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114 Comments
- inactive, on 10/16/2009, -1/+65Enhance-Enhance-Ehance
-CSI
or...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUFkb0d1kbU - MacBookForMe, on 10/15/2009, -1/+58But of course...they never tell us all what they do...
- RealmDown, on 10/15/2009, -3/+44Can we *please* have a whisleblower post all the great cleavage and nude sunbather shots that we KNOW they have ?
- hellengineer, on 10/15/2009, -3/+30I must agree with that, maybe that resolution was 5 years ago, but still we may never know.
- vassoom, on 10/16/2009, -0/+25Hicks: Can you get a feature scan and pattern matching on him?
Van: No, he's smart, he never looks up.
Jones: Why does he have to look up?
Fiedler: The satellite is 155 miles above the Earth. It can only look straight down.
Jones: That's a bit limited, isn't it?
Van: [Sarcastically] Well, maybe you should design a better one.
Jones: Maybe I will, idiot. - FuZi0nDET, on 10/16/2009, -1/+22If only this was something we had to worry about. I'd be a little more concerned with how easy it is for them to say; track you on your cell phone, access your e-mail, listen in on your phone conversations, but wait there's more! This can all be done without a warrant or judicial oversight!
- gwolf, on 10/16/2009, -4/+25If they could, do you think they would tell us?
- Subduction, on 10/16/2009, -1/+16This article is exactly right. We are glad the matter is settled and will no longer be the subject of mindless speculation.
The important thing to take away from this is that the world can now feel more than comfortable leaving secure documents next to picture windows or face up in parking lots.
-- The National Reconnaissance Office - jman583, on 10/16/2009, -1/+16Dear God... The US and Russian governments now have a power that was once reserved only for anyone with the ability to see.
- Ajajadude, on 10/16/2009, -1/+14I think the same thing every time I read an article like this. Do people really think agencies release the latest specs on all of their gadgets and capabilities?
- dattaway, on 10/16/2009, -0/+10Many of these satellite view pictures were actually taken by aircraft.
- hypogenic, on 10/16/2009, -0/+10http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2001/JeannelleLouis ...
When the KH-7 -1966 2 satellite images were declassified, it turned out that it had a resolution of 5cm.
That satellite was active in the sixties. So like, what the ***** is this article trying to prove? - stuffradio, on 10/16/2009, -1/+10Over 9,000.
- inactive, on 10/16/2009, -3/+12Buried for "people". When you use that word like that, you come off as a huge ***** douchebag.
- 47f0, on 10/16/2009, -1/+9Well, yes, and no. For a single image, this is accurate. You can't, however many times you see it in fictional crime labs, take one blurry photo and enhance to the point where you can count the suspect's nostril hairs.
However - if you have multiple images over a short time span, it's possible to beat the physical resolution by pixel chopping/averaging and compositing the images, enhancing "high confidence" areas. Enough to read a license plate? Unlikely. But enough to provide worthwhile enhancement. - digitalArtform, on 10/16/2009, -0/+7As late as the Reagan era, spy photographs were shot onto film and dropped from space to Earth, where they had to be found before they could be seen.
I think I remember a story where the Israeli 7 day war was over before the first photos were found. - theanticrust1, on 10/16/2009, -0/+7You would think so because the human brain is notoriously awful at judging incredible distances and sizes. People are amazed to learn that the hubble, with its aforementioned galaxy-picture taking abilities, registers pluto as only a few pixels. Around 4 pixels if I remember correctly.
If it helps, look at the stars (realizing some of those dots are whole galaxies) and their size in our sky, and then imagine yourself in orbit looking down; rivers are barely visible let alone something as small as a license plate. - shadowmoose, on 10/16/2009, -0/+7I recall watching a special on the Blackbird spy plane a while back and they could take photos of license plates. Who needs a satellite when you can fly something from 85k feet.
- superkendall, on 10/16/2009, -0/+6Can you see the sky out of your windshield looking forward?
Think about that, just for a little while. - superkendall, on 10/16/2009, -0/+6But a lot of that is taken with overhead planes. Not that it really matters if you are worried about your own government more than others.
- Pinkertinkle, on 10/16/2009, -2/+8eh just use google street view
- jareddennis, on 10/16/2009, -1/+6Someone who's good with math:
How large would the aperture have to be to get a 0.1 cm resolution like in example 1? - digitalArtform, on 10/16/2009, -0/+5KH-8, also known as Gambit, also snapped photographs with conventional cameras, then dropped their exposed rolls to Earth. They flew 50 missions from 1966-1984. The satellites in that system each carried a single film pod and could fly down as low as 80 miles over the Soviet Union. That allowed them to show things as small as 3-4-in.
http://www.spacetoday.org/Satellites/YugoWarSats.h ... - FatAmerican, on 10/16/2009, -1/+5At least he didn't say "sheeple". I hate that word so much.
- v3rtex7740, on 10/16/2009, -0/+4your legitimate concerns are not welcome in this comment thread
- MaxxusFlamus, on 10/16/2009, -0/+4focal length isn't the limitation- it's aperture.
You increase aperture you also have to increase size of the lens to fill the aperture. Technically there's nothing stopping you from hoisting a 50m lens into space, but it becomes a matter of price and feasibility. The weight and price of such a space telescope is likely unfeasible even for the CIA/NSA/NGA/etc - Astaro, on 10/16/2009, -0/+4Have you actually tried it?
I shared an office with an imaging expert that specialised in producing reports for court evidence from cctv footage.
We tried to build a decent image of a parked car from some security camera stills.
What we ended up with was a fantasticly smooth looking car, with a lovely even grey field where the licence plate numbers were supposed to be. - v3rtex7740, on 10/16/2009, -2/+6it would be massive, and expensive enough to make it impossible to do without anyone noticing
- JessterKing, on 10/16/2009, -1/+4you ever see that air force commercial where the lady says she does a couple rocket launches a month, well they definitely could have it up there.
- cyberdork, on 10/16/2009, -0/+3fallingdamage = failingphysics
- theanticrust1, on 10/16/2009, -0/+3There is a lot of air between you and that horizon. So much so that to take pictures at any sort of angle from space is nearly impossible because of atmospheric interference. Also, the earth's radius is way bigger than the distance satellites orbit from the earth. So now instead of 150 miles, you're trying to take a picture from thousands of miles away.
So at first it would seem that they could angle their camera that way, but in reality it is much different than we imagine with our limited understanding of extreme distances. - Bobski, on 10/16/2009, -1/+4Judging from the quality of the article, I'd say you've learned nothing.
- cyberdork, on 10/16/2009, -0/+3Just that those high res Google Earth shots are not satellite images but arial images shot from low flying planes. The low res ones are the satellite images.
- v3rtex7740, on 10/16/2009, -0/+3not dropped so much as 'fired', at a predetermined angle, so they orbit right into the ground, presumably in a place they can find it
- digitalArtform, on 10/16/2009, -0/+3Deconvolution can do some interesting things
http://www.focusmagic.com/ - rushnerd, on 10/16/2009, -0/+3Greatest comment i've ever seen on Digg.
Can't wait for those Petapixel cameras in the future ;) - cyberdork, on 10/16/2009, -1/+4Just that it's physically impossible. Unless they managed to smuggle a satellite much bigger than the Hubble into space without anyone noticing...
- IvanAndreevich, on 10/16/2009, -1/+4That's a negative on my plate number. It's pretty much perpendicular to the satellite's line of sight, and inside a slight indent in my bumper. Trying to look at an angle rather than directly from above would result in other objects obstructing the view.
What retard would ever think that? - zoomaKabu, on 10/16/2009, -0/+3Or a really tall man looking over you shoulder.
- cyberdork, on 10/16/2009, -0/+3You also realize that most of those 'satellite images' on Google Earth are actual areal images shot from low flying planes?
- Joshislong, on 10/16/2009, -0/+3That's what they want you to think!
/takes off tinfoil hat - v3rtex7740, on 10/16/2009, -1/+4okay putting Hubble in space cost $2.1 billion (thank you, internet)
i stand corrected:
"The United States Defense Department has a "black budget" it uses to fund expenditures it does not want to disclose publicly. Such an expenditure is called a "black project." The annual cost of the United States Defense Department black budget was estimated at $32 billion in 2008[1] but was increased to an estimated $50 billion in 2009.[2]"
(thank you, wikipedia)
....dayum - Animan351, on 10/16/2009, -1/+4LOL. Now that's a high res camera shot.
- chimera200, on 10/16/2009, -0/+3Worldview 2 was just recently launched and has a spatial resolution of 46 cm (panchromatic) which is pretty damn good. If the private sector has this kind of capability, you know the military has something better...
- superkendall, on 10/16/2009, -0/+3They are usually ejected and have small propellant charges to drive them out of orbit (in a relatively precise location).
- directedition, on 10/16/2009, -1/+3Though they wouldn't have a way to get it into orbit. Even the Air Force imposed changes to the Shuttle design to fit their satellites, and the hubble was the maximum size a sat could have been as deployed from the shuttle.
There is just no way for them to get a larger sat into orbit, and certainly not without China and Russia noticing.
And those of you wondering about those high-resolution shots in America on Google Earth, those are taken from airplanes by the US Geological Survey, not satellites. - umdigger, on 10/16/2009, -0/+2Actually Google maps does use satellite images through the companies DigitalGlobe or GeoEye. Maybe YEARS ago they used planes, but they haven't for awhile now.
- EdDiggEd, on 10/16/2009, -1/+3"An extrapolation of the trends of the 1880s would show today's cities buried under horse manure." -- Norman Macrae
Aperture synthesis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aperture_synthesis) makes your math irrelevant. Predicting future situations based on current technologies will always lead to incorrect conclusions.
And why use satellites for that level of detail? Isn't that what spy plane drones are for? And those cool little hover-bots from MIT? And CCTV cameras everywhere?
A reasoned argument based on facts will never calm someone who is properly paranoid. And I don't think you can get more paranoid than thinking that the government is tracking _you_ by satellite spy cams. - directedition, on 10/16/2009, -0/+2Actually, they still very much do. If you zoom in to a high-resolution area and read the source of the imagery (it's at the bottom of the screen on the latest version) it will be from the US-GS, which uses airplanes for their surveys. You will notice that images from DigitalGlobe and GeoEye have very low resolution compared to imagery from the USGS. Most USGS imagery is provided to google via Europa Technologies.
- slvrbullet87, on 10/16/2009, -1/+3you dont think the government can make money disapear without the american public knowing what is used for?
Really? -
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