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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jim S who wrote (36065)	7/28/2009 1:41:59 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

You may underestimate the capabilities of new sensors. Maybe, but I don't thinks so. The radar, and perhaps infrared information could be passed along. The full optical? Well I don't think we will see 360 degree cameras on military drones soon. Also many of these drones are controlled via satellite which adds enough distance to slow down the information. The drone uplinking to the satellite, that satellite relaying to another one (perhaps more than once), then the final satellite sending the information to the drone operator, then the drone operator sending the command back through the same method, could add a second or two to the response time. That might be fine for dropping a hellfire missile on a fixed or slowly moving target that doesn't know its facing an immediate threat, but it wouldn't work so well air to air. Of course we could move the controllers in theatre, to reduce the delay, but it would still be an issue if its going through a high orbit satellite. Its not totally unsolvable, for example we could use numerous low orbit satellites, or direct radio communication from a nearby ground station or aircraft. We'd lose some of the advantages of our current setup, but the delay time could be reduced to be an insignificant factor.