Birth of SKYNET? Hmm...

[Jessterw]

I'd imagine they'd extend some of the current protocols in addition to developing some new ones. Hardware would likely be a mix as well. Encryption/security, bandwidth, and compression are likely to be key.

[William]

Originally posted by Dr Mordrid
As far as the weather comments go; we have cloud penetrating sensors in our spy satellites using various technologies. Visible light ain't the only trick up their sleeve.

Dr. Mordrid

Yes, but most of the cloud penetrating technologies are useless, or near enough to it in the sort of scenario they're peddling. If you know of one that would actually be useful to marines sitting beneath a rainstorm; I'd be interested to know what it is.

[Dr Mordrid]

Synthetic aperture radar for one, but you don't have to download the info from a satellite. UAV's like Dark Star or Global Hawk can also uplink to satellites and make their info available to ground troops, and some of them can be equipped with multispectral (and sometimes high-rez SAR) capabilities.

UAV's with even more extended imaging capabilities are coming soon, including one that can hover over an area unseen for days or weeks while sending out nearly invisible and silent drones with active camoflage.

There are also low visiblity UAV's made so small they can be taken into the field and their imagry shared thorugh such a network. One can be carried in a backpack and controlled by a heavy duty mil-grade laptop.

Dr. Mordrid

[William]

I know the odd thing or two about UAV And have always thought that they are more useful than satellite.

Most of the backpack variety link straight to their controller in the field -who is usually the person most interested in the information as well, rather than troops hundreds of miles away.

But I seem to have made my point that a UAV is more useful than satellite reconnaissance, so I'm happy

[Mehen]

I think they should use some of that 200 billion and buy me SLI 6800ultras