14 DAY TRIAL // The downloadable mapping tool Google Earth discovered a nuclear ballistic missile for the Chinese submarines that seems to be located somewhere at the Xiaopingdao Submarine Base south of Dalian, approximately 193 miles north of Qingdao, as Hans M. Kristensen from the Federation of American Scientists said. According to the official, the missile might belong to the Jin-class or Type 094 class that "is expected to replace the unsuccessful Xia-class (Type 092) of a single boat built in the early 1980s."
"The Jin-class appears to be approximately 35 feet (10 meters) longer than the Xia-class SSBN, primarily due to an extended mid-section of approximately 115 feet (35 meters) that houses the missile launch tubes and part of the reactor compartment," the FAS official said. According to the same source, the US Office of Naval Intelligence said in December 2006 that the Chinese government might be interested in building five missiles, all belonging to the Jin-calss SSBN.
"The extended missile compartment of the Jin-class seems intended to accommodate the Julang-2 sea-launched ballistic missile, which is larger than the Julang-1 deployed on the Xia-class. Part of the extension may also be related to the size of the reactor compartment," the expert described the missile. "The satellite image is not of high enough resolution to show the hatches to the missile launch tubes."
This is not the first time when the mapping tool provided by Google is used with a different reason than the one mentioned by the parent company. Google Earth was even used by the terrorists to organize attacks because the application was able to offer valuable information about certain locations targeted by these dangerous groups. Recently, it was reported that several terrorists were gathering details from Google Earth to attack the JFK International Airport. Fortunately, the authorities managed to stop their attempts before something dangerous for the residents of the US happened.