Mystery Chinese military project spotted on Google Earth

[salleles]

(...) the remote Chinese village of Huangyangtan hosts what must be the strangest military installation ever spotted by the Google Earth Community. Zooming in for a closer look, we have what appears to be a 900x700m scale model of a mountainous landscape. Complete with lakes, valleys and snow-capped peaks.

Don't, however, spend the next three days scouring the world's mountain ranges trying to find a geographical match: the legwork has already been done for you by this enterprising Google Earth Community member who correctly identified the model as representing this disputed area on the Chinese/Indian border.

It's clear that a huge amount of time and resources has been invested in this perplexing scale model, which incidentally represents an area of around 450 by 350 kilometers. The big question is: why? The only sensible explanation we can come up with is that it's a training aid for pilots - possibly helicopter jockeys - designed to familiarise them with the landscape should military action ever be required.

Full article (contains 2 pages)

I searched for a more detailed map and found this:

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/middle_east_and_asia/china_indiaw_border_88.jpg

If you rotate it 90 degrees counterclockwise you can easily fit the waterlines Pangong Tso and Banggong Co in the Google Earth image. Also, note that the Chinese 'playfield' is not too far away from the undefined boundary area between India and Pakistan.

So, what are the Chinese up to? Are they waiting -or maybe stimulating- the Indian/Pakistani conflict to escalate and then jump in? If so, the most logical alliance would be with Pakistan, because they don't claim terrain from eachother.

Also I am wondering what excactly could be so special about Kashmir. One might argue that the conflict is based mainly on proud, revenge or whatever pathological motives. On the other hand, if three nuclear powers are so heavily interested in a desolate area, there might be some juicy (hidden?) treasures. Any thoughts?

Slightly offtopic: last week I watched the Indian movie Main Hoon Na, a sort of mix between Grease and The Matrix (the latter because of the special effects, not the theme). I'm no expert on Indian movies, but what intrigued me was that the 'baddies' were in fact Indian terrorists, and the main message was establishing peace with Pakistan. Well, quite a nice signal! Can you imagine a Hollywood production that deals with American terrorists? I guess, they will conveniently call the baddies 'criminals' in that case (please correct me if such movies do exist).

 

[Pierre]

The big question is: why? The only sensible explanation we can come up with is that it's a training aid for pilots - possibly helicopter jockeys - designed to familiarise them with the landscape should military action ever be required.

That's really impressive.

I guess everybody wonders why.

This "training aid for pilots" hypothesis doesn't convince me much.

Landscaping almost 1 km2 with this level of detail should be very costly. With a small percentage of the total cost it's probably possible to offer the best simulators for pilots.

Actually one key might rely in the fundamental difference between a landscape (scaled or not) and a simulator.

The difference is life. Life is probably required to conduct realistic experiments. Which one ? I really don't know. Climates modifications ? earthquake ? Flood ? meteorites ? nuclear experiments ? "quantum" experiments trying to link a macrocosmic reality with a microcosmic replica ?

 

[salleles]

Hi Axel, please take note that the quote you mention originates from the article, not from me.

The difference is life. Life is probably required to conduct realistic experiments. Which one ? I really don't know. Climates modifications ? earthquake ? "quantum" experiments trying to link a macrocosmic reality with a microcosmic replica ? Flood ? meteorites ?

I am quite puzzled with these questions. How do they relate to the developments in Kashmir?

 

[Pierre]

I am quite puzzled with these questions. How do they relate to the developments in Kashmir?

I am quite puzzled too.

Kashmir original location might indicate some experiments relating to the undergoing conflict (usual / unusual weapons tests ?)

After a quick web research, scaled landscapes seem usually used to evaluate bio dynamics (breeding locations, species development, inter species interactions and equilibrium, streams sediment loading, erosion rates,...)

 

[ark]

One possibility that comes to my mind: it is a testground for software and hardware that guides missiles. Real cruise missiles are costly, and also they can observed from satellites. It is probably cheaper, and not so easily detected, to build a scaled landscape and use "toy missiles" and "toy drones". Software and hardware for the navigation is the same. The choice of the landscape is not so important, but "something realistic" must be chosen!

 

[Pierre]

China seems to have drones (see this link gor example :www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200509/s1459636.htm)

Thought I don't know if basing tests on scaled landscape and scaled missiles would be finacially interesting. Both have to be developed and built for this purpose and after gathering / adjusting parameters they have to reharmonize them (speed, acceleration, flap angles, operations speeds,...) in order to fit the real caracteristics of the missile (weight, size, aerodynmic parameters,...) that don't evolve in a linear way from the scaled model.

About discretion, I don't know if China really needs it, their nuclear arsenal is impressive and accepted (http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/China/ChinaArsenal.html) they also openly manage orbital vehicle and long range missiles (http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/L/Long_March.html)

 

[rs]

This is seriously odd, but I do not "buy" either the pilot training or cruise missle explanation.

Back in Apollo time frame (as you might recall from the From The Earth to the Moon HBO series) scale models were used and a camera was "flown" over the model to simulate the visual experience. This was done for both the space program as well as for flight simulators.

In the '70s it became practical to use computer modeling techniques and advanced CGI on very large (and extremely expensive) visual simulation engines to make a video image of what a pilot would see. Almost immediately this took over the visual portion of any flight simulation because with CGI you can model so much more. With a modern high performance graphics computer you can generate almost photorealistic models of terrain for video games, and the same technology is easily adapted for military or other training purposes. It is much easier to enter polygons than sculpt something 900m by 700m.

Imagine you are running a flight simulator (for any reason, helicopter, plane, cruise missle avionics, whatever). The scale factor is 500:1. This means that a helicopter or plane would be something like 1 to 2 inches long. Any camera taking the place of this helicopter or plane would have a seriously difficult time dealing with the scale conversion, particularly for low level flight.

For a camera to be able to traverse this model, there would need to be some kind of infrastructure to support the camera - cables, towers, motors, etc. All of this is missing in the model surroundings. Someone is not going to make a model this detailed a specific and then have something step all over it...

No the model was intended to be seen in its entirety, and intended to be seen from the air.

The US intelligence services have placed essentially all of their eggs in large sophistocated satelites and humungeous amounts of computer processing power. The satelites take the pictures, the humans on the ground analyze them via computer.

The Russians have come to the conclusion that, while the satelites are useful, there is no substitute for the human visual system. Most (not all, but most) of the US Astronauts are civilians, but most of the Russian Cosmonauts are military. The Russians have learned that a trained human being looking down from low earth orbit can "see" (using binoculars, of course) much more than a satelite can because the human vision system is not a camera.

Low earth orbit is something like 100 miles, so at 500:1 all you would have to be is 1,000 feet over this model for it to look like it would look in space.

Recently the Chinese have started to send (I forget what they call them) into space.

My bet is that they built this to train their space travelers in how and what to look for and to compare what they saw in training with what they saw while in orbit. Their plan is to use their space travelers (again, all military) in the same way that the Russians do, that is as special purpose observation platforms to detect specific kinds of things that do not show up well in photographs. [ By specific example, the location of submarines is much more difficult to hide when a human is staring at the path because a human sees the twinkling of subtle wake effects that a static photograph simply misses. ]

Note that the orientation of the model (to the compass points) is identical to the actual area. Why this matters is because the sun angle will cause the exact same shadows to be cast.

This is not a visual simulator for any kind of flight training, it is a training machine to enable their space program to catch up to decades of Russian experience.

Why this specific region? Why not, it is one they really care about...

OSIT

 

[Pierre]

My bet is that they built this to train their space travelers in how and what to look for and to compare what they saw in training with what they saw while in orbit. Their plan is to use their space travelers (again, all military) in the same way that the Russians do, that is as special purpose observation platforms to detect specific kinds of things that do not show up well in photographs. [ By specific example, the location of submarines is much more difficult to hide when a human is staring at the path because a human sees the twinkling of subtle wake effects that a static photograph simply misses. ]
OSIT

I wonder if they really need to build this almost 1 km2 scaled landscape to train their astronauts to scrutinize efficiently the landscape form their space station/shuttle.

Maybe a Google Earth "professional edition" and a good screen would be enough to teach the astronauts to read a landscape from the space ?

If they really want to teach landscape reading and particularly key items identification, wouldn't it be more handy to create a "fantazy" landscape with key features (submarines under water, tunnels, camouflaged tank, bunkers, missiles, hidden factories,...) ?

On the first picture of the article published by the Register, we can notice a lot of buildings on the right of the scaled landscape (almost the same surface as the landscape), the fence on the right of the area seems huge and there is this building with a red roof just on the border of the scaled landscape. Are there hints in those elements ?

Btw in the same website, there is an article (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/02/06/greenwich_meridian/) about the prime meridian location where they talk about conspiracy theory. A SOTT thread deals with this meridian thing (http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=65&p=2)

 

[rs]

I wonder if they really need to build this almost 1 km2 scaled landscape to train their astronauts to scrutinize efficiently the landscape form their space station/shuttle.

Good point but do we need the level of detail that is applied to training for pilots? Maybe, maybe not. Depends on your point of view.

Maybe a Google Earth "professional edition" and a good screen would be enough to teach the astronauts to read a landscape from the space ?

Too bad for the chinese that this was not available in the beginning of their space program... :)

If they really want to teach landscape reading and particularly key items identification, wouldn't it be more handy to create a "fantazy" landscape with key features (submarines under water, tunnels, camouflaged tank, bunkers, missiles, hidden factories,...) ?

Actually I think this would be counterproductive. The point is to look at the model and then look at reality and notice that reality is different. (Kind of like what goes on in this forum...) You cannot fake a submarine that uses very high technology to hide itself, what you can do is look at the ocean and notice something "funny". Later you come to find out that what you saw was most likely the trail of a submarine because you get additional data from other sources that show that a submarine was probably in the area.

And yes, there are probably lots of hints in the surrounding infrastructure.

 

[Pierre]

Maybe a Google Earth "professional edition" and a good screen would be enough to teach the astronauts to read a landscape from the space ?

Too bad for the chinese that this was not available in the beginning of their space program... :)

That a very good point.

The first chinese satellites were launched in 1969.

It's with the Shenzhou program that unhabited space program started (first test flights in 1999).

It would be interesting to know the year when China started to train its cosmonauts.