Ja’Quan S. Brown
Dr. K. Howard
English 1020
2 April 2019
The Benefits of Underwater Satellites
For
centuries, our society has been changed by natural disasters such as
hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis, etc. Our technology has improved over the
years but we still haven’t developed certain mechanics, like underwater sonar
or aquatic satellites. If we can use solar satellites to monitor clouds, stars,
and planets, why not use underwater satellites to detect natural disasters
before they happen. I believe the sooner we establish underwater current
detection, we will be fully aware of any natural aquatic disaster.
When you hear the word satellite, you’re
probably thinking of the one depicted below.
The purpose of a satellite is to monitor weather conditions and the Earth. The main characteristic of a man-made satellite is that it orbits. Some people might say Earth is a satellite because it orbits the Sun. Let’s keep in mind that satellites can come in all sorts of shapes and sizes but they all have common functions such as giving and receiving data. How does a satellite retrieve and send the data it gathers? Well it has these things called antenna. With these antenna, satellites are able to receive and transfer data from a distance while in orbit. They are able to transmit the data they’ve gathered and send it to structures that resemble land marks called satellite dishes. You might be familiar with satellite dishes because they can be seen outside of or inside research facilities. Just like their companions, weather satellites, they can appear in different shapes and sizes. Gale Research Inc. states that “a satellite dish is a parabolic television antenna that receives signals from communication satellites in orbit around the earth. Its sole function is to provide the television viewer with a wider variety of channels” Basically, a satellite is able to communicate with a satellite dish through these electromagnetic fields called radio waves. Which is basically frequency that some devices use to communicate from long distances.
We also use frequency in everyday
objects. Like Wi-Fi for our wireless devices, car stereos, web surfing, and
much more. However, what most people have trouble understanding is the
penetration of radio waves. How well are they at penetrating walls? How far can
radio waves travel? Can radio waves bounce back off of liquids? The answer to
those questions relate to one word, sound waves.
But one thing we have not developed yet, is an
automatic underwater surveillance camera for natural oceanic disasters. Such an
achievement would be pretty complex but not impossible. An underwater
surveillance camera would be important and beneficial for our community by having
an underwater optical POV. Other inventions like the Weather Surveillance Radar
– 1988 Doppler, is analyzed by the National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman,
OK. This radar has the unique capability of collecting massive volumes of Level
I time-series data over many hours, which provides a rich environment for
evaluating the new post processing algorithms.(M. Yeary; S. Nemati; T. -Y. Yu;
Y. Wang). Although, the functions of these inventions are different, these two
devices do portray similarities. One
difference would be instead of detecting temperature and environmental levels, the
underwater surveillance job would be to emit live visual evidence of underwater
activity. Most hurricane formations occur in the epipelagic and mesopelagic
zones. Otherwise known as the sunlight zone and the twilight zone. These are
the main areas where hurricanes take in warm air and releases it as cold air
into our environment.
There are also numerous devises used today that have adapted similar functions to these inventions out of water. Take Skype for example, Skype is a communicational platform that provides video chat and voice calls between many other man-made electronic devices that include broadcasting features. Skype was invented in the early 2000’s, so imagine taking the knowledge that we had then and combining it with the knowledge and tools that we have today. Machinery can change our perspective on life and our environment. Although this invention isn’t a go-to landmark in case of a disaster, it is still a reliable source of knowledge of what could potentially happen underwater before it happens. Dangers like hurricanes tend to use tornadoes and thunderstorms in order to strengthen their power and durability. So while the underwater satellite is doing its purpose and calculating the location of a hurricane, weather satellites are airborne and are monitoring the active movements and routes of tornadoes. Even though we have these satellites to give us an overview of these storms, we still have small groups that physical go outside to site the source, like storm chasers. That gives me the impression of developing more than one way of monitoring hurricanes below the surface. A way to observe underwater disasters is by using a manually controlled submarine to capture photos and communicate with other researchers above water. In season 9 episode 001 of an animated series called Cyberchase, a group of students try to figure out why healthy kelp in the Big Bay are being washed up ashore. To solve this issue, they decided to go underwater to find the cause of this strange effect. They decided to use a submarine that is manually controlled by two people to go underwater and find the source. One person would drive around observing the premises, while the second person took pictures and voice chatted with the rest of the students about what they see. They would soon bring back the photographs to their research facility, observe them and compare them to the previous photographs of the ecosystem before the incident or while the incident was occurring.
This animated TV show provides numerous
plot twists and conclusions, but this one episode stood out to me because in
the case of trying to capture video evidence about underwater disasters, this
group of students came up with their own solution by observing the oceanic
ecosystem. By taking photographs and having the ability to create voice calls
underwater, it made me think of other solutions around the underwater
surveillance could exist. Like, what if this underwater satellite could
transmit photographic proof of an underwater disturbance like the students’ did
in their submarine?
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