Several of Philip Jos� Farmer 's novels include spy satellites. In the Dayworld series they are a we

Satellite views are usually shown to be immune to clouds, 100 percent reliable, always available, and seem to be right over the target costa cruise reviews just when they are needed. costa cruise reviews The biggest error, however, is showing a live fixed video feed from orbit.
It is important to separate satellites into two main categories: costa cruise reviews LEO (low earth orbit) and GEO (geosynchronous earth orbit). The GEO satellites are able to stay over one location indefinitely, but cannot be used for imaging devices. Their extreme altitude means that the image would be too rough to be useful. GEO satellites are used for communications. LEO satellites, on the other hand, are capable of mounting cameras, but move so fast that they cannot keep a constant watch on a location, overshooting and often passing over any one point on Earth several times a day. Furthermore, they are extremely vulnerable to cloud cover and smokescreens. The only ones that aren't affected by this are the ones equipped with Synthetic Aperture Radars, costa cruise reviews but they can only see metallic objects. Which does mean, incidentally, that they are very good for spying on tank formations.
Consider the fact that most spy satellites orbit around 200 miles or so above the ground. This means that it has to travel at just below five miles per second to stay in orbit. The amount of live feed you can get, therefore, is next to zero and you'll have to have the satellite rotating to do it. Slanting will occur very rapidly. If you want to hold a satellite over a place for any major length of time, you need to put it into geostationary orbit (22,240 miles over the equator) costa cruise reviews or an elliptical 'Molniya-style' orbit. Any images will be uselessly slanted, unless you happen to want good shots of Ecuador and have a really powerful zoom lens. Essentially, this is one of the many sub-tropes of Space Does Not Work That Way .
Satellites also often display an absurd level of detail. The resolution of an optical system is primarily based on its aperture (i.e. diameter). For that reason, spy satellites costa cruise reviews have pretty big telescopes in the meter-plus-range, meaning their images have pixel resolution in the 1-cm-range on the ground (details are, of course, classified). This would be enough only for a pretty low image quality. The limiting factor is inherent in the physics of light, and not going to be averted by cool classified technology (existent or not).
Used very straight in the Read or Die OVA. A spy satellite identifies a villain talking to The Mole in a crowded Indian village. Then after a few seconds of footage, the villain looks up, sees the satellite, and the feed cuts off. (We briefly see that he knocked it out of orbit with his extensible staff.)
In Aeon Entelechy costa cruise reviews Evangelion the military has a few satellites that were not shot down by the Migou. Unfortunately for them, the effectiveness of these satellites is low because of the Migou orbital superiority.
Neon Exodus Evangelion has, in the final chapter, all the spy satellites controlled by X-COM, since they sent up Raiden interceptors to destroy any satellites SEELE had. They're pretty much only used for searching for the villain's base.
Lampshaded in Enemy of the State . When Dean meets Brill on a rooftop, The Government agents assigned to track Dean try to determine Brill's identity, but can only see the top of his head. When one agent asks why they can't just move the camera, the technician replies that the satellite is at least 200 miles in the air, so the only angle it can look at is straight down.
Averted in Behind Enemy Lines . When the Admiral uses a spy satellite to try and find his lost pilot, he is only able to see the area for a few short minutes before the satellite moves out of position.
Averted in a zig zag fashion in Patriot Games . When CIA intelligence analysts use a spy satellite costa cruise reviews to figure out which of several camps belongs to a rogue faction of the IRA, they are forced to use a still picture and to make some rather costa cruise reviews ambitious inferences to determine that the camp belongs to the bad guys - the camera can't show them faces. On the other hand, when an DGSE platoon raids the camp at night, the infrared spy satellite watching the action appears to give a perfect 'camera in the sky' view of the action. On the other hand, the raiders costa cruise reviews complete their mission in a matter of a few minutes.
The novel and the movie actually focus on the limitations of the spy satellites, noting that the terrorists know when they will fly overhead and thus they hide any suspicious activity. They are only able to get those ambiguous satellite photos by re-routing the satellites costa cruise reviews to fly over at a new time.
Soundwave in Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen takes this to the natural extreme, costa cruise reviews using a satellite as his alt mode. He can even hijack other spy satellites through a process that looks suspiciously like tentacle rape.
Used in GoldenEye : After detonation of the first GoldenEye satellite above Severnaya fried all satellites in the area, the British secret service brings in another satellite to observe the wreckage... And Bond notices something moving.
Several of Philip Jos� Farmer 's novels include spy satellites. In the Dayworld series they are a weapon of a future police state sharing caring one-world government. Interestingly, even though the articles were written in the 70's/ early 80's Farmer has the satellites hooked up to gait-analysing costa cruise reviews computers. It adds to the paranoid atmosphere: once the characters become fugitives they have to wear widebrim hats and spend every moment on the street walking in a deliberately different pattern.
As mentioned in the film section above, Spy Satellites played a central role in the plot of Patriot Games , with a portion of the plot centering around the CIA personnel trying to outwit the Genre Savvy North Irish extremists who made a point of avoiding being outside when the American satellites passed over head.
At one point, a satellite gets a photo of a woman in a low-cut dress, as viewed from above. One of the analysts estimates that she had to be a C-Cup or bigger, because the limited resolution of the satellites meant that they wouldn't be able to see her cleavage if she were any smaller.
Spy satellites show up in other Ryanverse stories, but usually in a realistic fashion: with still photos, known trajectories, and otherwise limited ability. When spy satellites are not appropriate (for example, in Without Remorse , part of which involves the Vietnam War), drones and UA Vs are used. The Bear and The Dragon actually focuses costa cruise reviews on how Dark Star UA Vs (essentially stealthy Predator drones) dramatically shift the balance of power in war, allowing the undertrained, undermanned, very poorly equipped Russian army to defeat the otherwise overwhelmingly superior Chinese invaders.
In Jack McDevitt 's Chindi (part of the Priscilla Hutchins series), Hutch and friends find alien spy satellites around an alien world. The aliens went extinct in a global war several thousand years ago, but the satellites are much more advanced than anything this race ever built. Apparently someone wanted a front-row seat for the war. Even more disturbing is the fact that most of the satellites date back to the time of the war, but one of them is less than 100 years old.
Used often in the sixth season of Power Rangers , though all PR seasons have used it to some extent whenever the Rangers are watching a monster attacking the City of Adventure . Unless it's specifically a tech-based season though, this is generally Magitek instead of full out Spy Satellites .
Jericho 's track record with satellites is... schizophrenic. On the one hand, you get reasonable-looking still photos from satellites. On the other, you get Hawkins' satellite costa cruise reviews feeds... which appear to be filmed right at ground level.
Fringe is guilty of this one to a large degree. Not only did they pull up spy sat footage of an area, but it was from hours ago when there would have been no reason for a spy sat to even be looking there. The writers apparently want the viewer to believe that the entire surface of the Earth is not only under constant surveillance but also being archived.
costa cruise reviews While you can't actually buy one in the game, GURPS : High-Tech discusses the flaws of the "Eye In The Sky". Along with limits of the technology itself, an untrained character can't even determine what the readouts mean.
Used with irony in one of the Splinter Cell . During one of the idle conversations of a guard, he mentions nobody uses spies or bugs anymore, they use satellites. Guards aren't exactly costa cruise reviews geniuses in the game ( though they aren't crazy either ), and he was definitely wrong about nobody using spies. Obviously, as you are one.
Parodied in Sluggy Freelance : Riff hooks a military GPS signal to track his own position so he could navigate to Muffin The Vampire Baker's hometown, where he thinks Sam is (un-)living. All it shows is a (front-on) costa cruise reviews picture costa cruise reviews of him with the legend "You Are Here".
Parodied (deconstructed?) by Partially Clips , which points out that to get good footage of Iraq, a spy satellite would need to be in low polar orbit. Anything in low polar orbit must pass over every point on earth sooner or later. And when it's passing over New Jersey, there's no legitimate military work to be done so the soldiers and technicians running it probably watch skinnydippers.
Kim Possible screws this one up every time they show satellite footage, although it is sometimes hard to tell if this show is really making a mistake, or just telling a subtle joke. It is, after all, primarily a comedy.
In "Brother's Little Helper" Bart is convinced that a satellite is spying on him. At the end of the episode he uses a tank to shoot it down. Mark McGwire admits that the MLB is spying costa cruise reviews on everyone, pretty much all the time. When Bart asks why, McGwire says that he could tell the terrifying truth or he could hit some dingers instead costa cruise reviews for the people. The crowd wants to watch him play, and he takes the massive printout and tries to hide it under his hat.
What