- China wants to bring its Skynet surveillance technology to a proposed moon base
- The national space agency wants to use it to protect it against ‘suspicious targets’
- Skynet currently has more than 600 million cameras across China
China plans to install an all-seeing surveillance system on the moon to protect a planned moon base bigger than Disneyland using the technology it uses to spy on its citizens.
The country wants to use the “successful experience” of its authoritarian Skynet surveillance system to protect the planned base from “suspicious targets,” according to a research paper written by scientists at the national space agency and published in an academic journal.
Skynet is the world’s largest surveillance network and is used to monitor every nook and cranny of China. With more than 600 million cameras, there is an average of one camera for every two adults in the country.
In the lunar version of the program, cameras equipped with AI chips “capable of independently identifying, locating, tracking and targeting suspicious targets” would scan the proposed International Lunar Research Station.
China wants to use the ‘successful experience’ of China’s authoritarian Skynet surveillance system to protect the planned base from ‘suspicious targets’ (File image)
‘China, together with Russia, plans to open a lunar research station on the moon with a radius of almost six kilometers (File image)
The cameras could work with both visible light and infrared light.
The authors of the paper, who are also from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation and Zhejiang University, write that if “abnormalities” were detected by the system, it would “immediately generate alarm signals and would initiate appropriate response measures. ‘
Worryingly, the newspaper did not indicate what the ‘measures’ would be.
China, together with Russia, plans to open a lunar research station on the moon with a radius of almost four miles, larger than any Disney theme park.
The center will house a command center, power plant, communications center and research facilities.
China wants to start construction of the moon base in the coming years and aims to establish a base setup by 2028 using soil from the moon.
Ding Lieyun, an expert from the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said a team is designing a robot called ‘Chinese Super Masons’ to make bricks from lunar soil, Chinese media reported.
Ding’s team previously proposed an egg-shaped base that could be built from the foundation stones, called the Lunar Pot Vessel, which could be created using 3D printers and lasers and house astronauts.
“Building a habitat on the moon is necessary for long-term lunar exploration, and will certainly be realized in the future,” Ding said, while also acknowledging the difficulty in achieving this in the short term.
The robot to create the “lunar foundation stone” will be launched around 2028 during China’s Chang’e-8 mission, Ding said.
China is also reportedly aiming to retrieve the world’s first soil sample from the far side of the moon in a mission that could take place as early as 2025.
The superpower previously collected soil samples from the near side of the moon with its Chang’e-5 mission in 2020, state media reported.
The country has stated that it wants its astronauts to stay on the moon for longer periods of time once it establishes a lunar research station.