Wednesday, September 12, 2007
The Virtual Search for Missing Adventurer Steve Fossett
by
The search for pilot Steve Fossett, missing for more than two weeks after failing to return to a private airfield in southern Nevada, has now extended to the Web, thanks to satellite image analysis. Tens of thousands of virtual helpers have since joined forces to augment air and ground search efforts.
Individuals using Google Earth and Amazon’s Mechanical Turk can load specific coordinates and help searchers analyze specific images as they look for foreign objects that may resemble Steve’s airplane (the image here depicts how such a plane could look). Flagged images will be sent to a team of specialists for further review.
Mechanical Turk at Amazon is based on HITs, or Human Intelligence Task, work that “people do better than computers,” according to documentation at Amazon.
Other players have stepped in to help. An aviation web site, http://www.avweb.com (registration required) is also providing links to fresh imagery and detailed search instructions. Last weekend alone, more than 35,000 AVweb subscribers and other users of Mechanical Turk logged on to help in the virtual search for Fossett.
Authorities have likened the search in rugged Nevada to that of looking for a needle in a haystack. Fossett’s family has been bolstered by the outpouring of support.
Commenting about the virtual search efforts, Russ Niles, editor of AVweb said, “It is unlikely that technology has ever united a segment of society like this for a common cause.”
Fossett, a veteran explorer/adventurer, was the first person to fly solo around the world in a balloon.
