Popis: |
The Earth has been viewed and photographed from above for more than a century utilizing a variety of platforms such as kites, balloons, airplanes, and now robotic and manned spacecraft. Imagery has been captured both by film and digital cameras from heights of a few hundred feet to hundreds of miles. This imagery has been used to construct topographic maps, identify man-made objects, and map surface features on Earth including the geology. Photographs taken at different altitudes have different resolution, aerial coverage, and levels of detail, and thus serve a number of different purposes. The quality and utility of Earth imagery has continuously improved during the last 100 years, including the photo-documentation of features in Kansas. Of special interest is the development of space-based photo-documentation including an extensive database of some 800,000 photographs maintained by NASA that have been taken by the astronauts since the beginning of human spaceflight. There are many high-quality photograp... |