🚀 go-pugleaf

mjr@TIS.COM (Marcus J Ranum) writes:
 >> the reason pictures of that quality were published is that one 
 >>of the "secrets" in this area is just how high the resolution 
 >>of reconnaisance satellites is. 

Estimates are somewhere around the 6" or better range...

 >>By publishing the pictures in as high quality as possible, 
 >>The Times was answering the question by implication
 > Those pictures were from a KH-11. 

The only ones I am aware of that were published, 
I thought came from a KH-9 series bird...

 >KH-11's are presumably quite obsolete. 

Not that obsolete...  KH-11-8 and KH-11-9 are probably still operating,
although we do now have at least two Advanced KH-11s on orbit as well.

 >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. 

There are still certain inherent limits involved in imaging from
an 800 km orbit.  I believe that published KH-9 photo was supposed
to have a resolution of around 1 ft.  The current series can obviously
do better than that...