Government largesse, space exploration, and pants

This is another opinion piece, so just read on if you’re interested, or ignore it, click on your Amazon tab, and continue shopping. My encounter the other day with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) website being down (you can go here to see that–or just type in http://www.nasa.gov) due to the government shutdown […]

Why space matters: Imaging satellite operations, part 15—decrypting the world with waves of color

Finally, we get to discuss the colors used for DigitalGlobe’s imagery satellites—or satellite, as we will be focusing (no pun intended—these satellites can’t really focus, remember) on WorldView-2. According to DigitalGlobe’s Basic Imagery literature, WorldView-2’s image sensors use eight different colors to look at the Earth: Coastal, Blue, Green, Yellow, Red, Red Edge, Near-IR (InfraRed)1, […]

Why space matters: Imaging satellite operations, part 14—making it intelligible

I know—I promised to talk about the different colors on imagery birds (satellites) and in what applications in particular they’re used. But, someone pointed out to me that perhaps the past few lessons have been a little too space-nerd-tastic and maybe a little too difficult to understand. SO let me just try to make things […]

Documenting that sinking feeling

Just like the Italian economy, since it’s very founding Venice has always sort of headed in the wrong direction–underwater. Not that the inhabitants needed any more proof of sinking. But, according to this article on BusinessInsider, a polar low earth orbiting satellite zipping 319 miles around the Earth called TerraSAR-X, is documenting Venice’s neighborhoods downward trends. […]

Why space matters: Imaging satellite operations, part 13—sweeping the Earth’s surface with pixels

Imagery satellites have come a long way since the Corona/Discovery program. Nowadays, there is so much more an imagery bird can deliver—and that’s what DigitalGlobe is giving to its customers. Before going on, I just want to clarify my reasons, again, for covering DigitalGlobe in this series. Primarily, they make it easy to find things. […]