The archipelago of militarized space

December 12, 2013 12:22 PM

The map of US military installations by artist Josh Begley uses the US military's list of bases (plus a few other sources) to provide satellite image maps of hundreds of military sites around the world. For similar efforts, see Radical Cartography and the always-amazing work of Trevor Paglen
posted by blahblahblah (9 comments total)

Well, we spend nearly 5% of our GDP on the military every year, and 50% of the federal discretionary budget - money that could do unimaginable things for scientific research, health and welfare, education, or infrastructure, but at least the world is a paradise of peaceful democratic nations free of strife or tyranny.

also gasoline is under $4/gal
posted by Salvor Hardin at 12:36 PM on December 12, 2013

Heh. Apparently we aren't supposed to see Volkel Airbase.
posted by Thorzdad at 12:43 PM on December 12, 2013

But I just realized that's a little derail-y, so let me say on the topic of the cool maps, that is a remarkable number of military bases. I wouldn't have guessed that we have that many.

I wonder whether or not I would guess that these were military installations if I was an alien surveying the Earth from space. They do look kind of forbiddingly geometrical.
posted by Salvor Hardin at 12:44 PM on December 12, 2013

I should mention, as an addendum to my post, that many of these are vanishingly small installations, not large bases. For example, I saw one image of naval radio towers in Iceland and another of a small civil/military airfield in Alaska.

In some ways, though, these smaller sites are even more interesting than the big bases.
posted by blahblahblah at 1:03 PM on December 12, 2013

Heh. Apparently we aren't supposed to see Volkel Airbase.

Google's source is the most obscured. Wikipedia's place page lists a number of sites using likely a common source which obscures less. The nukes, I'm guessing...
posted by Ogre Lawless at 1:03 PM on December 12, 2013

Wow. I thought I had a pretty encyclopedic knowledge of US installations and there are a number of them I never heard of. In some cases the facilities listed are not technically military facilities. For instance, Pine Gap is not in any way a DoD facility. It might be Australian owned or it might be owned by some three letter agency, but it isn't a DoD site. Nonetheless, it is a pretty neat map.
posted by Lame_username at 1:30 PM on December 12, 2013

For instance, Pine Gap is not in any way a DoD facility.

It's part of the NSA (which is a DoD agency) and U.S. Air Force missile defense networks. It may not be exclusively DoD, but it's definitely a DoD facility.
posted by Etrigan at 1:42 PM on December 12, 2013

I have to say, that I'm a bit disappointed. Based on the title, I was expecting orbiting laser satellites or secret moon bases to defend us against the alien menace. I mean, it's s am incredible impressive work as it is, but still. Not. Moonbases.

I guess I'll just go watch some old episodes of UFO.
posted by happyroach at 2:44 PM on December 12, 2013

Wow that is impressive though!
posted by wallarookiller at 10:20 PM on December 15, 2013