Truly the Final Frontier

Geospatial (Corporation) got started by mapping telecommunication lines for cable companies, and has since moved on to mapping oil and gas lines, waterways and sewage tunnels. They’re also planning to map entire municipalities, to enable cheaper, faster fixes of infrastructure problems. Smith tells Danger Room that the company is creating a “mega-map” geographic information system (GIS) platform, called GeoUnderground. “Underground,” he says. “Is truly the final frontier.”

And the company’s growing a library of data has caught the military’s eye. The Pentagon has already contracted Geospatial to create 3D maps of the deep earth beneath their “critical facilities.” The data would be useful in case of terrorist attack, natural disaster, or, of course, a power outage or sewage leak. (E também no caso de precisarem de um backup de tudo isso, pra ninguém esquecer de nada.)

O procedimento é digno de uma história do Neal Stephenson:

The company, started in 2005 by longtime water-pipeline manufacturer Mark Smith, uses a proprietary gadget called ‘Smart Probe’ to map deep earth via underground pipes. The company’s probe can be inserted into pipes as small as 1 1/2 inches, and then travel their length while taking super-speedy coordinates — 800 per second — and saving them onto a USB key. The probe is removed, the data extracted, and a 3D map of the underground region is created. The probe can travel through pipes that are empty, or contain fluid or gas.

via: DangerRoom