Jeff Findley wrote on Tue, 3 Apr 2018
06:02:11 -0400:

In article ,
says...

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).


If they didn't occasionally result in stupid things they wouldn't be
'regulations'...

I wonder what NOAA would do if the camera mount was crafted as an
artificial hand, so as to make the camera 'hand held'?


--
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable
man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore,
all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
--George Bernard Shaw