On Wed, Jun 24, 2015 at 9:14 PM, Greg Chalik <mrg3105@gmail.com> wrote:

> I wasn't the one to identify the affordability issue.

Maybe not in that discussion 17 years ago.  You were today.  :)

> I hadn't looked in T5 (original edition) yet, but based on the real world,
> how many countries can afford to install a 100% air and sea sensor
> surveillance?

I'm not sure that's relevant.  Dirtfoot terrain has to deal with
limited line of sight, curve of the dirtball, and MUCH more traffic
than space.

If you have cheap computers and cheap optics (and we can pretty much
manage that now) and some real estate in vacuum, you could potentially
track several thousand ship drive signatures simultaneously without
too much trouble.

Yes, they may occasionally be occluded, but if you know their vector
when occluded, you have a good idea where to look for them later.  Is
it possible to evade the system?  Depending on the system, almost
certainly.

But consider Sol:  if you spend all your time hiding in the asteroid
belt, you're never going to control the planets.

It does not seem like a huge challenge in terms of computing power or
sensor technology.  Speed of light lag means you'll probably never be
up to date, but if a squadron of warships appears, you should be able
to ID and track them when their EM wave front crosses your sensor
pickets.

Dan

--

"Any sufficiently advanced parody is indistinguishable from a genuine
kook." -Alan Morgan