GOVERNMENTS often seem depressingly immune to good ideas that would spur the
rest of us into action. So we shouldn鈥檛 be too surprised to hear about the sad
fate of a plan drawn up by a senior British space scientist that could help save
lives and money next time a major flood or earthquake or forest fire strikes
(see p 4).
The proposal is to ring the globe with hundreds of small remote sensing
devices, designed to watch out for natural disasters and monitor their progress.
It was submitted to the British government three years ago, and has been
languishing in Whitehall in-trays ever since. One senior official involved in
commissioning the report couldn鈥檛 even recall the basics of the proposal when
快猫短视频 contacted him, although he did offer the view that it
鈥渟ounded like a good idea鈥�.
In truth, the proposal probably ran into the sand early on, when officials
and ministers realised there were few votes in it and it might cost money. This
is a pity. Nobody would expect any one nation to pay for a scheme designed to
benefit the whole world. The very least Britain could have done was act swiftly
to look at the proposal with a view to drumming up international support.
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Of course, space is already teeming with satellites that beam down images of
the surface of the Earth. Meteorologists have systems for detecting and tracking
storms and clouds. Remote sensing companies will sell you overviews of any bits
of the Amazonian rainforest or Kalahari Desert that take your fancy. And then
there鈥檙e the spy satellites run by the Pentagon and Kremlin. What is more, many
of these devices are already used to predict the course of floods, typhoons and
other potential disasters so that cities and populations in their path can be
warned, and rescuers directed to the right areas. So why do we need even
more?
Several reasons. First, the existing 鈥渆yes in the sky鈥� can鈥檛 see all of the
planet all of the time. As the Earth rotates, most of its surface periodically
passes under the view of one satellite or another. But at any moment, only a
fraction of the Earth is actually being observed closely, and few areas are
inspected from above more than two or three times a day. To keep tabs on a flood
or the aftermath of an earthquake you need hourly updates at the very least.
The exceptions are the hundreds of geostationary broadcasting satellites that
hover over fixed points on the equator. These really can see most of the
populated parts of the planet all the time. The problem is they鈥檙e too far away
to pick up any detail. And while military satellites collect vast numbers of
images, few are ever declassified or made available quickly enough.
A second drawback with the existing network of observational satellites is
that it is a ragbag of different devices delivering different types of images
and data to different organisations. There鈥檚 no central control, and this will
always limit the speed with which images and information can be distributed. As
the floods swept through Mozambique last year, it took only minutes for
satellites to beam down information鈥攂ut days to get the information to the
people who needed it.
Which is all the more unfortunate given that every bit of the technology
required to build a better system is now in place. Satellites today can be
kitted out with microwave sensors that not only generate three-dimensional
models of the surface, but can also penetrate soil, sand, snow or the canopy of
a rainforest to reveal what lies below. Just as important, the instrumentation
is now lighter and smaller than it was, which slashes the cost of getting the
devices into space.
And there may never be a more opportune moment to do this. A commercial
telecoms company is about to launch hundreds of mobile phone satellites to which
the remote sensing devices could be cheaply attached, giving the kind of 24-hour
global coverage that is required.
The estimated cost鈥�$600 million鈥攕ounds high but is peanuts
compared with the cost of floods, hurricanes, earthquakes and so on. Twenty of
the largest cities in the world are prone to major natural disasters, and the
World Bank has spent some $23 billion over the past 20 years trying to
prevent such disasters or clearing up after them. Global warming will only add
to this bill.
Thanks to the British government鈥檚 lack of urgency, scientists have already
lost the chance to piggyback on the first wave of the commercial launches in
2003. Soon it will be too late to catch the second wave, starting in 2005.
What鈥檚 needed is some swift action and enthusiasm. Someone somewhere should
start going through their in-tray.
