Re: Laser communications idea

From: James Rogers (jamesr@best.com)
Date: Mon May 11 1998 - 11:48:24 MDT


At 11:24 PM 5/10/98 PDT, Darin Sunley wrote:
>On a purely non-technical note, you might want to be careful which
>satellite you're doing the bouncing off of. Shooting a medium powered
>laser at someone else's satellite could be interpreted as an unfriendly
>act, Especially if the satellite has sensors that could be
>dazzled/destroyed by such a beam. I have a feeling that a laser beam
>whose scattered reflection is powerful enough to be detected from earth
>is more then bright enough to create a big dead spot in the center of a
>CCD on any earth observation satellite.

I was under the impression that earth observation satellites are not
generally found in geosync because the long distance degrades the
resolution of their sensors. If I am not mistaken, most observation
satellites are in LEO or MEO.

-James Rogers
 jamesr@best.com



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