originally appeared years ago. It was anthologized in one of the Master’s first books. But I believe it is now out-of-date. A couple Sundays ago, the Chicago Tribune ran an article about a commercial firm which is making high-quality satellite images available to anyone. I don’t have the article in front of me, but the resolution was described as “you could see individual cars, but not people getting out of car.” Which sounds like it’s about the same resolution as described in Cecil’s column. The article went on to state that finer-resolution imaging is currently employed by government spy satellites, but this is not available to the general public.
I have no interest in any anti-government or privacy-issue rants. I just want to know if the Straight Dope needs to be, well, straightened out?
“The dawn of a new era is felt and not measured.” Walter Lord
Ground based astronomical telescopes with 60 inch mirrors, 2k x 2k CCD sensors and adaptive optics can resolve stellar objects equivalent to seeing 1/4 to 1/2 inch objects at 400 to 600 miles.
60 inch optics, 2k x 2k CCD sensors, adaptive optics and an orbit of 400 to 600 miles are the rough specifications of a KH11 spy satellite, BTW.
Geez, haven’t you seen www.terraserver.com? It’s been around for a couple of years at least. Admittedly, it has limited coverage, and some of the pictures are almost a decade old, but you can definitely see cars. I can see my house from that website.
As to what the military’s got these days…well I remember during the whole Kosovo thing last year one bit of footage that stuck in my head. It was from one of those press briefings - you could clearly see people running around an airstrip. Not pixelly little people, either…it was very detailed, live-action, real-time footage. And they mentioned it was from a satellite. …Well, it impressed me, anyway.