[SatNews] Soon to come to Afghanistan is a revolutionary airborne surveillance system called Gorgon Stare, duly named after Gorgon a mythical Greek creature whose unblinking eyes turned to stone anyone who looked at him. Now the Air Force has a new drone that can see everything, and will transmit live video images of physical movement across an entire town.

Gorgon Stare has nine video cameras mounted on an aircraft that is remotely operated capable of transmitting live video images of physical movement across any town. The UAV cn transmit live video images to soldiers on the ground or to analysts tracking enemy movements. And sends as many as 65 various images to different users. This in comparison to today's UAV single camera that provides video from a single camera over a "soda straw" area the size of a building or two.

Maj. Gen. James O. Poss, the Air Force's assistant deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. "Gorgon Stare will be looking at a whole city, so there will be no way for the adversary to know what we're looking at, and we can see everything."

Contrarians question whether the military will be able to sort through enormous amounts of imagery in time to actually be helpful to troops in the field. Officials also agree that Gorgon Stare is of limited value unless they can match it with improved human intelligence — eyewitness reports of who is doing what on the ground.

The Air Force reports that the monthly number of unmanned and manned aircraft surveillance sorties has more than doubled since last January, and quadrupled since the beginning of 2009. Indeed, officials say, they cannot keep pace with the demand. "I have yet to go a week in my job here without having a request for more Air Force surveillance out there," Poss said.