China’s New Nuclear Submarine Visible on Google Earth

By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews

I wrote a story earlier this year about Google Earth being used to plan insurgent attacks in Iraq. There’s also been much flak over images of secure facilities, etc. appearing on Google Earth as well, in various countries. Small wonder people (or even nations) are worried. A researcher has found an image of one of the newest class of Chinese nuclear submarines on Google Earth.

Hans M. Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), spotted the images, photographed by the commercial Quickbird satellite in late 2006.

One photo is of what is apparently the new Type 094 Jin-class SSBN at the Xiaopingdao base near Dalian, FAS reported. Source: World Tribune

We Say: We’ve discussed how people can’t really expect privacy any longer; looks like that applies to top secret weapons and facilities as well. Of course, you’re not going to glean detailed info from this photo, but it’s still interesting.