Dumpshock Forums > I am going to loose serious geek cred for this, but. . .

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zend0g

Jun 4 2011, 02:33 AM

QUOTE (MJBurrage @ Jun 4 2011, 01:51 AM)

While I am sure that we have surveillance drones that could read a watch while flying high enough to stay hidden, we do not have satelites that could do that.

I remember an astrophysics paper that calculated the max possible spy satellite resolution as 10cm. This is because the limit is not tech based but lens/mirror based, and the largest lens/mirror we could launch in either the shuttle or on any other rocket ever built is only large enough to get 10cm resolution.

I.E. we could build a satellite that could read a watch, but we have no way to get it into space.

MMT would get around that size limit.

kzt

Jun 4 2011, 04:50 AM

QUOTE (Adarael @ Jun 3 2011, 09:36 AM)

(Edit: This is not because I know, personally, anything about this shit. This is because one of my best friends from college works for JPL, and is always working with Lockheed on these kinds of things. So I pick her brain.)

I think it was the book Deep Black that had a pretty well structured argument as what was the practical resolution of a spy sat given the atmosphere. I think he argued that is was possible to build a sensor that could read a the main characters on a license plate or the really large headlines on the front page of a newspaper. Assuming that the sat could see them, which isn't so likely for license plates. Whether anyone does, I have no idea.

MJBurrage

Jun 4 2011, 03:57 PM

As I recall, the Shuttle was designed around the size of it cargo bay. I.E. the U.S. wanted to be able to launch and maintain satellites of a certain large size, and the shuttle was designed primarily for that purpose.

Perhaps the confluence of 1) mirror size, and 2) atmospheric interference combined set the ~10cm limit. I.E. a mirror larger than what the shuttle can launch would have the potential for sharper resolution if not for the atmospheric limits.

So you calculate the best resolution that the atmosphere allows. Then you calculate the smallest mirror that achieves that resolution. Then you design a launch vehicle to get it into space. Then you publically describe said launch vehicle as the next step in manned exploration of space to hide that its primary purpose is spy satellite launch and maintenance.

All that spy satellite work also gave us the experience to fix the Hubble.

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