High Altitude Surveillance Aircraft

What if you had an aircraft that flew at 100,000 foot altitude and could stay aloft for months at a time? Unmanned of course. What could you do with it?

Several aircraft designs of this sort are being developed right now.

The projected uses include

• Weather tracking
• Telecommunications
• Spying, "Homeland defense", and other military uses

At 100,000 feet altitude the aircraft is in a "near space" environment, and in fact humans are considered to be "astronauts" if they have flown above the 100,000 foot altitude. An aircraft at that altitude would essentially be a geostationary satellite, launched far more cheaply than a satellite, and retrievable or deployable at will.

How would this look? Try this cheesy diagram on for size.

The red dots are some kind of high altitude aircraft. At 100,000 feet they're well above the regular air traffic (35-40,000 foot ceiling) and well above the weather. There is a lot of wind, and they will need propulsion of some kind to keep them in place. The mission they perform is limited and determined by the equipment mounted on the aircraft. Want a surveillance vehicle? Mount cameras and point-point communications gear, for example.

The green and pink dots are the current sort of satellites. They are launched with rockets or the space shuttle, and fly either close to the earth or in distant geostationary orbits. The low orbit satellites move around the planet constantly, while the geostationary ones stay fixed over a single location. The geostationary satellites are at a high enough altitude that there is a significant time lag on communications relayed through the satellite.

The lines in the drawing show a potential communications network built using satellites and high altitude aircraft. This may not be a feasible design. What's obvious is that the high altitude aircraft can effectively serve as a communications link over a local area more readily than satellites. To communicate through a satellite requires careful aiming of a satellite dish antenna, and a strong enough signal to reach the geostationary satellite. Which just makes the equipment bulky and difficult to set up. Communicating through high altitude aircraft would be just like cell phone systems of today, with relatively low power transmissions and no need to aim a dish antenna.

In use as a surveillance mode, high altitude aircraft are are a much lower altitude than any satellite. This means the pictures are much clearer with these vehicles than from satellite, hence easier to interpret.

An interesting factoid. Tech Sphere Systems (see chart below) says that at 20 km altitude (65000 feet) communications gear have a 73000 square mile coverage radius. That's equal to the land area of Virginia, Maryland, Washington DC and West Virginia.

Organization	Web site	Discussion
Tech Sphere Systems	http://www.techspheresystems.com/index.html	A spherical baloon with "thrusters" that let it move about in any direction it desires. The company discusses mosly missions related to military use.
Proxity Digital Systems	http://www.proxity.com/	Developer of communications gear and other security related technology. In partnership with Tech Sphere Systems.
New Mexico State University's Physical Science Laboratory	http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=8091 http://www.psl.nmsu.edu/ http://www.psl.nmsu.edu/aas/	University laboratory with many projects under development. Many of these have to do with high altitude aircraft designs for the Military.
Aerovironment & Sky Tower Global	Aerovironment and http://www.skytowerglobal.com/	Aerovironment is a high-technogy R&D corporation that has developed many interesting products (such as GM's EV-1). The Helios aircraft is merely the latest. It is a flying wing containing several propellers powered by electric motors. The aircraft uses solar panels and fuel cells to create a vehicle that can stay aloft for 6 months at a time without refueling.

References: 

Aerovironment

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Aerovironment tests a hydrogen powered airplane

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High Altitude Long Endurance (HALE) - 'Eternal Planes' to watch over us

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What is Fascism, and where is it now?

"Fascism" is, at times, a popular label to throw around as a smearing technique in political stand-making. But, like I noted on the Conservatism page, the true meaning of the word "Fascism" has been lost in the process. Do you know what it means? I sure don't. I just know that Hitler's and Mussolini's regimes were said to be Fascist, but my High School History teacher didn't bother to tell me what it meant.

Let's first start with a Salon Book Review of "The Anatomy of Fascism" by Robert O. Paxton [April 19, 2004; Salon.COM; Laura Miller; http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2004/04/19/fascism/]. The book appears to be a scholarly study of Fascism, and the review attempts to be a short tutorial on what Fascism is drawing lessons from the book. At this moment I haven't read the book, only this review.

The review starts by noting that "even those who have devoted themselves to studying fascism can't quite agree on what it is", referring to the professional political scientists. So perhaps I should feel better about not knowing what Fascism is if even the professionals can't describe it very well. The book in question, "The Anatomy of Fascism", is Robert O. Paxton's attempt.

Another resource is Living Under Fascism by Davidson Loehr First UU Church of Austin (Unitarian Universalist).

The working definition of Fascism, quoted from "The Anatomy of Fascism":

"... a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion."

Note that the definition doesn't include the specific acts of Hitler or Mussolini (such as building concentration camps). And it's interesting to think of the Bush family, whom some label as Fascist, yet they are the very epitome of the traditional elites. This says to me that when Hitler was receiving funding from Prescott Bush, that this was likely an example of the "uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites", and that the powerful people whom Prescott Bush represented were aiming to achieve some goal through using Hitler.

The review describes how Paxton believes Fascism, as a political system, has very high hurdles to jump in order to become the dominant system in a country. Witness the Ku Klux Klan type activities in the South and how they failed to become dominant. What allowed it to become dominant in Europe in the 1910's-1920's was this combination of events:

Take one nation demoralized and economically devastated by a massive war. Add two political forces that have failed to offer a solution to this mess: conservatism and liberalism. (Paxton uses the classic definition of "liberalism," meaning an outlook favoring a free-market economy and a vision of citizenship based on individual rights with minimal state interference in most aspects of life.) Add to that the threat of revolution from the left. "It is essential to recall how real the possibility of communist revolution seemed in Italy in 1921 and German in 1932," Paxton writes. The mostly liberal parliamentary governments running Europe at the time seemed impotent in the face of the Red Menace, and the conservatives, believers in old-fashioned hierarchies, didn't have the constituency to fight back.

Into this situation introduce a white-hot political party that can mobilize lots of people from all classes and that fiercely opposes communism. Fill it with young, angry men more than willing to show up and bust a few heads if necessary. Conservatives didn't like a lot of things about the coarse, violent, riffraffish fascists, but if teaming up with Hitler or Mussolini was the only way to protect their property and station in life from the Bolsheviks, they were willing to cut a deal or two. Plus, they believed they could control their wild-eyed new friends, who had so little savoir faire and experience in the subtle arts of governance. This, to put it mildly, was a big mistake.

This still doesn't tell us much about what Fascism is, but instead the strategy for getting into power. But then, later in the review they point out that Fascists tend to discard the rhetoric they use to get into power, and once into power concentrate on using that power. In any case, what we see here is how the traditional elites were scared by the rise of Communism, and allied with the Fascists to drive off the "Red Menace". Which is instructive into why Prescott Bush was involved with funding Hitler, then.

The book review then gets into some uses by Paxton of his definition as a yardstick to measure whether certain leaders or political movements were, or were not, Fascist. Speaking for myself, in some of his examples I think he's being too rigid in the definition.

Slobodan Milosevic: Even though his rule was brutal, involved cleansing of undesirables, nationalistic fervor and expansion of boundaries, Milosevic was the sitting President. As the sitting President he could not be a Fascist, and instead "'adopted expansionist nationalism as a device to consolidate an already existing personal rule'".

Islamist militancy: We have been told by our government leaders that the rise of militant fundamentalist Islam, with their screwy interpretation of the Koran, is Fascist. For what it's worth, Dave Emory says the same thing, pointing to historical connections between Hitlers regime and the Islamic factions some of whom are still in power today. However these groups fail to meet Paxton's yardstick because Fascist governments only rise to power in failed democracies. This is one place where I disagree, and feel he's using the definition too rigidly.

George W. Bush and his regime: Nope, not fascists, because America today doesn't resemble Germany of the 1920's. Hmm? Say what? Paxton points out that Bush's regime is encroaching on civil liberties and the like, but that doesn't complete the requirements to truly be Fascist. Sure, that's a good point. But Paxton has an example of just two governments he can call Fascist, and from that small an example he's going to define the totality of what Fascism is or can be? Where I would agree with him is that George W completely is an example of the traditional elite, and that George W cannot be a Fascist because of that, however in the campaign that elected George W as president he appealed directly to the "angry white male" voter in a way that's evocative of this observation in the review:

The first modern campaigners, fascists realized that for the less educated and attentive classes, politics was a matter of feeling not ideas. So, as Paxton writes, "Fascism was an affair of the gut more than the brain."

What does the word mean?

One avenue to understanding is to look at the word and where it comes from (from Living Under Fascism):

The word comes from the Latin word “Fasces,” denoting a bundle of sticks tied together. The individual sticks represented citizens, and the bundle represented the state. The message of this metaphor was that it was the bundle that was significant, not the individual sticks. If it sounds un-American, it’s worth knowing that the Roman Fasces appear on the wall behind the Speaker’s podium in the chamber of the US House of Representatives.

The "neo-Conservatives" or neocons

More than anything the administrations of the George's (George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush) are defined by their work with the Neo-Conservative factions. These are hard-core ideologues who have been hanging out with one another for decades holding positions of power and pushing their hard-core dreams through those positions of power.

One of their pet projects was creating a think tank called The Project for a New American Century. Through this thinktank they pushed a hardline megalomaniacial plan to, basically, use America's power to take over the world. In my thinking these people are dangerous, and will only lead America into more wars.

The second Gulf War is simply one example. Especially as it is precisely the war which they had been preaching during the Clinton presidency. That it would be the first stage in a plan (this is the public face of the agenda) to establish moderate democracy in the Middle East. Further their plan required following the toppling of Iraq with the toppling of either Syria or Iran's governments (or both). As the worlds sole remaining superpower, their theory is that "we" have the responsibility to put our stamp on the world, molding the world in the shape of our beautiful precident of open democracy.

What sheer megalomania! First, how can you force democracy on others? Isn't democracy something which a society chooses of its own accord? Then secondly, what right do we have to make decisions for other societies in how they govern themselves?

Apparently something else is at play. It wouldn't have anything to do with the stockpile of critical raw materials (e.g. Oil) that are located in the Middle East? And what of the "Earth Island" concept, namely that if you look at where the bulk of the worlds land mass is, it is in Central Asia. If you control Central Asia, you then would control the world, through having the bulk of the worlds resources.

Books

The Rise of the Vulcans: [April 8, 2004; reviewed at Salon.COM; Martin Sieff; http://www.salon.com/books/review/2004/04/08/vulcans/index.html]: Vice President Dick Cheney; Secretary of State Colin Powell; National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice; Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld; Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. What kind of people are they, these viceroys of American foreign policy who serve at the behest of the Emperor George III, second ruler of the Bush Dynasty? James Mann tries to answer that question in his ambitious new book "Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush's War Cabinet." Yet for all its obvious high-minded seriousness -- indeed, largely because of it -- this is a frustrating though valuable read.

... It is important to note, as Mann does, that Bush's "Vulcans," named after the Roman god of heavy industry and weapons of war, are all still Cold Warriors in the recesses of their souls. The bulk of Mann's book deliberately does not deal with the changed world of 9/11 and what resulted from it. Some 80 percent of his text is devoted to the rise and shaping of his protagonists in the 35 years that preceded recent dire events.

... There is no hint here of the Wolfowitz of reality as documented already two years ago by Bob Woodward in "Bush at War," the Wolfowitz who within 48 hours of 9/11, while the hellish flames were still burning at ground zero and the death clouds had not yet dissipated over Manhattan, was already urging the president to focus on invading Iraq rather than hunting down al-Qaida for no better reason than it would be easier to do.