Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Shuttle Radar Topography Mission Data

Posted by michael on from the land-navigation-made-easy dept.

SubtleNuance writes: "This story on Canada.com describes the mission and results of NASA's recent flight to map Earth. The Shuttle trip has provided the most detailed 3D photos of Earth ever released." Some of the images are just astounding. Too bad most of the data isn't available yet.

4 of 97 comments (clear)

  1. Contact your congresscritter by Zalgon+26+McGee · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Yet another reason to contact your congressman: ensure they vote for NASA appropriations.

    They aren't perfect, and more support for private enterprise in space is needed, but NASA is worthy of support.

    --

    ---

    Book(n): Utensil used to pass time while waiting for the TV repairman

  2. Better link by DESADE · · Score: 4, Informative

    here

  3. Half empty glasses by Argy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    > Too bad most of the data isn't available yet.

    Is there a rule for Slashdot editors that their comments about good news have to be counter-balancingly negative?

    Considering that pilots and guided missiles may make life-and-death decisions based on this data, taking time to make sure it's accurate and properly processed seems like a good idea. If you have an urgent need, I suppose you could ask for 15,000 CDs of raw data, but all the crunched data should be available by the end of 2002.

  4. They did better with Mars by alewando · · Score: 4, Offtopic

    It's odd that NASA is only now getting around to do with the Earth what they've been doing with Mars for years. (Follow that link for the pretty pictures, if nothing else.

    From 1998 to 1999, the Mars Global Surveyor made some 27 million topographical measurements of the red planet. With an average accuracy of 13 meters and sometimes as good as 2 meters. That's not much more than my height.

    Of course, having that precision on Earth would be more difficult with our thicker atmosphere and would raise profound privacy issues. On the other hand, government spy satellites probably routinely attain that precision without anyone's batting an eyelash. Maybe it's just as well that a civilian agency get in on the action too.