Quote:
Originally Posted by RIPV3
If something is fully automated, even with a "secure" link, someone can probably hack into it. Bad idea.
That's part of the problem... a truly secure, sufficiently robust data comm system with the required bandwidth and QoS absolutely does not exist, not even close. It would almost certainly have to be satellite based for global coverage... $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
So *somebody* has to make a monumental investment to do that. Government? For what purpose, to eliminate a few thousand highly-paid union jobs? Airlines? They can't see much beyond next quarter's earnings report, much less sinking cash into something that *might* enable autonomy that *might* someday save their distant successors some costs? Naw, let's just do distributions instead. Maybe Boeing and airbus will do a joint venture someday, but BCA is still focused on selling '60's era guppys as it's main product line.
And even after all that, it cannot be totally reliable because SATCOM is a very weak signal and thus very jammable... unless you maybe want to orbit even larger satellites with nuclear power systems on board to provide the kind of signal power output that ground-based systems employ.