From: mikkelhaaheim@gmail.com   
      
   Le dimanche 24 juillet 2016 19:57:11 UTC+2, Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) a écrit :   
      
   >    
   > 	Not so simply, you can't. The amount of humidity alone will strongly    
   > affect what range you can see to with what detail and sensitivity.    
   > Temperature differential is crucial -- you'll easily detect a human    
   > being two kilometers away on a winter snowpack, but it'll be a lot    
   > harder to pick out that human being in a jungle where the ambient    
   > temperature is in the 90s.   
      
   Not simply, no.   
   True, I had not considered jungles and forests. OTOH, with rather limited   
   exceptions, I had not been talking about individual troops (which you won't be   
   able to track so easily even in wide open space); and when I was talking about   
   air doing the hiding,    
   I was actually refering to somewhat higher altitudes than mid-tree and surface   
   height. Nor is it particularly necessary to track troops and equipment going   
   into jungle, unless: you are looking for poachers, loggers, or drug smugglers,   
   or are engaged in    
   rather stupid (low strategic value) operations to try to support "friendly"   
   regimes. As difficult as jungles make tracking, they make OTHER operations   
   MUCH more difficult. Still, with significant investment, even jungles can be   
   scoured effectively.   
      
   >    
   > 	And of course Earth provides other living beings, and other operating    
   > machines, to confound your attempts to find them, while in space it's    
   > likely that your target is the ONLY think in that volume of space that    
   > isn't vacuum.   
   >    
      
   Not so valid an argument when you consider that a future in space where there   
   are assets worth protecting with expensive capaital ships, you are also going   
   to have overly developed civilian and business infrastructures. There are   
   going to be colonies    
   everywhere, numbering in the millions, if not billions. With the high   
   populations, you are going to have extensive local traffic, extensive traffic   
   within each of the planetary systems, there is going to be considerable   
   traffic between planetary systems.    
   There will be the high delta-v transport fleets, "for when you absolutely HAVE   
   to have it there next week". There will be daily mail, shipping, and vacation   
   traffic from everywhere to everywhere. There will be all the people with their   
   pleasure yachts,    
   drifting out where they are trying to get away from as much of everything else   
   as they can. There will be scientific excursions, there will be prospective   
   business excursions...   ...   ...   
      
      
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   > 	Oh, the hell it doesn't. On the Arenaverse scale, even more so, because    
   > instead of the trick we can use today -- put up a satellite and look    
   > down through what amounts to only a couple miles of sea-level density    
   > air -- you'd have to look through effectively infinite amounts of such    
   > air, with accompanying dust, humidity, clouds, etc.   
   >    
      
   Which limits EM range a little (depending on frequency, but vastly improves   
   sonar.   
      
      
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   > 	For any particular case with unlimited monetary expenditure, perhaps,    
   > but you're dismissing stuff that we KNOW is a problem as though it    
   > isn't, which really makes me question how much you know about the    
   > *practical* limitations and not the theoretical. I work, as I said, with    
   > multispectral imaging and sensors, some for the military, and our    
   > experience with such imaging is more a matter of seeing more of its    
   > limitations than its awesomeness.   
      
   NOW you are beginning to see what I have been talking about. No, we are not   
   talking about unlimited expenditure. However, you are beginning to understand   
   that you can not just simply put up sensor nets wherever you want. There is   
   always a cost in    
   resources. There are always other intervening considerations.   
   All of the obstacles can be overcome... but is it worth the costs? We don't   
   have hundreds of thousands of RC ATVs with the equivalent of cell phones   
   strapped on scouring the jungles for illegal activity, NOT because we can't   
   afford the few million    
   dollars that it would cost (or few hundreds of millions going at public market   
   value, and for associated depolyment costs), but because drug running,   
   poaching, illegal lumbering, and a few guerrilla skirmishes are not considered   
   worth the investment. We    
   don't have four cameras on every street and alley corner because occassional   
   assaults, robberies, and thefts are not considered worth the investment. We   
   won't have big brother in space because it will not be considered worth the   
   investment.   
      
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