High Altitude Airship - Eye in the Sky

[fastpat]

Another weapon in the arsenal of the surveillance state. Probably based on the success of the tethered balloons in the Florida Keys in tracking smugglers and illegal Cuban immigrants. It's another example of the fact that the US goernment is significantly over funded.

Big Brother's new toy: Another bloated gas bag watching you from the sky
2006-05-30
By James Renner
Cleveland Free Times

Last week, a fire ignited at the Akron Airdock that once housed a fleet of Goodyear blimps. Firemen rushed to the 211-foot-tall structure and quickly doused the flames. Reporters and photographers descended on the landmark. Many were surprised to learn the blimps were no longer being stored there.

Turns out Lockheed Martin -- the company that gave us the Trident intercontinental ballistic missile -- was renovating the site for an upcoming project when the fire started. It's being turned into a hangar for a prototype airship. If you're frightened of this administration's habit of spying on American citizens, you may want to stop reading.

The prototype is called the High Altitude Airship, or HAA. Lockheed Martin Maritime Systems & Sensors in Akron won the $40 million contract from the Missile Defense Agency to build HAA in 2003. It is essentially another blimp. A giant one. Seventeen times the size of the Goodyear dirigible. It's designed to float 12 miles above the earth, far above planes and weather systems. It will be powered by solar energy, and will stay in a geocentric orbit for up to a year, undetectable by ground-based radar. You can't see it from the ground. But it can see you.

"The possibilities are endless for homeland security," says Kate Dunlap, a Lockheed Martin spokesperson. "It could house cameras, and other surveillance equipment. It would be an eye in the sky."

According to a summary released by the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command, the HAA can watch over a circle of countryside 600 miles in diameter. That's everything between Toledo and New York City. And they want to build 11. With high-res cameras, that could mean constant surveillance of every square inch of American soil. "If you had a fleet of them, this could be used for border surveillance," suggests Dunlap.

Launch date: 2009.

Of course, mimicking its defense of warrantless wiretapping and phone-log data mining, the government maintains it only wants to protect its citizens from external threats. But as any geek can tell you, blimps were ubiquitous in The Watchmen, the seminal '80s graphic novel in which heroes have been driven underground and Nixon is still president.

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not watching you.

[kach22i]

Originally posted by fastpat
Another weapon in the arsenal of the surveillance state. Probably based on the success of the tethered balloons in the Florida Keys in tracking smugglers and illegal Cuban immigrants. It's another example of the fact that the US goernment is significantly over funded.

All they will see is the top of my head and the tin foil hat.

[charleskieffner]

hey they are all along the border from san diego to texas. tested here at yuma proving grounds. had a couple get away in storms, finally figured out to watch the weather, and reel them in when weather bad. last i heard and we have seen (2) that (4) or (5) are set up just in arizona. brings new meaning to the stephen stills song "TREE TOP FLYER"! we have FAA GOLF BALL RADAR STATION just north of us overlooking bartlett lake. it connects with FAA radar albuquerque. got to know a couple of the guys working there since i work at closest airport. asked them how high and how low radar went. they answered thats "classified".

heard blimps radar goes right down on the deck day or night rain sleet snow. wind/lightning..........is another story!

[oldE]

Isn't the full name off the project :
High Altitude Airship-Hazard Assessment Analysis ? HAA-HAA ?

Actually, it sounds like someone is thinking in terms of a cost-effective platform for surviellance. Gotta be cheaper than satellites.
I think the "geocentric orbit" part is a bit off base. If they are relying upon the lifting properties of a gas bag (be nice, Gentlemen), it is not in orbit at all, but is rather floating near the top of the atmosphere.

Les

[cashflyer]

Originally posted by charleskieffner
heard blimps radar goes right down on the deck day or night rain sleet snow. wind/lightning..........is another story!

Well that explains the delay on my shipments....

[nota]

the one in the keys has been shot down
by the locals at least once

[johnco]

I built all the computer consoles, cabinets... pretty much everything that needed building in wood on 3 blimp boats. very interesting work. Actually got to go on a few trials while they inflated the blimp. Best time ever was the week in Key West. Saw some pictures of experimental craft on the boat that I later saw on a UFO site.