Planes Landing in Beijing: Video from Space
There are some hard, unforgiving physical limits on resolution of photographs from orbit, even with digital correction of the images. For one thing, the camera is necessarily far away, and moving fast at the same time.[1] I was able to follow the specific link just kindly submitted here, which of course shows a rather large object (a commercial airliner). The satellite company's image gallery[2] compares quite favorably in resolution to an earlier company's image gallery we discussed here on HN about three years ago. But it will be quite a while--perhaps never--before some of the statements about satellite imagery that were already being made for propaganda purposes in the 1960s will be anything close to reality, even for classified military intelligence satellites. We won't be reading people's mobile phone screens from orbit ever, probably. Unmanned drone aircraft are at nearer distance and travel at slower speed, and provide a much better platform than earth-orbiting satellites for high-resolution spying.<p>[1] <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=6DBnS2g-KrQC&pg=PA204&lpg=PA204&dq=Physics+for+Future+Presidents+spy+satellite+resolution" rel="nofollow">http://books.google.com/books?id=6DBnS2g-KrQC&pg=PA204&lpg=P...</a><p><a href="http://www.kmc63.com/phy1000/worksheet-licenseplates.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.kmc63.com/phy1000/worksheet-licenseplates.pdf</a><p>[2] <a href="http://www.firstimagery.skybox.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.firstimagery.skybox.com/</a>