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NASA Building Network of Smart Cameras Across US
kkleiner writes "A major government agency is looking to blanket the US with cameras that will never stop their surveillance. But don't worry, privacy pundits, those cameras will be spying on the sky, not civilians. NASA's All-sky Fireball Network is a series of cameras that track meteorites as they enter the atmosphere. With careful triangulation, NASA can not only know where the meteorites will land, they can determine where they came from as well. One of the coolest parts of the All-sky Fireball Network is that it's fully automated. Meteors are detected by a computer which sends images, video clips, and data analysis to William Cooke, head of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office. Now you can get the same information as Cooke, too – the All-sky Fireball Network's website publicly records all the data for you to peruse."
How long will that last, once the tech and infrastructure is in place? But it'll be to stop the terrorists, really.
What are the scientific/"practical" aims of this exercise, if any in particular? What is the type of camera used?
So what happens when hundred of meteorite hunters and wanna be's jump in their cars with in minutes and race to an area all wanting to find it ? Most likely going onto private properties hoping to get lucky looking for a 6ft tall rock and trampling the little pebble into the ground.
Considering the cuts that are being pushed through the House, especially for research of earth/space science stuff like tsunami warnings, I can't help but wonder whether it'll just get defunded in a few months. I hope not. This looks interesting, but no amount of federal funding for scientific research is safe from the politicians right now.
My postings are informational and does not constitute legal advice. Act on it at your risk.
I'm not a pundit because I care about privacy.. should I call the you've-got-nothing-to-hide people panopticon peeping toms?
I had just been visiting the USArray site to watch the animations associated with the Japan Earthquake right before I read this article. It's a similar idea.
Proverbs 21:19
Once a few of these cameras are vandalized, we'll need cameras that point down to protect them.
This should be great for tracking UFOs!
then they have nothing to fear.
I just want to give props to the guy or gal who came up with "All-sky Fireball Network" that name is so full of win I can't stand it. To bad it'll likely be referred to as the ASFN. Maybe we can get scientists to name our legislation packages for us!
Is NASA going to pay people to clean them? Cameras aiming at the ground with rain shields are hard enough to keep the lenses clean & clear of debris, nevermind looking up.
<tinfoil>Yes... Cameras pointed at the sky... Just make sure there's not a second camera in the opposite end pointing down.</tinfoil>
They're actually setting up to track us all everywhere we go in our flying cars.
"The network currently consists of 3 cameras placed in locations in north Alabama, northwest Georgia, and southern Tennessee. The network is growing all the time, with plans to place a total of 15 cameras..." http://fireballs.ndc.nasa.gov/
"This looks interesting" is a lot more legitimate a reason than some of the random tax breaks we've pissed our money away on.
So it's "better than bad" and therefore "good"?
Bow-ties are cool.
Someone should ask the meteorites how they feel about that.
when terrorist strike from above...
Only a matter of time before DHS builds stereoscopic aerial drone mirrors to fly over them cameras so they can turn them on the populace and get images in micro HD of everyone for thousands of miles. Given the resolution current optical and digital devices are capable of, it's conceivable this is a kaliedoscopic effort to capture all human activity at once.
This is all just part of their plan to find the stash of freeze dried ice cream I lifted from the Air and Space Museum in 1983. That stuff is still buried out in the desert somewhere and no one is going to get it. That's all that's going to be left after civilization crumbles, you know.
and how soon after they get finished building this will they be visited by the NSA with a "request" to install some minor software patches the public need not know about?
What happens when the data from these cameras is used to locate/track 'secret satellites' such as the X37-B, which are visible at dawn/dusk?
This sounds a lot like my SETINE idea, "Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence Near Earth" http://www.setine.com/
For this I was thinking of having 2 camera, wide angle high res still , and a Servo controlled 1080i HD camera with 35x Zoom like they use in high end CCTV systems.
The idea is the one camera would spot objects in the sky that don't follow expected patterns. The second on would zoom in and track it, and record it.
These could then be collected on the Internet and use crowd sourcing to ID objects and improve image processing algorithms for object identification.
I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso
Not as pie in the sky as you might think.
This could also potentially be great for people who want to track satellites in low earth orbit (like the X-37 or space station). Having constant access to the entire sky would make it easy to command an image be taken at approximate times/locations for the satellite in its orbit without having to get in your car and go to that location.
Its also possible this could be used for aircraft (if the cameras are close enough together) augmenting radar tracking.
--
Marvin (with the pain in all the diodes down the left-hand side).
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
... you dumbfucks!
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
I guess if you can't actually go to space, you can watch as your Country gets pounded by asteroids. At least until google guys them out and turns it into a global warming commercial.
I suppose the government is going to start coming after all the meteorites.
this is those kinds of stories that offend me as an intelligent human being. how stupid and non intelligent a story will have to be so people can be fooled into it?
tracking meteorites...yea...the next step is to put a chip into your brain that controls your thoughts - The Next Generation Police Enforcement - They will arrest you before you even think of committing a crime or thinking about it because they will nail the precise vibration/frequency those kind of thoughts will originate. In the end the major population will believe the most stupid stories ever that comes from the government or agencies control by governments.
"I'm a slave and i'm proud of it"
My God....
Fireball tracking? Why? If it lands, we know where, and we know where it came from too, space. It's a UFO tracking system. "Fireballs" my arse!
Most people are mostly good most of the time.
All it takes is a motor to turn the camera down to look at us...
Does the hardware allow for this? Also, won't the government have public specifications that would expose this possibility?
But don't worry, privacy pundits, those cameras will be initially spying on the sky, not civilians.
There, fixed that for you.