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Armchair astronaut
Any possibility this idea could fly?
Depending on the wavelength, a 40mm telescope-camera at 300 miles altitude will have a resolution of about fifteen feet per pixel, and on an HD tv will cover an area about three miles across, when looking straight down. The circle of its horizon will be about 1500 miles across. The resolution will drop by half near the horizon but the area will more than double. To cover the entire area visible to the satellite would take over a thousand such cameras. A cluster of say fifty sat-cams on a single platform could be controlled induvidually by operators using a joy stick or a VR headset and paying perhaps two or three dollars a minute, or a point on the earth could tracked, selected by a pointer or GPS coordinates. The time a position could be tracked before it dissappeared over the horizon could be as long as five minutes. The appearance of a place on earth can vary by season, time of day, angle of observation and cloud cover. Real time reception of a very low power signal could be possible with a tracking dish that would cost within the hundred dollar range, but would only work when the satellite is above the horizon. If used at only two percent of capacity it could still generate more than a million dollars a year. The service could also have subscribers who want to see past over flights, or views of other parts of the world. Advertising might also become a source of revenue. The entire assembly, including stabilizers, satcams and broadcast elements might weigh less than a hundred pounds and cost less than a million to build and launch. If successful, a constellation of satellites could offer 24/7 coverage of the earth's enchanting, changeing, beauty. It would certainly offer a more dramatic view of our home planet than keyhole or the other services presently provided. It would give the earthbound the chance to see the world as the astronaut sees it. |
#2
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Sorry I missed the intro to this discution: But now that I am here I think
it is posable to do and as you say would not be that expensive ( relitively ) compared to the multimillon doller sats that are there now. I don't know what NASA would think of it but maybe they could add on a platform or two to the ISS for starts ;-) They may even be able to reconfigure some of the older cameras they have there now for newer ones. Just an idea or two. One thing that you would need to watch out for is system overload in terms of users at a time. Any possibility this idea could fly? Depending on the wavelength, a 40mm telescope-camera at 300 miles altitude will have a resolution of about fifteen feet per pixel, and on an HD tv will cover an area about three miles across, when looking straight down. The circle of its horizon will be about 1500 miles across. The resolution will drop by half near the horizon but the area will more than double. To cover the entire area visible to the satellite would take over a thousand such cameras. John |
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