Government Orders Spy Blimp to Spy on Americans

[thirty-thirty]

GOVERNMENT ORDERS SPY BLIMP
Friday, June 16, 2006 - FreeMarketNews.com

The government has hired defense subcontractor Lockheed Martin to design and develop an enormous blimp that will be used to spy on Americans, according to the Athens News. Government agencies such as the NSA are anticipating that as early as 2009 the blimp will be operational and begin supporting new ways of monitoring everything that happens in the country.

A prototype of the blimp is already being developed at a cost of $40 million. The spy ship, called the High Altitude Airship, will be seventeen times larger than the Goodyear Blimp and hover 12 miles above the ground. Although it is very large it will be invisible to both the naked eye and ground radar because of its distance from the earth. Fuel economic and self sufficient, it will be powered by solar energy and will be able to fly for years at a time.

The U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command has already conducted a study to determine some of the uses of the spy ship. It has the capability of monitoring an area 600 miles in diameter at a time with surveillance equipment, such as high-resolution cameras. The government has ordered 11 of them – enough to monitor every parcel of land in the U.S.

http://www.freemarketnews.com/WorldNews.asp?nid=15095

 

[Nightfall]

Tin-foil is looking more fashionable all the time...

 

[Otherguy Overby]

50 Cal...

Look for more attempted 50 caliber bans. After all they can be used to shoot something down 12 miles up...

 

[gm]

"Fuel economic and self sufficient, it will be powered by solar energy and will be able to fly for years at a time"



hey..just thought of something..a way to move all the illegals back home and solve the corporate greed with free rides.

 

[GTSteve03]

What's the point of this over a satellite? I'm sure there are enough over the US anyways to get high-res shots of anyone. Look at Google Maps. You can see your own house using that, and that's just commercial satellite equipment.

 

[Nehemiah Scudder]

I looked it up a bit. It's an unmanned radar missile detection system.

 

[The Real Hawkeye]

Government Orders Spy Blimp to Spy on Americans

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

GOVERNMENT ORDERS SPY BLIMP
Friday, June 16, 2006 - FreeMarketNews.com

The government has hired defense subcontractor Lockheed Martin to design and develop an enormous blimp that will be used to spy on Americans, according to the Athens News. Government agencies such as the NSA are anticipating that as early as 2009 the blimp will be operational and begin supporting new ways of monitoring everything that happens in the country.

A prototype of the blimp is already being developed at a cost of $40 million. The spy ship, called the High Altitude Airship, will be seventeen times larger than the Goodyear Blimp and hover 12 miles above the ground. Although it is very large it will be invisible to both the naked eye and ground radar because of its distance from the earth. Fuel economic and self sufficient, it will be powered by solar energy and will be able to fly for years at a time.

The U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command has already conducted a study to determine some of the uses of the spy ship. It has the capability of monitoring an area 600 miles in diameter at a time with surveillance equipment, such as high-resolution cameras. The government has ordered 11 of them – enough to monitor every parcel of land in the U.S.

I guess someone was watching the sci-fi movie Aeon Flux.

This is a perfect idea if you are attempting to impose an Orwellian nightmare superstate on the American People. As for the potential victims of said superstate, I think they'd be well advised to oppose this measure.

 

[rbernie]

an enormous blimp that will be used to spy on Americans, according to the Athens News

And exactly *who* is Athens News, and how did they derive this knowledge from the available info?

 

[DunedinDragon]

Does anyone else find it suspect when just below the above-mentioned story there is the following disclaimer:

Free-Market News Network does not represent, warrant, or endorse the accuracy, reliability, completeness or timeliness of any of the information, content, views, opinions, recommendations or advertisements contained on, distributed through, or linked, downloaded or accessed from any of the information contained in this News Story.

Kinda makes ya go......hmmmmmmmmmmmmm???!!!!

 

[Kharn]

GTSteve:

What's the point of this over a satellite?

Satelites orbit in set patterns, anyone can find out when there will be a gap between coverage and exploit it. It takes a lot of fuel to change a satelite's trajectory if a look at a different area is required, and they can only carry so much. With a blimp, the overflight times arent set, so no one will know when they're being watched or not.

Kharn

 

[cropcirclewalker]

So I wonder if these big gas bags will be visable by commercial satellite like the one they use with gooooooooooogle?

Some enterprising entrapenoor could set up a service and make a handsome profit by publishing it's location.

The free market is a cool thing.

 

[Kharn]

Google's probably not buying real-time feeds.

Kharn

 

[The Real Hawkeye]

Admit it Kharn, you're a spook, aren't you?

 

[White Horseradish]

I think one advantage of this over a satellite would be cost. It's pricey to fling things off the planet.

 

[longeyes]

It's fitting that D.C. gasbags should use gasbags to spy on us.

 

[zoom6zoom]

Hell, that damn thing was on the cover of Popular Mechanics something like twenty years ago....

 

[Roadwild17]

it sounds like a bad amusement park ride .

 

[Kharn]

Nope, I just have a lot of time to read while flying around for my job.

Kharn

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

High-altitude reconaissance has existed since the 1950s... somehow though when we discuss the U2, SR71, or similar programs nobody ever phrases it as "Government Orders Spy Plane to Spy on Americans."

The fact that the blimp is designed to be invisible to ground radar strongly suggests that it will not be used for domestic surveillance. Not much point in specifying that the blimp be invisible to ground radar when you own all the ground radar sets over the area being surveilled.

I notice this story is strangely absent on facts to - like the facts that support the blimp being used for domestic surveillance. While I'd agree that the coverage is well within normal media regard for accuracy, they sure didn't spend much time explaining how they reached the conclusion that the blimp would be used operationally here.

 

[Jeff White]

I looked it up a bit. It's an unmanned radar missile detection system.

I guess all you guys who use intermediate range missiles for home defense need to be concerned about this. Imagine it, they'd be able to detect your launch and have counter battery fire enroute before your missile landed....Yep it's real threat to our freedom....

I thnik I'll work on a way to hide the thermal signature of your launch. That way you'll only have to buy some stealth technology so they can't track the missile back to your house by it's trajectory.

If any of you guys want to contribute to my research send me a PM LOL

Jeff

 

[cropcirclewalker]

Yo, Mr. White, Thanks for the clarification.

I raise the question.......Have or are we being plagued by a bunch of criminal launches of intermediate missles lately?

11 systems at 40 mil each rounds out to 440 million bux. Is it worth it just to prevent one launch? For the children?

Is there some other use to which these gas bags may be put?

 

[Lucky]

"High-altitude reconaissance has existed since the 1950s... somehow though when we discuss the U2, SR71, or similar programs nobody ever phrases it as "Government Orders Spy Plane to Spy on Americans."

That seems like a reverse conspiracy theory, inside-out tinfoil and all heh heh. I hate to ruin a perfectly good reverse-conspiracy theory with facts, but planes like the SR71 could get to targets to be observed in hours. A solar-powered Hindenburg could never get to any target worth surveilling in any time to view it, weeks maybe. And the odds of it being invible to radar - take a wild guess. Solar panels? Cameras & lenses? Maybe even the big old blimp itself?

The notion that solar powered blimps would be designed for anything other than loitering and observing is quite ridiculous, to be honest. I hate to play the shrink, but anyone suggesting these blimps are not to be used on their countrymen would still be in the first stage of grief.

 

[Car Knocker]

I'd bet one good-size cargo plane could move a deflated blimp quite handily to just about anywhere in the world.

 

[cropcirclewalker]

Does anybody know anything about the jet stream?

How high and how fast?

Seems like I remember seeing them big ol' Thunderheads back in Iowa when I was a kid. I thought the weather guy said they went to over 100,000 feet.

That's like almost 19 miles up.

Maybe I am remembering it all wrong, but a giant gas bag seems likely to get blowed around up there.

edited.

Okay, I googled "Thunderhead altitude" and linkded up with a cute little chart..

63,360 feet Twelve miles high
60,000 feet Tops of highest cumulonimbus thunderhead clouds

can be seen at http://www.spacetoday.org/SolSys/Earth/AltitudesChart.html

Maybe they figger that the gas bag will get out of the weather.

6-11 miles Troposphere of Earth's atmosphere, including weather we feel on the surface.

Maybe so.

 

[JohnBT]

www.globalsecurity.org/intell/systems/haa.htm

"According to the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), 11 high-altitude airships would provide overlapping radar coverage of all maritime and southern border approaches to the continental U.S., and may be a significant asset in homeland defense efforts."

"On 29 September 2003 Lockheed Martin Naval Electronics & Surveillance Systems, Akron, Ohio, was awarded agreement HQ0006-04-9-0001 for design and risk reduction phase 2 of the High Altitude Airship advanced concept technology demonstration."