Posted on 03/13/2009 12:30:19 PM PDT by BGHater
The giant dirigible would use radar to closely and constantly monitor activity on the ground from 65,000 feet.
The Pentagon said Thursday that it intends to spend $400 million to develop a giant dirigible that will float 65,000 feet above the Earth for 10 years, providing unblinking and intricate radar surveillance of the vehicles, planes and even people below.
"It is absolutely revolutionary," Werner J.A. Dahm, chief scientist for the Air Force, said of the proposed unmanned airship -- describing it as a cross between a satellite and a spy plane.
The 450-foot-long craft would give the U.S. military a better understanding of an adversary's movements, habits and tactics, officials said. And the ability to constantly monitor small movements in a wide area -- the Afghanistan- Pakistan border, for example -- would dramatically improve military intelligence.
"It is constant surveillance, uninterrupted," Dahm said. "When you only have a short-time view -- whether it is a few hours or a few days -- that is not enough to put the picture together."
The project reflects a shift in Pentagon planning and spending priorities under Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who has urged the military services to improve intelligence and surveillance operations while cutting high-tech weaponry costs.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
eye in the sky
Uh,, for 400 million, can they make it stealth too? I wonder what kind of defense systems it will use?
That’s what I thought, but I’m no expert on modern AA weapons systems.
ICE already uses one down around the Yuma Proving Grounds looking for illegals.
“Won’t OBozo’s defense spending cuts nip this in the bud?”
No, it can be used for domestic surveillance.
They should use hydrogen to get it aloft. They’ll need MUCH less of it than they will helium.
And what could possibly go wrong?
;^)
More likely the Mid-West than the Middle East!
Obviously worried the satellites will be taken down by something. Supposedly in the next year or two solar flares are predicted to be bad, like when they knocked out power in parts of Canada.
Probably because that is where they are typically useful. Even amateur rocket enthusiasts have built and flown rockets to way over 65,000 feet. Unless the blimp is very stealthy, which is hard to pull off when you have a radar on board, the blimp is just a sitting duck for any semi-modern military power.
Probably the blimps would only be deployed in places where they would be safe from attack - spying on civilians, or low tech adversaries. They should be great for tracking down Taliban bozos.
They are also probably thinking post-shuttle and having fewer launch vehicles to send up replacements/new ones.
I’m not either but if missiles could hit the U2 plane around the 60,000+ ft mark back in the 1960s, they can still hit them today.
I guess it will be built with stealth technology.
A 450 ft long stealth blimp, wonder how much that would cost per copy?
With all that helium, you could talk like a chipmunk for decades...
The U2 was shot down by a SA-2, in service since 1957 and with known range up to 66,000 ft. Syria, Iran, China, all the bad guys have these. This thing cannot survive a modern battlefield. Its only use would be domestic surveillance. Is an SA-2 covered by the 2nd Ammendment?
They should name them the Kennedy Class blimps.
DirecTV seems to have figured it out somehow.
Sure, they stay in a specific position.
At 35,000 km.
Think that will work with a spy satellite?
ie it would be a super expensive target for our enemies and international juvenile delinquents.
If only you knew.
Most of the worlds untapped wealth, people, areas to grow in, and most killing occur in third world dumps.
It would be nice to have a low cost platform.
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