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Re:The most unethical thing I was asked to build while worki... by kragen on Monday November 07, 2022 @08:56PM (#33515087)
Well, with the same camera, you get 100 times higher resolution from 1 km than from 100 km. But a satellite in a polar orbit overflies the whole Earth, typically, every few weeks (though keyhole-type satellites only photograph a very narrow track) while in many cases the only available aerial imagery is years or decades old. And a satellite can fly over restricted airspace (the only way to stop it from doing so, even for its owner, would be to blow it out of orbit) while doing that in an airplane is likely to get you thoroughly murdered and possibly result in a diplomatic incident.

The result is that satellite photographs are much more frequent and have much better coverage, while aerial photographs have much higher resolution. The dishonest naming of the Google Maps feature has given people extremely unrealistic expectations of what satellites can do, which results in difficulty in selling actual satellite photography products when they don't match what people have come to expect from GMaps.

Re:The most unethical thing I was asked to build while worki... by 8n4vidtmkvmk on Tuesday November 08, 2022 @01:17AM (#33516401)
is this still true tho? can't they just stick a big telescope lens on a satellite and get pretty detailed imagery?
Re:The most unethical thing I was asked to build while worki... by leereeves on Tuesday November 08, 2022 @03:40AM (#33517182)
There are fundamental limits due to the laws of physics, beyond which the only way to get a better image is to get closer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffraction-limited_system

Re:The most unethical thing I was asked to build while worki... by orbifold on Tuesday November 08, 2022 @03:43AM (#33517201)
You can and there were / are 7-8 Hubble sized telescopes in orbit, with somewhat other optics and sensors looking in the other direction. Most likely the same is true for siblings of JWT.
Re:The most unethical thing I was asked to build while worki... by randomswede on Tuesday November 08, 2022 @03:52AM (#33517263)
There is a whole lot of pesky athmospheric interference limiting how much detail you can actually resolve.
Re:The most unethical thing I was asked to build while worki... by kragen on Tuesday November 08, 2022 @10:18AM (#33519900)
You can, and satellite optics typically are a lot bigger than aerial photography optics, but the wavelength of light and the sizes of satellites you can afford to launch still impose a practical limit. For US companies, laws impose another limit.