055 DDG Large Destroyer Thread

[Totoro]

I know this topic pops up every once and again but - what is stopping us from pooling a dollar each and buying a 0.5 m resolution photo from a commercial satellite imagery firm? I've made a poll here asking if you'd pay a dollar for 055 image.

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You can go over and cast your vote.

Of course there are some issues. How do we trust whichever person will get to pool the money (through paypal?) that he'll actually do it? I guess there's no way to be sure, but risking one dollar doesn't seem a high price. Neither can one person really profit from 350 dollars even if they ran away to mexico with it. I am guessing that long time members that'd actually be pooling the money value their good name all these years more than running away with 350 dollars.

Also, would chinese government have anything against such moves? Such images are taken daily by spy satellites, they're just not openly circulated. Would that be an issue? Would some of you here be afraid of paying that dollar? Or be afraid of being the one to actually buy the image? Or be the one to upload it online?

pricing info here:

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350 dollars is archive pricing, 90 days old images, 14 dollars per km2, but 25 km2 image swath is minimum one can order.

 

[Iron Man]

I know this topic pops up every once and again but - what is stopping us from pooling a dollar each and buying a 0.5 m resolution photo from a commercial satellite imagery firm? I've made a poll here asking if you'd pay a dollar for 055 image.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

You can go over and cast your vote.

Of course there are some issues. How do we trust whichever person will get to pool the money (through paypal?) that he'll actually do it? I guess there's no way to be sure, but risking one dollar doesn't seem a high price. Neither can one person really profit from 350 dollars even if they ran away to mexico with it. I am guessing that long time members that'd actually be pooling the money value their good name all these years more than running away with 350 dollars.

Also, would chinese government have anything against such moves? Such images are taken daily by spy satellites, they're just not openly circulated. Would that be an issue? Would some of you here be afraid of paying that dollar? Or be afraid of being the one to actually buy the image? Or be the one to upload it online?

pricing info here:

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

350 dollars is archive pricing, 90 days old images, 14 dollars per km2, but 25 km2 image swath is minimum one can order.

This is very tempting. VERY tempting. The problem is that 90 days takes us to before the June 28 launch of the 055. We'd have to wait at least another month.

 

[latenlazy]

This is very tempting. VERY tempting. The problem is that 90 days takes us to before the June 28 launch of the 055. We'd have to wait at least another month.

That's a month we could spend raising funds.

 

[Iron Man]

That's a month we could spend raising funds.

Either of us could have photos by then.

 

[jobjed]

This is very tempting. VERY tempting. The problem is that 90 days takes us to before the June 28 launch of the 055. We'd have to wait at least another month.

We don't have to wait all the way til 28th, the covers that were blocking the rear VLS from satellites were already disassembled by the 11th, probably sooner but I don't exactly when.

Anyway, @Totoro's proposal sounds good. We should probably wait for Iron Man and Latenlazy to make their flights, as well as wait for the next release of JNCX images from Terraserver before deciding on actually commissioning WorldView 3.

Also, could the mods (@Deino @siegecrossbow @Jeff Head) make Totoro's poll organic to this thread similar to the poll on the the JH-XX/H-X thread?

 

[kwaigonegin]

@latenlazy Hopefully you are sitting on the port side (and NOT over the wing) of your heavy and your flight path is the one on the first image. With the bank towards pudong you will have a straight shot.

If not, you could hope for a better view on your return unless you're flying out somewhere else.

 

[dvan0]

Any reason why someone couldn't just fly a drone near the shipyard and get some pictures?

 

[AssassinsMace]

Any reason why someone couldn't just fly a drone near the shipyard and get some pictures?

Probably because I read a while ago that drone makers in China have no-fly zone information inputted into the drone's global navigation system.

 

[Iron Man]

We don't have to wait all the way til 28th, the covers that were blocking the rear VLS from satellites were already disassembled by the 11th, probably sooner but I don't exactly when.

Anyway, @Totoro's proposal sounds good. We should probably wait for Iron Man and Latenlazy to make their flights, as well as wait for the next release of JNCX images from Terraserver before deciding on actually commissioning WorldView 3.

Also, could the mods (@Deino @siegecrossbow @Jeff Head) make Totoro's poll organic to this thread similar to the poll on the the JH-XX/H-X thread?

I don't think we can know when Terraserver will update its images, at least according to what I understand from their FAQs page.

As for the pool, I'm certain we will not get 350 people to pay $1 each. Even 35 people to pay $10 each sounds like a stretch to me. I just don't think SDF has enough interested people willing to pay to see precisely this image (055's rear VLS modules). Maybe 25 people paying $14 each would be a more realistic goal.

 

[AlyxMS]

We raised much more than that for Jeff's cancer treatment. I think.

But I don't think "a picture of 055's rear VLS configuration which would be revealed sooner or later anyways" is nearly as important.