Re: [GZG] Re: Gzg-l Digest, Vol 11, Issue 26

["Eric Foley" <stiltman@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Well, even if satellites today aren't able to do sub 2 meter photography 
from higher orbits, this by no means says that they couldn't do it in a 
future where FTL travel is possible.  The government obviously never 
releases their best satellite photography publicly, but even what they have 
released (that probably has seen a significant and deliberate drop in 
quality from what they have in hand themselves) is good enough that I 
personally have no doubt that reading license plates from orbit is a fairly 
trivial accomplishment for them these days.

This begins to remind me of the debate about planetside weapons versus 
orbital ones, in which it was posited that in the far future satellites and 
other low flying spacecraft wouldn't really be all that safe close to a well 
protected planet.  Hammer's Slammers posits that just about anything that 
flies above ground tends to die in their glorification of super hovertanks. 
I would tend to think that it wouldn't be quite that extreme, but it would 
be an interesting dynamic.

E

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tony Christney" <tchristney@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <gzg-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, March 09, 2006 9:27 AM
Subject: Re: [GZG] Re: Gzg-l Digest, Vol 11, Issue 26


> Definitely not talking about geosynchronous satellites. Their orbits are 
> much too
> high to be effective at surveillance, i.e. sub 2 meter photography.
>
> Tony C.
>
> On 8-Mar-06, at 2:19 PM, Glenn Wilson wrote:
>
> > UAVs and satellites fulfill different functions. Also, are we talking 
> > geosynchronous (spelling) satellites?
>
>
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