DT’s good friend former NASA astronaut Bill Readdy forwarded along this information, and it seems like a suitable effort for the Defense Tech community to undertake.
Here’s the word as put out by Aviation Week: “In case you haven’t heard, there’s a worldwide effort to find Steve Fossett and you can help without leaving the comfort of your computer desk. {Here} is everything you need to know to be part of the largest search ever undertaken, thanks to an amazing system called Mechanical Turk that was developed by Amazon.com and uses satellite imagery supplied by DigitalGlobe and other providers.
“Follow the links to review new satellite imagery of the search area and instructions on how to possibly spot Fossett’s plane. You can look for a straight scrape in the ground or maybe some letters created out of rocks or other materials that someone on the ground might try to use as a signal. Use your imagination and don’t be shy about sounding the alarm.”
Go to it DT readers. You can make a difference here. Good hunting.
(Gouge: WR)
– Ward
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
would this kind of effort be made for someone who was not a multi-millionaire?
It’s not about his wealth, Galls. It’s about his accomplishments as an aviator.
They had something like this for the Texas/Mexico border. Drug runners were caught by old ladies sitting at home and calling the Border Patrol. But it was just a test program and they stopped it because it was so successful? And they would rather ruin wild life, restrict water access and pretty much make living on the border retarded by not letting Texans get to the rio grande for recreation water or travel with a giant double tiered fence.
Great Idea. Similar to galaxyzoo.com but used to help save someone’s life. I wish they would move the buttons (Yes, No, submit) closer together.
Sorry, a clarification is in order: by ‘they’ I mean those searching for Mr Fossett.
This could be a revolutionary tool, friends. I mean, I’m all for it as long as lives are saved, lost pilots or boatmen are found, and of course the most important of all, my lost socks. Been looking for them for years!
This type of search assumes that the plane would be found intact.If the aircraft crashed, it would be broken up (and much harder to see). The low resolution of the imagery may not pick it up.
If he went down in a canyon, some trees or in the shadows, it will also be hard to spot it.
His goal was to find a suitable dry lake for a record land speed run, so it seems reasonable to look for him on vectors between dry lakes in the area.
The Sunday Paper (Missing Persons Edition)
Frankly I think this title is a little tasteless- and I’m usually a big fan of tasteless humor.
The government should not spend ONE DIME searching for some “millionaire adventurer” who got lost while looking for a place to do his latest jackass stunt (and this isn’t even the FIRST time they’ve had to search for this moron). Fossett should have his own search and rescue team standing by at HIS own expense. I sure hope they send him the bill for the time they waste dealing with his stupidities. If they find his corpse, pin the invoice to the dessicated husk!
With the help of Sir Branson, Google, along with amazon.com, google purchased thousands of sq miles of the latest sat photos and made them available on Amazon. By going to amazon.com you can get assigned your particular 300 ft square in great definition and currency to look over. If you find something, you tell the site they give you, and then that information is forwarded to the CAP and appropriate search agencies. Kind of like the looking was done for outer space signals earlier on the web.
John
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It’s not about his wealth