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Satellites also have to be specialty built for their purpose. You can't just take a small communications satellite, attach a small camera, and have a spy satell
by penagwin 7y ago
Satellites also have to be specialty built for their purpose. You can't just take a small communications satellite, attach a small camera, and have a spy satellite.
Well you "could" but it would be so crappy that it'd be useless.
Also LEO satellites lose their altitude rather quickly, not a great investment for spy satellites.
> Satellites are outside the regulatory authority of countries they operate over.
Except the United States (Assuming the satellite was made/operated by a US entity such as a citizen or business), so they still have PLENTY of regulations to follow.
- godelski 7y agoBut they would be good for measuring graphical changes and some weather. Though NOAA has a lot of this already covered and better.
- Phlarp 7y agoThese would make poor imaging satellites you are correct, but what could possibly be more valuable intelligence than a global scale firehose of data. Just the metadata of packet routing across the constellation would have huge value to intel agencies. To say nothing of the implicit value in denying an adversary access to that information.
- cameronbrown 7y agoThere's far more efficient ways of tapping global data than launching satellites. Just build undersea fibre if surveillance is your goal.