Is Space Becoming More Accessible for Terrorists?

Part 1 Well, somebody has to mention it to sell the papers sometime, and this time it was the Times of India. The story is that the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) is predicting bad guys are going to be able to launch their own nefarious satellites on rockets owned by private companies. Even […]

Parsing Polar Bears With Polar Orbiting Satellites

Here’s a method of counting polar bears that’s probably safer than knocking on their doors. According to this US Geological Survey (USGS) post, satellites may be quite useful for counting, tracking, and observing polar bears. The USGS and Canadians are comparing aerial survey pictures against the satellite pictures. They are using imagery taken by DigitalGlobe satellites of parts of […]

Imagery Unchained (Finally!)

Back in September 2013 I wrote an opinion about why the US government’s laws regarding imagery resolution were very onerous. The rules just didn’t make sense in a world of cheap picture drones. That opinion was based on a story about DigitalGlobe attempting to get imagery restrictions relaxed so they could compete better in the satellite […]

Leave Your Mark on Space

In an earlier post, “Flying In a Space Balloon,” I talked about World View Enterprises (not to be confused with DigitalGlobe’s WorldView satellites) and their “cheap” space seats: $75,000. It turns out World View would love to have someone create a design for them. One that a person would be proud to “display in a home.” To encourage […]

Googs in Space?

Google’s maybe getting into space? This is an interesting TechCrunch article about the possible acquisition of satellite imagery company SkyBox by advertising aggregator Google. Theoretically, SkyBox is Google’s only target, but TechCrunch does float Planet Labs and RapidEye as possible targets, too. Except, SkyBox is the ONLY satellite company offering real-time streaming of High Definition video. Which might […]