch of geosync sats over areas of significant intrest to the gov, (say, about half of the sats, possibly as many as 75) with the rest being in polar orbits to cover all the rest of the locations that aren't so easily predictable.

      --
      Z
    2. Re:What orbit? by thermopile · · Score: 4, Informative
      Geosynchronous, at 22,500 miles out, is simply too far away to be viable.

      The other issue at hand here is cost: the average life span of a spy satellite is about 3.5 or 4 years. The optics start to fog over due to radiation from the sun, and on something as precise as a spy satellite, that's a big deal. Plus space junk ... my bet is that China launches 4 spy satellites in useless orbits by 2020 then gives up because it's just too darned expensive.

      The maintenance on that kind of system would just be too darned expensive. Any GPS experts out there to lend credibility to this?

      --

      "Diplomacy is something you do until you find a rock." --Richard Pound

    3. Re:What orbit? by TracerJPN_USMC · · Score: 4, Insightful

      what the fuck? the rape of falluja??? lets see, insurgents controlled that city and used that position to behed american and foreign citizens in the name of allah. and yes, we liberated it. I can say us, for I am a US Marine serving overseas. You want to talk about a rape? How about the rape of Janjiing? Or Nanking as americans usualy pronounce it. When japanese occupied the chinese capital in WW2 and summarily executed over 300,000 civilians. They cut the unborn babies out of mothers stomachs and baynotted them. what the US forces do in Iraq is nothing, NOTHING compared to rape. I admit the US Military has made mistakes. But nothing attrocious has been committed in iraq. after watching the nicholas berg beheding, how can you possibly contend that the us is using improper force in iraq? they are willing to sacrifice innocent civilians to further their political agenda. We all cry and moan about the attrocities committed at our prisons in Iraq, and i agree, they were attrocious, but in the nature of the United States of America, we held those personel accountable for their actions. where are the reprocutions for the savages that beheded the americans? where are the reprocutions for the people that financed terrorists flying airliners into new yorK? I appreciate all the protestors, they remind me that everything I am doing is right.

      --
      magnanomous.
    4. Re:What orbit? by Idarubicin · · Score: 4, Informative
      Depending on how much they're spending per satelite it's possible they're using geosync orbits, and simply have spent extra to have top end resoltutions.

      That's a lot of extra spending.

      Spatial resolution on the ground is directly proportional to the diameter of the aperture (primary lens or mirror) and inversely proportional to altitude.

      By going from a low to middling earth orbit at 500 to 1000 kilometers, to geosynchronous orbit at 36000 km, you need to increase the size of your aperture by a factor of between about thirty and seventy. To replicate the resolution performance of a 1' (30 cm) mirror in low earth orbit takes a mirror 30' to 70' (about twenty meters) across in geosynchronous orbit. That's twice the diameter of the Keck telescopes on Mauna Kea, three times the diameter of the as-yet-unlaunched James Webb Space Telescope, and eight times the diameter of Hubble. (My back-of-the-envelope number is a resolution of a little better than one meter with those mirrors).

      Also, putting stuff into geosynchronous orbit is significantly more difficult than putting stuff in low earth orbit. (For commercial launches, lofting a payload to geosynchronous transfer orbit sets you back about three times as much on a per pound basis.)

      The physics and economics strongly argue for many satellites in lower orbits. There's the added benefit of being able to spy on other countries, too. The Chinese government doesn't need satellites to spy on its own people--it can do that with human intelligence (spies), ground-based cameras, and aircraft/drone surveillance.

      --
      ~Idarubicin
  6. In other news.... by Viceice · · Score: 5, Funny

    China legalises nude sun bathing. An official, quoted on condition of anonymity, said that studies have shown that Chinese women, especially those between the ages of 18 to 29 seem to suffer from low levels of vitamin D and are thus encouraged to sunbath... in the nude... on clear cloudless days...

    --
    Sometimes I wish I was a plumber, then I'd know how to deal with other people's shit.
  7. Nothing new by Flyboy+Connor · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The US have spy satellites up. Europe wants spy satellites up. Don't complain if the Chinese want theirs up there too.

  8. Racist by ThatsNotFunny · · Score: 4, Funny

    And I always thought it was the Japanese who liked taking pictures...

    --
    "Was it a millionaire who said 'Imagine No Posessions?'" -- Elvis Costello
  9. More info. (May be original press release) by Ceriel+Nosforit · · Score: 4, Informative

    http://service.china.org.cn/link/wcm/Show_Text?inf o_id=112464

    Highlights:

    Sun Laiyan, director of the China National Space Administration (CNSA), said that a large satellite-based earth observation system will also be built by 2010. The system could be used for observation of land, atmosphere and ocean within China, its adjacent areas and even the entire globe.

    Sun said that China will develop a new generation of polar orbit and stationary orbit meteorological satellites, high-performance resource follow-up satellites, oceanic color and dynamic observation satellites.

    --
    All rites reversed 2010
  10. To please privacy international... by technogogo · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...these should be fitted with giant flash guns so we know when they are taking our photograph.

  11. It can mean more than espionage, you know by Moraelin · · Score: 4, Insightful

    There are lots of "activities of society" that don't require a tin-foil hat, you know.

    E.g., traffic congestions. If you can see those from the sattellite, you have a head start in telling people to take other routes.

    E.g., fires. If in the middle of a forrested area you see a big bright infrared spot, you can react before the fire wiped out several square kilometres. And you'd be surprised how many forest fires are due to "activities of society". (A.k.a., idiot tourists.)

    Even if it is China and the mandatory knee jerk reaction is "chinese govt==evil", it's actually easier for them too to watch for such _big_ things, than to try to track an individual dissident by sattellite. If they want to track an individual person, they can just send an agent. It's cheaper and doesn't lose track each time the target goes into a house or bus.

    --
    A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
  12. 1984?? by Savage-Rabbit · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Europe wants spy satellites up.

    AFAIK some European countries already have spy satilites up, first among them Russia. What makes the Chinese ones special is that they will not be for spying on the Europeans, Americans, Australians or Africans. Nor are they intended to keep an eye on the Middle east. They will be a instrument with 100% coverage of Chinese national territory for the Chinese govt. to use for monitoring the Chinese . That makes them uniqe. Of course monitoring "various activities of society" can cover anything from something as innocent as traffic control to spying on the private citizen. Even so, judging from the limited information in this story, these plans look more like a rather innocent survey/management network than a 1984-esque Orwellian spy apparatus.

    --
    Only to idiots, are orders laws.
    -- Henning von Tresckow