6 ms·

Resurrected a memory in me: Back in ~2002 I lived in San Jose, and my neighbor across from me was a satellite designer at Loral Space Systems... We often had

Resurrected a memory in me: Back in ~2002 I lived in San Jose, and my neighbor across from me was a satellite designer at Loral Space Systems... We often had the same "wash car in driveway" schedule - and I would ask him a bunch of questions about his work, which he couldnt talk about... But we had a system - I would ask yes/no questions and he would just wash his car - btu if he "waxed left" it was a yes, and if he "waxed right" it was a no... Now, I dont know how truthful he was, but I would ask about the resolution and size of the spy satts... and he indicated that, yes, they did in-fact have satellites that could read your license plate from space.

neilv 4y ago
If only you'd taught him wax on, wax off instead, now he'd know karate, instead of getting questioned by stern-looking people next week about security practices.
godzillabrennus 4y ago
Doesn’t surprise me. Maxar sells CNN photos where you can make out with reasonable clarity what is going on at the surface of the earth. The stuff the government has probably makes that look like a child’s attempt at satellite imagery.
pc86 4y ago
I totally believe they have satellites with this level of clarity, and probably did 20+ years ago as well. But how do you read a license plate at a 90° angle from space?
- bhhaskin 4y ago
  The earth is round my dude.
  - bhhaskin 4y ago
    Here is a great example from the company planet: https://youtu.be/GPgU5OYpwCs https://youtu.be/GPgU5OYpwCs The angle changes as the satellite counties on its orbit.
  - samstave 4y ago
    [flagged]
    - PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
      Wow, you're really leaning in on this one!
- sleepybrett 4y ago
  It could be that he meant that you could read something 'license plate sized' from space.
- kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
  There is no license plate reading from space. It is physically impossible to achieve such resolutions from LEO with atmosphere in the way. It gets worse with off axis viewing through a longer column of air.
  - HPsquared 4y ago
    Aren't adaptive optics a thing for telescopes? The giant laser beam might be a bit conspicuous though I suppose (if it even works looking downwards)
    - gorkish 4y ago
      adaptive optics cant change the diffraction limit. The only way to overcome that is with a bigger lens or synthetic aperture post-processing. SAR at optical wavelengths from orbital distances and velocities? Yeah, good luck
  - try_the_bass 4y ago
    Given the quality of unclassified photos released to the public at times [1], it's not unreasonable to assume the classified stuff is an order of magnitude better (or more). Note the angle of some of the photos! [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-42510783 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-42510783
- HPsquared 4y ago
  I'd imagine spy satellites don't always look directly down on their targets. Especially if they want to look at something not directly under its ground track, the satellite would need the ability to look at things off to the side. So that'd enable reading something vertical. Still would need to look at it from the _correct_ angle though.
- PeterisP 4y ago
  IMINT satellites are never GEO (if only because GEO is so far), so they don't "sit above" some area but fly over it at high speed, so it can get a 45° or 30° picture and the only issue is the target is a bit further than when you're straight above it.
toss1 4y ago
When I was in college before Hubble was launched, my astronomy professor told me that the original design for the Hubble space telescope was for a smaller mirror, but got upgraded because the larger one would be cheaper to make the larger mirror, because larger mirror size was already being made. Also the Space Shuttle was sized for the larger mirror diameter. The strong inference is that the US DOD was already making that size, so existing tooling could be used. Consider Hubble pointed at a target only 200-3mmkm away...
- samstave 4y ago
  I actually asked this question multiple times on HN and other places, asking "what if we take hubble and point it at earth? Now that you have that thought, dont you think there are many objects that are "micro hubbles" that are already pointed at earth? MIC bots downed me to heck. Lets just imagine, in a sci-fi/Black-Mirror sense, that all the constellation class of satts (starlink, the EU one, the chinese/russian one) have additional sensors for 'ocular-patt-downs-from-sattelites' -- Lets get our hands on some of these units and inspect? Is Starlink a classified object?
  - sigstoat 4y ago
    > dont you think there are many objects that are "micro hubbles" you reply to a comment about the size of the mirror, and then ask if there are "micro hubbles". no, there literally cannot be a micro hubble, because the mirror is enormous. the mirror in hubble alone is larger than a starlink satellite https://lilibots.blogspot.com/2020/04/starlink-satellite-dimension-estimates.html https://lilibots.blogspot.com/2020/04/starlink-satellite-dim... https://www.nasa.gov/content/about-facts-hubble-fast-facts https://www.nasa.gov/content/about-facts-hubble-fast-facts
  - actionfromafar 4y ago
    It could be done, you could make a virtual image from many small sats. Since you see from different angles, if you timestamp data with high resolution you could even cancel out a lot of atmosphere.
- mturmon 4y ago
TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
Reading newspaper headlines from satellite imagery was possible in the late 1960s. Source: my father, who worked at Kodak and Hughes Aircraft on such systems.
- samstave 4y ago
  DEAR GOD I hope you have some images which you can share?
  - TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
    I don’t; they were all classified projects (NRO and others), so if he took anything like that home, I’m sure it would have been trouble.
    - samstave 4y ago
      uname checks out, move along.
- gorkish 4y ago
  With due respect, everybody's got a story. Stamp "Classified" on something and you can bet your ass the tall tales are going to flow. From orbit, no it wasn't and still isn't for that matter. It's beyond the diffraction limit of any real or made up lens or mirror we have ever put in space to do this. As far as I am aware, synthetic aperture optical techniques aren't there yet either. Source: Physics

neilv 4y ago

If only you'd taught him wax on, wax off instead, now he'd know karate, instead of getting questioned by stern-looking people next week about security practices.

godzillabrennus 4y ago

Doesn’t surprise me. Maxar sells CNN photos where you can make out with reasonable clarity what is going on at the surface of the earth. The stuff the government has probably makes that look like a child’s attempt at satellite imagery.

pc86 4y ago

I totally believe they have satellites with this level of clarity, and probably did 20+ years ago as well. But how do you read a license plate at a 90° angle from space?

bhhaskin 4y ago
The earth is round my dude.
- bhhaskin 4y ago
  Here is a great example from the company planet: https://youtu.be/GPgU5OYpwCs https://youtu.be/GPgU5OYpwCs The angle changes as the satellite counties on its orbit.
- samstave 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
    Wow, you're really leaning in on this one!
sleepybrett 4y ago
It could be that he meant that you could read something 'license plate sized' from space.
kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
There is no license plate reading from space. It is physically impossible to achieve such resolutions from LEO with atmosphere in the way. It gets worse with off axis viewing through a longer column of air.
- HPsquared 4y ago
  Aren't adaptive optics a thing for telescopes? The giant laser beam might be a bit conspicuous though I suppose (if it even works looking downwards)
  - gorkish 4y ago
    adaptive optics cant change the diffraction limit. The only way to overcome that is with a bigger lens or synthetic aperture post-processing. SAR at optical wavelengths from orbital distances and velocities? Yeah, good luck
- try_the_bass 4y ago
  Given the quality of unclassified photos released to the public at times [1], it's not unreasonable to assume the classified stuff is an order of magnitude better (or more). Note the angle of some of the photos! [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-42510783 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-42510783
HPsquared 4y ago
I'd imagine spy satellites don't always look directly down on their targets. Especially if they want to look at something not directly under its ground track, the satellite would need the ability to look at things off to the side. So that'd enable reading something vertical. Still would need to look at it from the _correct_ angle though.
PeterisP 4y ago
IMINT satellites are never GEO (if only because GEO is so far), so they don't "sit above" some area but fly over it at high speed, so it can get a 45° or 30° picture and the only issue is the target is a bit further than when you're straight above it.

toss1 4y ago

When I was in college before Hubble was launched, my astronomy professor told me that the original design for the Hubble space telescope was for a smaller mirror, but got upgraded because the larger one would be cheaper to make the larger mirror, because larger mirror size was already being made. Also the Space Shuttle was sized for the larger mirror diameter. The strong inference is that the US DOD was already making that size, so existing tooling could be used. Consider Hubble pointed at a target only 200-3mmkm away...

samstave 4y ago
I actually asked this question multiple times on HN and other places, asking "what if we take hubble and point it at earth? Now that you have that thought, dont you think there are many objects that are "micro hubbles" that are already pointed at earth? MIC bots downed me to heck. Lets just imagine, in a sci-fi/Black-Mirror sense, that all the constellation class of satts (starlink, the EU one, the chinese/russian one) have additional sensors for 'ocular-patt-downs-from-sattelites' -- Lets get our hands on some of these units and inspect? Is Starlink a classified object?
- sigstoat 4y ago
  > dont you think there are many objects that are "micro hubbles" you reply to a comment about the size of the mirror, and then ask if there are "micro hubbles". no, there literally cannot be a micro hubble, because the mirror is enormous. the mirror in hubble alone is larger than a starlink satellite https://lilibots.blogspot.com/2020/04/starlink-satellite-dimension-estimates.html https://lilibots.blogspot.com/2020/04/starlink-satellite-dim... https://www.nasa.gov/content/about-facts-hubble-fast-facts https://www.nasa.gov/content/about-facts-hubble-fast-facts
- actionfromafar 4y ago
  It could be done, you could make a virtual image from many small sats. Since you see from different angles, if you timestamp data with high resolution you could even cancel out a lot of atmosphere.
mturmon 4y ago

TedDoesntTalk 4y ago

Reading newspaper headlines from satellite imagery was possible in the late 1960s. Source: my father, who worked at Kodak and Hughes Aircraft on such systems.

samstave 4y ago
DEAR GOD I hope you have some images which you can share?
- TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
  I don’t; they were all classified projects (NRO and others), so if he took anything like that home, I’m sure it would have been trouble.
  - samstave 4y ago
    uname checks out, move along.
gorkish 4y ago
With due respect, everybody's got a story. Stamp "Classified" on something and you can bet your ass the tall tales are going to flow. From orbit, no it wasn't and still isn't for that matter. It's beyond the diffraction limit of any real or made up lens or mirror we have ever put in space to do this. As far as I am aware, synthetic aperture optical techniques aren't there yet either. Source: Physics