Any sufficiently advanced technology will be purposed for military use. This will be purposed for Intelligence and Reconnaissance use if it fills a niche they need filled.
Having worked in remote sensing[1] in the distant past, every now and then I still glance at the Wassenaar Agreement[2] to find out what today's fun stuff may be.
[1] interplanetary on my part, but I have no illusions that our funders didn't have further intraplanetary applications in mind. I was young and needed the money.
Hey, that’s perfectly reasonable. No, the problem we have as a society is we live in this kind of reality which is governed by this thing called physics, and as our understanding of physics progresses, our ability to abuse the shit out of it also progresses. Some things aren’t a matter of if, but when.
That PDF is a gold mine by the way.
> as far as watching bunkers being dug, I'm pretty sure LIDAR already gives a much cleaner signal
The proposed applications are probably nothing more than something to get the ball rolling but can already be done very effectively today. I hesitate to be overly skeptical because an atmospheric panopticon would probably have more applications than they would imagine or dare to propose themselves.
[1] interplanetary on my part, but I have no illusions that our funders didn't have further intraplanetary applications in mind. I was young and needed the money.
[2] https://www.wassenaar.org/app/uploads/2019/12/WA-DOC-19-PUB-...
(as far as watching bunkers being dug, I'm pretty sure LIDAR already gives a much cleaner signal)