Xref: utzoo sci.space:4256 sci.crypt:754
Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!ptsfa!ames!ll-xn!husc6!ut-sally!utastro!bill
From: bill@utastro.UUCP (William H. Jefferys)
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.crypt
Subject: Re: satellites
Keywords: resolution
Message-ID: <2370@utastro.UUCP>
Date: 16 Jan 88 20:11:36 GMT
References: <873@uop.edu> <2166@umd5.umd.edu> <4910@well.UUCP> <1952@netsys.UUCP> <1988Jan12.180815.685@sq.uucp> <2619@calmasd.GE.COM>
Reply-To: bill@astro.UUCP (William H. Jefferys)
Organization: UT AUSTIN Astronomy Department/McDonald Observatory
Lines: 20

In article <2619@calmasd.GE.COM> jnp@calmasd.GE.COM (John Pantone) writes:
~
~O.K. - I've finally reached saturation.  As a certifiable old-fart who was
~around during the Cuban missle crisis (1962) I can guarantee that an object
~as small as an automobile and/or truck was plainly visible by sattelite in
~'62.  I'm quite confident that you could have made out the make of the car
~or truck - even in the crummy newspaper photos they were showing at the time.

Actually, the photographs made public by the Kennedy administration
during the Cuban missle crisis were taken by high-flying U-2 aircraft,
not by satellites. They carried cameras of much smaller aperture
(and correspondingly lower resolution) than the present generation of
spy satellites does.

Bill Jefferys

-- 
Glend.	I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
Hot.	Why, so can I, or so can any man; But will they come when you
	do call for them?    --  Henry IV Pt. I, III, i, 53