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Comment by space_fountain | Hacker News Reader

Some quick Googling implies China has satellites capable of tracking shipping via radar from geostationary orbit. I'm not really convinced that aircraft carriers can hide these days?

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Those satellites KNOW where the freighters are going, and check in every day on progress. They aren't looking for something that's intentionally sailing in an unpredictable direction (with no radio emissions in wartime).

Why not? It's not exactly hard? The exact capabilities aren't public, but there are companies that provide daily synthetic radar captures for the whole globe and similarly companies that do this for imagery. It would take ages but I think you and I could both right an algorithm to classify if an image or high map has an aircraft carrier in it? Even if you can't get data for the whole globe taking a photo of a 10 mile of ocean every 10 minutes and shifting the center based on where a boat isn't hard. There aren't that many aircraft carriers. Aircraft carriers and tanks are both capable machines built and designed for a different environment than we have now. They can still be useful. Most countries don't have the ability to image the whole globe or lob weapons across an ocean, but I'm pretty skeptical they'd survive long in a war with say China

I understand you don't think it's hard. It's hard. I'm trying to provide information to help people here understand why. What you're proposing doesn't work. Are you interested in understanding why it doesn't work?

Yes, I am interested in understanding why this is hard

> Aircraft carriers and tanks are both capable machines built and designed for a different environment than we have now.

People have been saying this for approximately the last 50 years. Maybe it's true today, but the odds are against it.

I mean we haven't had major power conflict in 50 years and they haven't seemed very useful in Ukraine

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