Re:Privacy implications (Score 1)

Not true. To get a 5-mm-resolution 500x500 image from a height of 300 km, you'd have to have a field of view of 0.03 arc seconds. For comparison, atmospheric turbulence normally makes it pointless to try to make telescopic images with fields of view of less than about 1000 arc seconds. That's why the Hubble Space Telescope got built -- to do astronomy without that nasty atmosphere in the way.

To sample a 5mm spot at a height of 300km you we'll need 1.7e-3 arcsec pixels. A 500x500 detector will give you a field of .86 arcsec. Currently using interferometry you can achieve 1e-3 arcsec but your field is very small (~10x resolution). The main problem with interferomtry is contrast. But adaptive optics (AO) gets high contrast but at lower angular resolutions. Current "disclosed military" AO systems are able to observe from the ground satelites with angular resolutions of ~.07arcsec. This is ~10cm at a height of 300km.