.mil censor$ commerc. satellite imagery

[Bill Stewart]

At 05:25 AM 10/16/2001 -0700, Khoder bin Hakkin wrote:
>              http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGA01DJ9VSC.html
>
>Military Buys Exclusive Rights to Commercial Satellite's Pictures of War
>                                   Zone
>                By John J. LumpkinAssociated Press Writer
>                          Published: Oct 16, 2001
>WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.S. military is paying for the exclusive rights
>to commercial satellite imagery of Afghanistan even though its own
>satellites are thought to take far better pictures.

That was interesting.  Today's SF Chronicle also has another article
on satellites, mainly focusing on the technology,
which is a lot better than during the First Gulf War.
Much of the content comes from GlobalSecurity.org,
a non-profit space and defense analysis center,
and there are also pointers to SpaceImaging.com.

Resolutions are better, and battlefield commanders can get color pictures,
weather images, infrared coverage which is good for checking bomb damage,
radar images, and faster responses for everything.
The article talks about 1-foot resolution; some other articles have
said there's technology as good as 10cm, though that's
mainly for narrow-focus pictures, not wide-area.
By contrast, First Gulf War images were mainly 10meter.
French Spot satellites have 1-meter resolution,
and Ikonos was at least that good before the military did the
exclusivity deal.   A new commercial satellite called
Quickbird is being launched later this week by DigitalGlobe Corp.
It should do 2 feet for black&white and eight feet for color and infrared.

One of the Internet map sites, I think Mapquest, also has
aerial photos for many US areas.  I'm not sure if they're satellite
or if they're airplane-based.  It's good enough to clearly make out
my condo complex, including the pool, and the image shows a
purple blob on the street that may be my car.  Amazing stuff, and free,
though it doesn't cover the whole US.