Complexity Digest 2003.42 - 19.05

20-Oct-2003

Feds Want All-Seeing Eye in Sky, Wired Bookmark and Share

Excerpts: "We need an illuminator, throwing into relief all the pictures and activities on the Earth's surface. And then we need to be able to switch on the spotlight, or alert other systems, to dive deep." (...). Space-based radar, or SBR, is Cambone's preferred method for fulfilling these aims. America's current imaging satellites can cover only thin slices of the Earth at any one time as the spacecraft pass overhead. A constellation of 10 to 24 SBR satellites, slated for 2012 or so, would cover almost the entire globe at once.