I realize that the govt. has better-resolution satellites. Is there anything keeping civilians from developing half-meter or better imaging systems (other than the inherent technical difficulty)? Have the Feds said, “one meter is all you’re allowed”? Or can we expect better satellite pics in coming years?
Also–do the rules of not photographing certain military installations (Area 51, et al., the photos of which came from Soviet satellites, IIRC) still apply from orbit?
well, i would certainly expect laws on not photographing military/secret installations would still apply (but how would the govt. prove photos had been taken?). as for better resolution, i can’t actually think of a commercial use for a satellite with better than 1m resolution, but if a company came up with a good reason, i don’t see how they could be disallowed the technology by the government. after all, what could a 0.5m resolution satellite do that much better than a 1m resolution sattelite? it’s not like big companies have any great interest in reading newspaper headlines from orbit.
The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) puts a very convincing argument for public use of sattelite imagery in their Public Eye project. Fascinating. Check out their Introduction to Imagery page.
I vaguely remember that when Space Imaging Corp’s “Ikonos” 1-metre imagery satellite was launched (Sep 99), there was a big to-do about them not photographing top secret US facilities (a la Area 51 - oops, I mean Groom Lake), and they mustn’t image any of Israel at all. Very odd. But like skaffen_amiskaw said, how would they know?
I talked to these guys and to their competitors at Orbital Imaging a while back. Both were cagey about how the regulations worked (essentially, they were trying not to admit that greater resolutions exist), but basically…
An American company needs approval from the Department of Commerce to launch an imaging satellite, and DoC is only handing out licenses for 1 meter resolution and greater, and they were only doing that because they thought the Russians were about to commercialize 1 meter-resolution imaging.
The actual optical technology to do better than 1M from ~600 KM (if it exists, of course, heh heh) is classified, so you’d have to break the law to put it on your bird in the first place. Only one or two firms have the technology (if…), and they’re cooperating with DOD (you know, theoretically).
IIRC, the Russian stuff turned out to be pretty low quality.
skaffen is right that there is not a lot of commercial use for resolution better than 1M – in fact, both companies are busting their humps trying to fill the satellite time profitably even at 1M. But lots of their sales are to (friendly) military governments, so the demand is there if you can get DoD and DoC to certify that your customer is a good guy.
The government knows what you are taking pictures of because a) they track the orbits and know when a picture is possible (because of where the sun is, etc.) and b) the images get sent back to earth by radio on a frequency approved DoD and the FCC, which they can of course intercept if they choose.
And actually the FAS paid SpaceImaging to do a 1-meter image of Area 51, and they got it. Here’s a page with the pictures: http://www.fas.org/irp/overhead/groom.htm
Also, it’s worth remembering that we used to have an enemy who had pretty good satellites. Remember Russia? I think we were a little more concerned about them seeing our top-secret bases than the military is about the public nowadays.
There’s a pretty easy solution to this problem if you’re really secretive. Just don’t do anything outside when the satellites are overhead. The only reason SpaceImaging was able to take that picture of the US plane in China was because the Chinese did absolutely nothing to conceal it. They could have put a tarp on it, or even put it in a hangar (which is where the US probably keeps it). Then it wouldn’t matter what resolution your satellite had, you still wouldn’t see anything.