Aerial View Maps

Is the technology there for real-time satellite filming ??

We frequently see images (films) of vehicles, people or moving objects as if they were taken from satellite. Is the technology there to "film" with high resolution the earth with, lets say, Google Earth resolution? I'm talking about real-time film and not still images.

Public Comments

1. Though I would suspect so, I don't have any references regarding it. It will be fun to see how many people answer that this is possible, but don't provide any solid evidence for it.
2. as rjmail said I don't have any sources but I am sure that the military has technology to focus in on certain places though not the whole world...or maybe they do...you are not alone
3. You do not need to point to many sources to say the technology is there. Realtime vido via satellite is very common. One would only have to watch CNN to see an interview "Live via satellite." The only difference is that in these cases the camera is terestrial based and beams it's signal to a satelite which beams it back to earth. I would be a comparitively easy task to put a high quality video camera on a satelite rather than depending on one on the ground. That is not to say it is being done. In terms of intelligence gathering, satelite imagery has its limitations. The first is that you can not guarentee the satelite's orbit will cary it over an area when it is needed. Moving a satelite's orbit is expensive and can only be done a few time before it runs out of fuel. The second is that staelite's are not stealthy. Any nation with even a poor radar tracking system could spot one easily and have its orbit determined. With that done a country could know when a satelite will be over a sensitive area and take action accordingly. Furthermore, moving the sateltie would alert anyone watching that something is going on. The new orbit would be determined and any new areas covered by the satellite would be evaluated for possible reasons to be watched. Satelites are also very expensive. You would have to way the benefits against the cost and the disadvantages. Most of the video we see now of trucks and people moving around are taken from aircraft. These can be put in place when and where needed, with less warning and at a substantially lower price.