Under a Watchful Eye

Now that Congress has given Dear Leader the okay for Total Information Awareness- as long as, you know, he doesn't call it that and is sure he really wants to do it- the defense industry is clamoring to help.

With ballons. Really, really, big ones.

Blimps were pretty much discarded as being of military value during the Second World War, because they're easy for aircraft and missiles to shoot down. Although with helium mixes and newer titanium-magnesium alloys they're no longer flying bombs and can go to the edge of space, so can modern military technology post-1950. The Russians, the Chinese, and most of the Third World have ordnance that can hit a floating 50 yard long target at 70,000 feet.

But World War III is being waged against mostly civilian populations so far, and soon it looks to be against 'Murikas own Faithless citizens at that, the good people at Lockheed have just the thing for Darth Rumsfeld and Guernica Negroponte:



US$10 million skin for DARPA's remarkable ISIS stratospheric airship

September 29, 2006 Lockheed Martin has received a US$10 million contract to further develop advanced material technology and next-generation hull material for DARPA's Integrated Sensor Is Structure (ISIS) program. The ISIS program will develop the core technologies necessary to integrate an extremely capable sensor package directly into the structure of stratospheric airships, which operate at approximately 70,000 feet. The planned capabilities of the ISIS project are straight out of a sci fi film – ISIS will provide a dynamic, detailed, real-time picture of all movement on or above the battlefield: friendly, neutral or enemy – a big picture map showing everything moving for hundreds of kilometers...

A leader in airship and aerostat development, fabrication, systems integration and operations, Lockheed Martin has developed more than 300 airships and thousands of aerostats. Lockheed Martin is the prime contractor for the Missile Defense Agency's High Altitude Airship, a stratospheric airship prototype, which will provide persistent surveillance along with other critical capabilities. The company also has provided tethered aerostat surveillance systems to both the U.S. Army for deployment in Iraq and to the U.S. Air Force to support air sovereignty and counter-drug operations along the southern U.S. border...

“Air defense commanders can observe all activity within hundreds of kilometers. The tracking accuracy will be so good that they will not need any other radar systems to complete engagement of hostile targets. ISIS is a sensor integrated into an unmanned stratospheric airship. The stationary platform gives ISIS the stability to see slow moving targets such as dismounted troops. The seventy thousand foot altitude allows ISIS to persistently track targets at very long ranges..."

Of course, these will require some interfacing with civilian air traffic control, but they're working out the bugs in that (thanks to Defense Tech for the links).

Just the kind of toys to make your borders secure. It only looks like a UFO, I'm sure the government would have never used devices like this before to keep an eye on things. But it's just what the New World Order's Warfighters will need to keep track of the most dangerous enemies to the State- its' own citizens.