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Comment by msl09 | Hacker News Reader

But why does the license exist?

The NOAA statement on the issue seems to imply that the rule exists because the government wants a measure of control over images of the Earth's surface for "national security" reasons.

[0] http://www.noaa.gov/media-release/noaa-statement-on-todays-b...

And let me guess, they also run this through the respective Russian, Chinese, Japanese, French, Spanish, 'NOAAs' so that nobody spies on anyone's secret areas (51? ;).

What's the point? Doesn't China, Russia, and EU have a lot of sats and what if they decide to broadcast like SpaceX? US will threaten them?

The whole point is to prevent giving away information to other countries who don't have it already, not some conspiracy to prevent Americans from seeing the earth. Other countries are free to broadcast their data to the world if they like. The US will probably learn nothing new about the Earth but would learn of at least some chacteristics of other country's satellite tech

> prevent giving away information to other countries who don't have it already

Pretty easy for a nation-state to launch a surveillance satellite with much better optics, I imagine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_first_orbital_laun...

This is a list of nations that have managed to put something in orbit. It contains 10 nations, and the ESA. The vast majority of nations do not have the capability.

That's a list of nations capable of launching stuff on their own. Compare with this list:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite#First_satellites_of_...

Non-space-capable countries do routinely put their payload on the rockets of countries with launch capability (though I guess then it can't be an obvious spy satellite).

I suppose nation-states aren't the only ones who'd like information on US military bases/infrastructure/"nationalsecurityinterests", but I honestly think it's irrelevant. If we were discussing serious imaging systems then sure, but it's pretty clear that a webcam isn't going to give anyone any meaningful information.

The point is that you don't hand out the license trivially. Yes, spacex is just discussing this in the context of a glorified webcam, but webcasts aren't their only business. Such a license needs to consider the whole business. Now the NOAA perhaps should consider a type of limited license, but they can't assume the only imagery technology spacex is interested in is webcams.

Reading :

https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/CRSRA/licenseHome.html

I'm guessing:

* They don't want the satellite taking and selling photos of secret US government stuff (or Israel or other areas that would cause the US government grief). * They want to make sure the satellite doesn't crash or otherwise cause problems for which the US would be liable.

There are privacy implications for air or space based surveillance of the Earth (rather more so for high resolution photography of specific areas of land than video in which the earth is merely a backdrop, but drawing that distinction isn't necessarily trivial). The solution the United States has adopted is to regulate the extent to which commercial entities are entitled to distribute such imagery and video; licensing who is entitled to distribute such images forms part of that regime.

> drawing that distinction isn't necessarily trivial

Meters per pixel. If it's >20, just give it blanket permission.

That's probably the most practical option, but even that distinction isn't necessarily straightforward in a launch video (and even the sort of 20m multispectral imagery that's freely made available to the entire world by multiple providers including NASA becomes more of a possible privacy/security issue if remote sensing operators were to permanently point their cameras at the same location). The regulation was likely drafted with a view to the future in an era where all satellite based EO had low spatial resolutions and processing techniques were in their infancy anyway.

> even that distinction isn't necessarily straightforward in a launch video

From what I understand the trouble point is when they hit orbit, and by then they're plenty far away to meet the cutoff.

Because everything on the surface of the Earth is visible from space, and some people have put things on the surface of the Earth that they would prefer certain other people not know about.

If the license is required to sense remotely, the issuing agency can do some research, then tell the licensee "you cannot broadcast, transmit, or record for later transmission images taken from T+5:53:11 to T+5:56:43". And then they check the flight path, and that's when the vehicle will be directly over one of the Aleutian islands. The engineers shrug their shoulders, and program a 4-minute blackout into the cameras.

And the crew in Alaska can then go around throwing camouflage netting over everything, and inflate the decoys, and not do any work outside, during any times that an object known or suspected to have imaging devices on it passes overhead.

It's a temporary measure, as the superpowers continue to move their most important secret facilities to camouflaged, submarine, or underground facilities. But it won't be long before someone's cubesat with commercial-grade camera unwittingly images something it shouldn't, and the Men in Black visit the owner with a DoD order to classify all their electronic equipment as "Top Secret", with a "no-foreign" endorsement. It would all be confiscated, examined, scrubbed, declassified, and returned after a few months.

The license is likely so that the keepers of the secrets can know the imaging capabilities of some of the objects they track in orbit, and maybe get some cooperation from the owners.

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