Imagery and derived products are needed to respond to and mitigate all types and phases of disasters, whether natural disasters like land slides in Turkey, fires in Indonesia or Mexico, hurricanes in Honduras or complex humanitarian emergencies.

Neutrality: The government in control of a studied territory may be afraid that the imagery is being used for adverse military, intelligence or commercial purposes.

Cost: Satellites and manned aircraft are very expensive. Satellites cost over $100 million each to build and launch. They usually only do one thing and can't be moved to a disaster site.

Data Ownership: Governments and corporations often want a return on the cost of production. As a result, data can be expensive and distribution can also be slow.

Danger: Manned aircraft risk human lives and harm the environment.

Lower the cost of imagery.

Enhance data distribution.

Not risk lives or the environment.

Be trusted as politically neutral and transparent.

Operate at various altitudes and for extensive periods of time.

Provide: Sub-meter imagery.

A GDIN related experiment using the Pathfinder unmanned solar powered aircraft or its next generation, a prototype series under study by NASA.

Pathfinder will fly over a foreign natural disaster.

On board sensors and cameras will produce less expensive imagery than satellites or manned aircraft.

The experiment will test political confidence building measures to reduce a reluctance by some governments to allow over flights.

The host government and a set of local partners from the NGO, Academic and UN community must see the plane before it takes off, be allowed to choose and examine the instruments and sit in the control room so that it knows that the instruments only do specific "non-political" tasks.

All project information will be posted on a neutral web site -- supports transparency.

A dedicated website: will get a live feed of images as they occur and also act as a repository for all other project images.

Cost is decreased and effectiveness is increased because all actors in a disaster will have a common source of reliable information -- the need for alternative routes is also reduced in many cases.

Sensor data will go to an analytical center, which will transform the data into useful derived products.

All analysis is given for free in fast moving disasters or at the lowest practical cost -- however, providers to retain the right to charge.