enthalpy

Monday, January 29, 2007


Big blimp turns big brother. Where have I heard that before?
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."
Of course! Is the blimp going to be in the shape of a huge banana? At least the funding would make sense.



Home