China to Have Over 100 Eyes in the Sky 330
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."
good grief! (Score:4, Insightful)
good grief!
"various activities of society,"
translation anybody?
Re:good grief! (Score:4, Funny)
"Just like in your country".
Re:good grief! (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:good grief! (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Bonus March (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:good grief! (Score:3, Insightful)
Ludlow Massacre 1914, 20 killed by agents with implicit government approval (perpetrators were never prosecuted)
I'm sure there are others, the early labor-corporation battles were often violent, with the government almost always either helping or not hurting the companies. So sure, the US has killed far fewer of its own people, but it has still shown a willingness to do so at times.
Re:good grief! (Score:3, Insightful)
You should study the history of the US labor movement. While the death toll has never reached tiananmin levels, there are numerous instances of troops being used to break up strikes and protests, frequently firing upon and killing the protestors. The Ludlow Massacre [umwa.org] is one prominent example. I'm not trying to say that the US has been
Re:good grief! (Score:3, Interesting)
I guess the Cherokee don't count, huh, since they weren't protesting, just being forcibly marched from South Carolina to Oaklahoma during the winter? Just to pre-empt your objection to that comparison, the supreme court, at least, did not consider them a foreigners at that point.
Then there was Wounded Knee. No, the one in 1973 [essortment.com].
Oh, and let's not forget about those WWII Japanese interment camp
Re:good grief! (Score:3, Insightful)
>but still has a far way to go to reach the
>depravity of Chinese or North Korean societies.
That would be the Chinese or North Korean Leadership you would be meaning there, not the society.
Please Remember, in these countries the leadership is much more separated from the society than in the west, and especially when compared to the USA where the government can be considered to be a reflection of society.
Re:good grief! (Score:3)
if my parents aborted a couple accidents before they had me so they could wait until they had a home and good jobs, they should be commended! I still made it here so whats the big fucking deal?
now I don't give a fuck what goes on in china. the reason for my flame was your
Re:good grief! (Score:5, Insightful)
We don't like it in the US, either, you know...
--RJ
Re:good grief! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:good grief! (Score:5, Informative)
With a resolution of 5cm (2 inches) or 10cm (4 inches), the spy satellites can certainly track people. Source: Resolution of a Spy Satellite [hypertextbook.com].
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.
Re:good grief! (Score:3, Informative)
That's the resolution for a top-of-the-line KH-12 Keyhole-class satellite operated by the United States, which cost approximately $1 billion each. Even if the Chinese had the technical ability to produce such a thing, which they haven't even come close to demonstrating, they barely have the resources to put up one such satellite, let alone 100. Realistically, it's far more likely that in order to create
Re:How you know ? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:How you know ? (Score:3, Funny)
Big Brother is Watching You. (Score:2)
Preparing for the future.
Think Metropolis [persocom.com.br], Modern Times [imdb.com], 1984 [online-literature.com] (to me rather a remake of Jevgenij Samjatin), RFID+Neurochips.
Add remote control! Imagine!
CC.
Re:good grief! (Score:3, Funny)
I for one am all for invading ASAP to help liberate the poor Asapians... i'm just having a little difficulty finding it on the map.
"various activities of society" (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:"various activities of society" (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/surveillance/20
It can mean more than espionage, you know (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
What's with pro-China Slashbots? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm sorry, but I missed something. Is there some other more apt reaction to a government with a long, bloody track record of torturing, killing and suppressing its people in the name of ideology?
I don't understand the people that come out of the woodwork as apologists for the Chinese government here. The Chinese government IS EVIL and that knee-jerk reaction isn't a "knee-jerk" reaction, it's as simple and logical a reactio
Oh, I'm sure they'd love to (Score:3, Interesting)
So they don't really need a satellite to tell them that. A cop will relay that information quicker.
More importantly, a cop has a brain and ca
China is a Totalitarian society... (Score:2, Insightful)
Wasn't it in Deus Ex somewhere they talked about the difference between governments being that some are openly controlling and others leave freedom to the people, thereby allowing the corporations, etc. to take power?
Of course, I am not suggesting that you take dictation on philosophy of rule from a video game, simply that China is a very different social climate than we are used to and that there are undoubtedly many advantages and disadvantages to any system...
In fact,
Re:get an umbrella (Score:2)
In Soviet China... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:In Soviet China... (Score:2)
Woah (Score:2, Insightful)
Originality (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Originality (Score:2)
Only the guilty need worry (Score:3, Funny)
What orbit? (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
Re:What orbit? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What orbit? (Score:2)
It'll be some time before China has the expertise to do that kind of thing, methinks. Me could be wrong, of course.
If I were a bettin' man, I'd put my chips on the idea they'll be watching a lot more than their own domain. (Yes, that means "spying" even if everyone in the world knows the satellites are there)
Re:What orbit? (Score:3, Informative)
So, if these sats really are primarily for internal surveillance, anything "over areas of significant interest" probably isn't going to be geosync. Unless you're really into rainforests, most of the equator isn't t
Re:What orbit? (Score:2)
d Sure, the cameras need to be over the equator to be geosync. But who said they had to look straight down? The US has several weather sats that are geosync...
Re:What orbit? (Score:2)
It is NOT convenient for fine observation: they would require a lot more optics magnification and control, and much finer stabilization, to be able to observe details on the surface, even at the equator.
It is also NOT convenient to look up at Chinese citizen activity in the northern hemisphere, as the angle increases distortions from increased atmospheric depth and hides a signif
Re:What orbit? (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:What orbit? (Score:3, Insightful)
Secondly, China as a state is far more concerned about being able to control its people effectively than it is about outside powers. I have no doubt that these "eyes" could be put to use in other forms. However, I'm more concerned about the further rape of what few freedoms the people of China have left. Its mind boggling.
Re:What orbit? (Score:2)
Re:What orbit? (Score:2)
Maybe China's disinterest in other parts of the world was simply because it lacked the resources to cheaply watch other parts of the world. These satellites will be in low orbits. They'll get to look at every point on the Earth. Once they're up, the Chinese need only watch the feeds for "interesting" things.
The power base of the Chinese government has been slowly eroding, due largel
Re:What orbit? (Score:2)
And actually, the original poster was correct in his usage - geosynchronous simply means a 24 hour circular orbit (35,786 km altitude). Geostationary refers to a geosynchronous orbit with a (nominally - there is some drift) 0 degree inclination, which minimizes the amount of apparent north-south motion and keeps the spacecraft at what appears to be a fixed point in the sky.
Re:What orbit? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What orbit? (Score:2, Insightful)
But nothing attrocious has been committed in iraq.
compared with
We all cry and moan about the attrocities committed at our prisons in Iraq, and i agree, they were attrocious
Well, were they 'attrocious' or weren't they?
Sure, what those bastards did to Nicolas Berg or any of the other people beheaded is disgusting and atrocious. But why does that automatically mean the U.S. is right? It just means they're not as wrong.
where are the reprocutions for t
Re:What orbit? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What orbit? (Score:3, Insightful)
As is the US government. Or are you saying no civilians have been killed in Iraq?
Is being beheaded worse than being blown to pieces with a bomb? Is the fate of a man who intentionally went to a war torn country more tragic than the fate of a child who did not choose to be born into a country designated as part of the 'axis of evil'?
I respect that many soldiers went to Iraq for the best of reasons - they want to help the
Re:What orbit? (Score:4, Insightful)
So what do you call the death of over 1,000 Americans and thousands of Iraqi's? A mistake? I notice you talk a lot about "reprocutions". Yet you fail to realize that the terrorists goal is everything that goes along with "reprocutions". We are fighting terror right? So how does any form of infliction of pain (physical or mental) help prevent terror? If the wish of the U.S. is to stop terrorism, then why promote it? Soldiers are about the only Americans most Iraqi's will meet. Now how does everything going on in Iraq look to the Iraqi people? Do we need a history lesson about previous wars in Iraq and the impression it has left on the Iraqi people? They don't think the same thoughts you do. If a friend of yours was locked up in an Eskimo prison cell being treated the way Iraqi prisoners are being treated now, would you be as willing to accept that the Eskimo's just made a mistake?
"I appreciate all the protestors, they remind me that everything I am doing is right."
I seriously hope you don't actually beleive that. Do you ever think that maybe if it wasn't for the protestors that many more would die? Does imperialism mean anything to you? The Roman Empire? Napoleon? Your a soldier right? A soldier must follow orders. That is part of what is forced upon every soldier in the military, to follow orders and do it without hesitation. This is one of the major reasons for bootcamp. A soldier is a part of the military agenda, but is not involved in deciding what that agenda is. Anyway, I'm going off on tangents. The problem is, that your arguing emotion. Retaliation is an emotional subject. We could retaliate forever and ever against terrorists, because the act of retaliating helps promote terrorism. The "War on Terror" is different. We can not treat it like wars of the past. You point out all the information that supports your argument, but ignore all that is wrong with this war. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe we need no crticism. So instead I'll just happily smile when a president says we need to go to war with country X and support everything that goes along with it, or will I? That is why I am not a soldier following orders, but a citizen that questions the choices of those elected. I have nothing against soldiers. I disagree with those giving the bad orders. What each soldier decides to do during a war is another issue. And those that allow it to happen is yet another.
So tell me, what is it that your doing that is so right? And is anyone that criticizes the war wrong?
Re:What orbit? (Score:3, Interesting)
What the fuck WWII has anything to do with Iraq??? If you are doing something ugly, you cannot say "that guy did worse", you are only responsible of what you are doing.
Re:What orbit? (Score:3, Informative)
And if the satellites occasionally fly over other countries, who are the Chinese to complain?
What strike
Re:What orbit? (Score:2)
Re:What orbit? (Score:4, Informative)
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?
Cost (Score:2)
I think this is an excellent point. Exactly what is going to be the total cost of this plan? It sounds like it would be, no pun intended, astronomical.
I would venture to guess that rather than putting 100 satellites up they put a few up and tell the people that they have 100.
Re:Cost (Score:3, Interesting)
If they just want to spy on their own people - they should use balloons or automated high-endurance aircraft (say 1 month aloft time - solar powered - like that NASA thing).
One satellite for the whole country would be useless for spying - too much space to monitor if you want to be really intrusive. They'd need dozens, or 100 even.
Instead, you just float a balloon for a month at a time over each populated area. You can get
Re:Cost (Score:2, Funny)
Re:What orbit? (Score:3, Informative)
The optics are generally reflective, rather than transmissive, and while they might suffer micrometeoroid dings, they can last quite a long time. Spy telescopes also don't need to be as precise as astronomical telescopes, since they're looking back through the atmosphere, which fuzzes out things on the ground.
Earth observing sats commonly have a design lifetime of 3-5 years, but also commonly are expected by their users to last closer to 10, as long as they don't rely on
Yes, you're missing the obvious (Score:2)
They plan to own the whole planet by then.
'All your base are belong ...'
The Chinese have also quietly passed a new law (Score:2, Funny)
In other news.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:In other news.... (Score:2)
Comment from the White House? (Score:2, Interesting)
The Bush administration has done things like that in the past. Remember when Bush made his campaign promise to repeal Clinton's secret evidence laws, and instead increased them dramatically?
Re: (Score:2)
Nothing new (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Nothing new (Score:2)
1984?? (Score:5, Insightful)
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
Re:1984?? (Score:2)
AFAIK some European countries already have spy satilites up, first among them Russia.
Not just Russia - I read a fascinating book called "The Black Space Race" (library book, hence no ISBN/Amazon link) about the spying game between the US and the Soviet Union. Apparently the US (in great secrecy) developed small numbers of high quality satellites, the Soviet Union (also in great secrecy) developed large numbers of low quality satellites, and then France came out of nowhere with mid-range kit, and sold th
Re:1984?? (Score:2)
Well, they say that they're not intending to use the satellites to monitor the Middle East, or the Americas, or Europe. In practice, if they put a hundred satellites in po
Europe? (Score:2)
Only Trans-Ural Russia qualifies as being in Asia. The rest of it is in Europe [wikipedia.org]. So it depends on your point of view how you want to classify the Russians. Being a European myself, I tend to count Russians as fellow Europeans.
Re:1984?? (Score:2)
Under the night sky (Score:2, Interesting)
I wonder if you would be able to see them from the ground on a good night or would they be beyond the reach of the human eye?
_+_
Re:Under the night sky (Score:2)
If they're in low orbit, they'll be visible to the naked eye under the right conditions. "Right conditions" = they're in sunlight, you're not, like in the first or last couple of hours of night.
If they're in geosync orbit then you'll need a decent (8" or larger) telescope.
If you're at a dark site, you can lay on your back and watch satellites trucking by constantly all night, usually multiples at once. They're so thick that they *commonly* are visible go
not much detail on the satellites (Score:2, Informative)
I'd like to know what sort of sensors and resolutions will be flying and what they plan to charge for raw data.
Today, in China. (Score:2, Insightful)
Its only a matter of time. I can without a doubt say this will be commonplace in the next decade or two. No tinfoil hat joke here, sorry.
Re:Today, in China. (Score:4, Insightful)
In fact, the fundamental problem that this article is highlighting, that an autocratic, antidemocratic, and abusive regime in China is using satellites to spy on its own citizens may not even be true in China in 10-20 years as China may (though it is of course by no means a certainty) evolve into a democratic, accountable state by that time.
For those of you just itching to get in your 2 cents about how the USA is likewise an autocratic blah blah state.. zip it. While I hate GWB, the Patriot Act, etc as much as the next guy, such things are in an absolute sense truly insignificant compared to what still goes on in China where many citizens still lack basic freedom of movement inside the country to say nothing of the extreme repression of information and speech.
Re:Today, in China. (Score:2)
Zip it? So much for freedom of speech then? (Score:4, Insightful)
Look, I don't live in a utopian society where everything is perfect - nobody does - but I think you have to at least acknowledge that, if your an American, measuring your freedoms against those of China (or Afghanistan, or Iraq, or Wherever You Want To Invade Today (TM)), rather than against, say, your own Constitution is a sad state of affairs.
When you start accepting the small injustices and intolerances, even the ones that don't affect you, then you've let the door open a little bit. From there on, opening it wider and wider becomes easier than you think.
Freedom isn't the freedom to say just the popular things, it's the freedom to say the most unpopular stuff, even the stuff that makes 99 percent of people want to puke. Start oppressing one person's rights and you've oppressed everyone's.
Bottom line: if you're the land of the free then be the land of the free, not the land of the mostly free.
Re:Zip it? So much for freedom of speech then? (Score:2)
Other countries have similar injustices and intolerances (France immediately comes to mind - try selling some WWII stuff that has swastika's on i
Re:Zip it? So much for freedom of speech then? (Score:2)
A: China has some faults eh?
B: Yes, but the US does also! Look at what the US has done! My god the US sucks.
A: What about other nations?
B: Hey, I'm talkin' about the US here!
Re:Zip it? So much for freedom of speech then? (Score:2)
Re:Zip it? So much for freedom of speech then? (Score:2)
Re:Zip it? So much for freedom of speech then? (Score:2)
Funny though, there were no similar reaction seeking to oppress the rights of gun-toting militia men in middle America in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing, were there?
And don't even begin to use Sa
Re:Zip it? So much for freedom of speech then? (Score:2)
The US was/is very lucky in one regard. We had brilliant fore-fathers. Scholars of government in many ways. I happen to agree with their estimate of "minimum" rights.
Yes, the world has changed. A lot. Not just in the last 4 years though. Countless times I'm sure it would have been easier to just "ignore the constitution", but we didn'
Re:Zip it? So much for freedom of speech then? (Score:2)
No, they did not predict that. They were fighting for liberties and life. They were dieing in the 10'x of thousands left, right, and sidewise from gunshot wounds (one of the faster ways to die), cold, starvation, etc. They suffered FAR more than we did, and yet designed the constition to fight not only other nati
Re:Today, in China. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Today, in China. (Score:2)
Russia's been "evolving" since 1988 (16 years now) and some coups and financial crashes later some will say it is now headed in the autocratic direction, so I wouldn't
Makes sense (Score:4, Interesting)
Do You really think China has now the technology to monitor people from the sky? I doubt even the US has this. But who am I kidding? This is Slashdot of all places so I better get my tinfoil hat to blend in with the crowd.
Re:Makes sense (Score:2)
Dont you watch documentries? That Micheal Moore Documentery: Enemy of the State, shows how they do have the technology.
Racist (Score:4, Funny)
More info. (May be original press release) (Score:4, Informative)
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.
To please privacy international... (Score:4, Funny)
Extra information (Score:3, Funny)
100 satellites better than 1? (Score:2)
How will 100 satellites be able to image China at one time? Low altitude US surveillance satellites only get global coverage once per day.
Interesting..,. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Interesting..,. (Score:2)
You do your nation proud...
Re:Interesting..,. (Score:2)
They have camera's in space... (Score:3, Informative)
I live in the UK.
Money ? (Score:2, Interesting)
Over 100 eh? (Score:2)
not necessary (Score:2)
(Remember the USA cut down 90% of its ocean-to-ocean forests in the 18th and 19th century. Some of that came back during the 20th.)
Re:I'm sorry (Score:2, Funny)
dude, i just bought the new cassette by cyndi lauper. it's totally rad! want me to dub it for you?
HAHAHA I GET IT (Score:2, Funny)
It is a joke on English!!!!!!! The parent said "time to make reference of 1984!!!" but was referring to book by GEORGE ORWELL; the humor of English lies within tragic misinterpretation!!!!!! Ha ha ha ha ha!!!! I am laughing at your misinterpretation of his words to mean 1980's era of time!!!!! This is funny!!!!!!!
You are great comedian!!!!