It is still pretty difficult [1]. The sheer scale of the oceans is not appreciated by many. We can accept that space is vast beyond normal comprehension, but fi

It is still pretty difficult [1]. The sheer scale of the oceans is not appreciated by many. We can accept that space is vast beyond normal comprehension, but finding ships or even carrier strike fleets in the oceans is still a non-trivial challenge. Even at hypersonic speeds, traversing the range of a missile is measured in above ten minutes ranges. Tracking all commercial traffic shows how vast the oceans are [2], as each of those dots on a map cover a territory far vaster than the ship itself. It is a sufficiently non-trivial problem that commercial tracking relies upon AIS transponders instead of imaging, even in dense commercial traffic areas like the Straits of Malacca or the Bosphorus. Whoever solves the problem will first become very rich from defense contracts. [1] http://theconversation.com/hundreds-of-ships-go-missing-each-year-but-we-have-the-technology-to-find-them-37186 http://theconversation.com/hundreds-of-ships-go-missing-each... [2] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/11/this-map-shows-every-ship-at-sea-in-real-time https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/11/this-map-shows-every-...