In article ,
says...

JF Mezei wrote on Tue, 3 Apr 2018
01:41:06 -0400:

On 2018-04-02 20:34, Jeff Findley wrote:

From what I understand, the rule dates back to the LANDSAT days. No
doubt it was originally intended to make it harder for "startups" to get
into the earth observation business, which is *big* business. The
satellite views in all of those online maps were paid for.


But the rule wasn't intended as a 'barrier to entry' so much as a
'barrier to high resolution'.

snip


I am just trying to understand why this rule was created and still exists.


Because high resolution satellite imagery is MILITARILY USEFUL and
they wanted to prevent high resolution commercial imagery. That ship
has largely sailed and you can now buy commercial georegistered
imagery as good as half-meter resolution. The US government can get
imagery at higher resolutions (still). For example, commercial Geoeye
satellites are capable of resolutions at least down to 41cm. However,
their operating license prohibits selling anything better than 50cm to
anyone but the US government (which is why the rule exists).

Which is why applying the rule to get a permit to the GoPro cameras
mounted on a Falcon upper stage is stupid. The rule has an exception
for "hand held" cameras which can have much higher resolution than the
GoPros (e.g. the DSLR cameras and lenses on ISS when they are pointed at
the earth).

Jeff
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