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U.S. Air Force/Mav6 Blue Devil Airship

Floating military supercomputer
6 Comments

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U.S. Air Force/Mav6 Blue Devil Airship Courtesy Mav6

The drones watching over Afghanistan and Pakistan overwhelm human analysts with terabytes of video, radar, infrared and hyperspectral data. Ideally, aircraft gathering raw information over the battlefield would filter, tag, organize, and route. that data for quick, efficient analysis on the ground. That’s what Blue Devil Block II is designed to do. The 370-foot airship, which can hover at 20,000 feet for five days, functions as a network hub for drones and ground sensors and as a surveillance craft in its own right. Built for the Air Force by the defense start-up Mav6, the blimp carries a 2,000-core supercomputer. It is scheduled to fly in Afghanistan next year.

6 Comments

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Robert1234
11/18/11 at 4:32 am

Robert1234 Just want we need. More ways to kill people and claim innocence. "The computer made a mistake..."

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Mike Helweg
11/20/11 at 12:09 am

Computers never make a mistake PEBCAC

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TomP
11/21/11 at 9:24 pm

But Robert, is it not conceivable that this airship might indeed preclude the killing of hundreds of people?

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snowmanjny
12/16/11 at 1:49 pm

what happens when the giant military super computer with access to the secure US NIPR and SIPR networks gets shot down??

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TechnoFreakFace
01/01/12 at 9:56 pm

@snowmanjny
it falls to the ground, thats what

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TechnoFreakFace
01/01/12 at 10:04 pm

It just strikes just how alien such a huge blimp with supercomputers, high tech uber cameras and a loadout of weapons flying over a barren, dry Afghanistani field seems to the handfull of poor, hungry villagers staring up at it.

This would be us when/if a superior race does come to visit. What can our pathetic weapons do to them, just like a wooden club or even the rare ak47 of the resistance to that airship.

Im not just pointing out that this is huge overkill and a waste of money at this point... but also the philosophical significance of perspective. We look at this, read the article and think "cool", but what do those villagers who cant read, write or count to 10 think? This might as well be from a galaxy far far away for all they can differentiate.

Food for thought

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