🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <9301081644.AA19208@TIS.COM> mjr@TIS.COM writes:
>	Those pictures were from a KH-11. KH-11's are presumably
>quite obsolete. We're talking a matter of years since those pictures
>were published. If you extrapolate a little bit, based on the kinds
>of advances in commercial electronic imaging that we've been seeing,
>it's quite possible that far, far higher resolution pictures are
>possible.

You forget about the diffraction limit.  What I found so interesting
about those pictures was that their resolution (30cm) was just about
exactly what I'd expect for an objective mirror just small enough to
fit in the payload shroud of a Titan 3C, operating at visible light
wavelengths from minimum orbital altitude.  I.e., the KH-11 is already
operating damn close to the theoretical limits. It's simply not
possible to do better without getting closer and/or using a larger
mirror. The laws of physics are the same for classified projects as
they are for the rest of us.

The only way to get closer is to use an airplane, since you just can't
orbit satellites at arbitrarily low altitudes. And if they start
flying larger objective mirrors, it'll be obvious from the enlarged
payload shrouds.  The only other way is to build deployable mirrors
capable of accuracies of fractions of a wavelength.  Given the severe
thermal cycling in space, I think this is infeasible.

For these and other reasons, I don't believe for a second that the
Pentagon voluntarily retired the SR-71 in favor of satellites. I'm
willing to bet that they had a new generation airplane already well in
hand when they did that.

Phil