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Spy Satellites: Difference between revisions
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[[File:SpySat.jpg|frame|[[I See London]], I See France - and yes, I can see ''[[Paranoia Fuel|your]]'' [[Paranoia Fuel|underpants]].]]
{{quote|''I am the eye in the sky''
''Looking at you''
''I can read your mind''|'''[[
Much loved things of the [[Spy Drama]] and one that they most frequently mess up on, the omnipresent "eye-in-the-sky" is always shown to be a whole lot more useful than it truly is.
Satellite views are usually shown to be immune to clouds, 100 percent reliable, always available, and seem to be right over the target just when they are needed. The biggest error, however, is showing a live fixed video feed from orbit.
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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 have pretty big teleskopes 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 issue here is inherent in the physics of light, and not going to be averted by cool classified technology (existent or not).
Data processing also consumes a certain amount of time. Nobody should be, on the fly, searching footage of a city for a specific license plate, for example.
If the live satellite feed looks just like recycled footage from earlier in the episode, then it's a [[Magical Security Cam]].
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== Anime/Manga ==
* Near in ''[[
* Used very straight in the ''[[
== [[Fan Fiction]] ==
* In ''[[
* ''[[
== [[Film]] ==
* [[Lampshade Hanging|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
** 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 to fly over at a new time.
** And the raid on the terrorist camp is deliberately timed to take place when a satellite is overhead, so that the guys back at the CIA can watch it, in real time.
* The orbital particle beam cannon in ''[[Under Siege]] 2: Dark Territory'' had a video lens that was powerful enough to focus on the breasts of a topless sunbather in Los Angeles in crystal-clear real time.
** That's probably why the camera was added anyway.
* ''[[Men in Black (
** Of course, like everything else the Men in Black use, from their guns to their cars, the satellites in question are undoubtedly made with advanced alien technology, so it's sort of justified.
* Soundwave in ''[[Transformers:
* Used in ''[[
== [[Literature]] ==
* Several of [[Philip Jose Farmer|Philip José Farmer's]] novels include spy satellites. In the ''Dayworld'' series they are a weapon of a future <s>police state</s> 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 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,
** At one point, a satellite gets a photo of a woman in a low-cut dress, as viewed from above. One of the analysts [[Discussed Trope|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 [[Tom Clancy|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
== [[Live Action Television]] ==
* ''[[24
* ''[[Alias (TV series)|Alias]]'' constantly relies on this to feed intel to its super-agents as they work in the field. Many of the show's plot points hinge on this trope.
* 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
* ''[[
* ''[[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 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.
** Oh...yes...of course...that only happens [[Big Brother Is Watching|on that TV show...]] yes...that's all we suspect.
** It's a show about a secret government group that researches weirdness that violates the laws of physics. Absolute surveillance is hardly impossible.
*** Technology clearly ''is'' much more advanced. No one bats an eye when one recurring character is outfitted with a fully functional cyborg arm.
* Generally averted in ''[[
* In an episode of ''[[Thunder in Paradise]]'', one of the heroes looks for a spy satellite nearby to [[Hollywood Hacking|hack into]] from his [[Cool Boat]], finds one, and acts as a [[Mission Control]] for his partner.
== [[Music]] ==
* "The Electric Eye" by [[
== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* While you can't actually buy one in the game, ''[[
== [[Video Games]] ==
* 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 geniuses in the game ([[The Guards Must Be Crazy|though they aren't crazy either]]), and he was definitely wrong about nobody using spies. Obviously, as you are one.
* ''[[Advanced Strategic Command]]'' has unarmed satellites. It's one of the most useful non-combat units, given importance of [[Defog of War|view fields]] and that very few units in standard rulesets can attack (or even see) anything on orbit. Also, they discover mineral resources, which otherwise is rather slow, as few other units do it, and in much shorter range at that.
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* Parodied in ''[[
** Later averted in the storyline [http://sluggy.com/daily.php?date=070205 Aylee], where a plan takes advantage of the gaps in satellite coverage.
*
* In ''[[Schlock Mercenary]]'' it goes all the way through the scale from "nanny-cams" - VLA clouds of nanobots - that are fairly common, if expensive, there are nanites vacuum-capable at least for a while, to... VDA ("Very Dangerous Array") built upon a large number of torpedoes deployed to make good use of their individually inferior sensors and thanks to [[Subspace Ansible|hypernodes]] feeding their data to the warship's AI without lightspeed lag.
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* ''[[
* One episode of ''[[The Simpsons (
** 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 [[
* In ''[[Justice League Unlimited]]'', [[The Question]] claims that topically applied flourite doesn't prevent tooth decay, but instead makes teeth detectable by [[The Conspiracy|Their]] spy satellite.
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** What is really notable is their ''entire military'' had a protocol for that. The US military seems to limit that to its testing and development installations; not so much emphasis is put on hiding formations of soldiers doing PT.
* There is a way of increasing satellite resolution to near-fictional levels that has been suggested as at least having been experimented with: if you put two satellites in the same orbit, one just slightly trailing the other, and aim them at the same target, you can combine the images to get greater resolution by creating the equivalent of a virtual lens that is much bigger than the individual lens on an individual satellite.
** This is known as distributed optics, and actually has a much more useful application in the creation of enormous "virtual telescopes". A telescope's resolving power is limited by the size of its primary mirror (if using a reflecting telescope), and those in orbit can obviously be larger than those on the ground - however, past a certain point, it's impossible to lift them into orbit safely. The idea is to use many smaller mirrors spread out over a large area, which act as small parts of a larger mirror. It takes a lot longer to gather the light needed for an exposure, but it is at a MUCH higher resolution. With a large enough array, we could see extra-solar planets with as much detail as we can see Earth.
** The creatively named Very Large Array has already applied the technology to radio telescopes.
* We may not think much of it now, but those satellite and aerial pics you can look up on Google Earth? The image quality would've put many actual spy satellites during the Cold War to shame. Most of said images come from Keyhole, Inc., a CIA-funded company whose name is a direct reference to the Corona spy satellites, which were all designated with the name "Key Hole" followed by a number. Actual spying (on their owners) is prevented, though, because sensitive areas are blacked out or edited away in Google Earth images.
{{reflist}}
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