China building gigantic... stuff in the desert

[Veho]

China has been building weird gigantic structures in the desert near the city of Dunhuang in the Jiuquan prefecture, Gansu province, north of the Shule River (China is big). They are weird grids and networks of lines, or standing structures arranged in formations. They're visible from space, and they started appearing on the Google Maps satellite view. Here's one:

It looks like a layout of a city. What is it for? Spy satellite calibration? Street-scale target practice for orbital lasers? Wat?

Check it out on Google Maps here.

The second one looks like a military targeting range, and it's littered with destroyed vehicles:

Google Maps link here.

The third one is an 18 miles long rectangular grid:

Here.

The fourth one is a collection of standing structures, arranged radially, with vehicles and even planes scattered throughout:

Here.

It even looks like a bullseye.


What are they? I keep coming up with militaristic applications but it might be something innocuous. Maybe they're developing a GPS system. Maybe they're working on automated self-driving cars. Any ideas?

Source.


(It's all Costello's doing, I know it )

 

[FireGrey]

Maybe they're testing new types of air weaponry and seeing their effect on the battlefield.
I think they are plotting war.
They have a rediculously large population so they need to expand their land, by stealing other country's land.
The scary thing though is the ammount of nuclear bombs people have nowadays..

 

[emigre]

China>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Everyone else.

 

[Flame]

I for one, welcome our new overloads.

 

[Vulpes Abnocto]

The best explanation I've heard for this is that they're to test tracking and bombing systems from low-Earth orbit.
(Because there are currently no defense systems to deter such an attack)

To paraphrase one comment:
"In the 1950s the US could afford to pay people to do weird stuff in the desert. Now only China has that sort of money."

 

[JonnyPoots]

I for one, welcome our new overloads.

Agreed. China will rule the world eventually. Anybody who's read enough Sci-Fi already knows that. And anybody who thinks sci-fi has never predicted future events hasn't read enough of it.

 

[AlanJohn]

If China is going to invade us I'll go all CoD and fight 'em off.
I ain't no pussy.

but seriously I will just surrender

 

[Valwin]

I for one, welcome our new overloads.

Agreed. China will rule the world eventually. Anybody who's read enough Sci-Fi already knows that. And anybody who thinks sci-fi has never predicted future events hasn't read enough of it.

actually i dont think so their currency is more inflated -snip fail troll- and all their workforce is getting old and new generation are not helping

 

[Wizerzak]

Well, considering they're buying up large chunks of Africa, and building weird structures (that look like targets) in the desert, it certainly looks as if they're planning for war....

Now I'm concerned.

Also, found another one:

Another thing, look at the sizes of these things, here's a China - London comparison:

 

[Necron]

Proably they are just making some kind of art.

 

[CortalRage]

Some of the designs just look like edited maps or images. The paths and chunks in some of them make it look like the terrain is just inverted.It could just be elevation of their roads, or paths, but that last one really looks like an inversion.

 

[Cyan]

It looks old, there are sands covering them.
They also have old facilities near them (sometime painted in blue?).


Maybe it was meant to reproduce another town's streets and buildings structure (for whatever military use).

 

[Javacat]

Missile testing. More stuff!

Mock runway? http://g.co/maps/r8ksa

Blue cluster of blown buildings? http://g.co/maps/ndpb7

Deserted runway? Appears to be the same as the previous runway linked, with buildings in a similar location to the blue ones. Hmmmm http://g.co/maps/qwfg8

 

[Cyan]

They are not even using it as a road, there are road around these forms.

 

[nryn99]

they were the ones who built the great wall. so i'm not really surprised.

but what is the reason behind this...

 

[Gahars]

I for one, welcome our new overloads.

Agreed. China will rule the world eventually. Anybody who's read enough Sci-Fi already knows that. And anybody who thinks sci-fi has never predicted future events hasn't read enough of it.

Well, people were saying the same thing about Japan in the 70's and 80's... look how that turned out.

 

[raulpica]

I'm pretty sure they're rebuilding planimetries of sensible targets (cities, most likely) and test the impact range of their weapons.

The third image reminds me of Manhattan. They're probably testing if they can nuke out a certain area entirely before the enemy has any way to react.

 

[Foxi4]

Am I the only one who noticed that these structures are really, really old?

If something was tested there, it was tested years and years back. The obvious conclusion is that they resemble cities or circles is that they check an impact and explosion radius of certain weaponry.

 

[Shoat]

Any attempt to surprise-attack another country in order to take it over would trigger a HEAVY response from the rest of the world's superpowers. I mean, there is only very little interference if the "young" countries duke it out, but a superpower starting war with ANYONE won't be ignored.
And in a conflict like that, no one would win.
China is not stupid enough to do something like that, so I doubt it's some sort of recent military test that they did while planning to start war.

 

[Snailface]

Hopefully, they're building a gigantic 3DS flashcard factory.

Now we know why Costello lives in China.