Ask yourself why

In these days of modern technology, for science sake, an age of Internet, Video Streaming, and Digital Video

WHY IS THERE NO LIVE CAMERA POINTED AT THE EARTH OR THE MOON FROM SPACE?

Do a search on google for anything Earth Cam, Moon Cam, Space Cam, Nasa Cam (this did exist but was shut down for unknown reasons) and you can read why the nasa cam was shut down from this statement on Ambit:

NASA Cams Closed

Why?

For the first time in nearly ten years, someone at NASA has questioned the legality of this Web page , the support others voluntarily wanted to give to it, and threatened review by NASA's "General Counsel." This, despite the fact that numerous NASA employees over the years, including one responsible for the NASA Web site, expressed no concerns whatsoever. Ever.

Frankly, my interest in NASA extends back to when I was a child and regularly received "NASA Facts" in the 1950's. Then NASA was an agency that sparked dreams.

So, if you are still interested in NASA, do a search and find what is offered elsewhere. Until recently I would have been saddened by having to say that, but I'm not. NASA is an agency in decline, a decline that has undermined its public support and my lifelong interest with it. Now it is an agency so petty and lost that it has time to turn its attention here, one of billions of pages on the Internet. It's no wonder that its future funding is under severe scrutiny.

Ira Brickman
Ambit's Webmaster ambitweb.com

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So, in this age of technology there is NOTHING pointed at our own earth or moon giving us a live clear picture 24 hours a day.

Ask yourself Why

mod edit to use "ex" instead of "quote"
Posting work written by others. **ALL MEMBERS READ**
Quote Reference.

[edit on 22-1-2006 by sanctum]

GoogleEarth.com..but, its satellite image and not a cam. the more I type about this alot of ideaw come floating into my head...and I decided this post does ask a great question.

Isn't there a camera on the International Space Station? I have seen it sometimes on the news and NASA TV, the last time was when Discovery was docked with the ISS, and it was live footage. That would be great if we could view live video from the ISS over the internet.

Perhaps because there is no practical reason for one? All imaging required is left up to satellites.

The only reason I could think of a "earth cam" is so people could look at live feed on the internet, say "ooh, that's nice" and never bother looking again.

Setting one up for the above purpose would be a bit of a waste of money in my opinion.

OMG

Are you kidding me, of the THOUSANDS of pointless and stupid webcams all over the internet you're trying to tell me this is a reasonable explanation?

Seriously

And what exactly would anyone expect to see?

Earth View:
www.fourmilab.ch...

Earth View from 35785km (kilometers):
www.fourmilab.ch...

Earth View from the Sun:
www.fourmilab.ch...

All that daylight!

Earth View of Earth's Shadows:
www.fourmilab.ch...

NASA's Visible Earth!
Although there are webcams in the major cities, if those cities have any!

Ladies in the street, or cars on the road, or something happening!

www.earthcam.com...

If you believe these are actual satelite photo's of the earth, then I've got a Billion dollars to simply give away.

These views are rubbish.

Compare any of those images with an actual photo from Galileo:



Compared to the links you've supplied

www.fourmilab.ch...

It's obvious to me there's clouds visible right off the bat in a REAL photo.

Besides the simple facts: I can get real time images from some internet cafe, some city street, live 24 hours a day, in full color, streaming video on demand and on occasion in full control of the camera from my web browser that is hosted and online from some hobbyist without any concern for expense or bandwidth, certainly there's no reason what so ever why we can't get the same technology from space viewing either the earth or the moon.

Ask yourself why.

It's not about just looking at a planet but the highlights of the planet as we cruise through our orbit.... there's much much more to see than a ball of earth or moon, There's stars, there's other planets, there's space debris, there's even satellites that might go wizzing by.....

It's not DULL stuff, and there's plenty to see, and there's plenty action to interest the viewer to warrant such a request.

and there are UFO's, like those taped from the shuttles.

Because there would be no practical use for it, what with satellites and the like.

How would anybody know whether there was a live cam up there.
I live in Florida and there are many launches that don't garner atttention even here much less world wide.
I don't think there's anyway of knowing what floats over our heads. Certainly just because it doesn't show up on a Google search doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
Get a grip. It ain't all about Google.
NORAD monitors everything that circles the earth, why not ask them instead of Google?

I never said this was about google. Why don't you get a grip? Look, Norad can monitor all the butterflies for all I care. For the sake of education, for the sake of science.... hell for the sake of support for NASA which desperately needs it why not have a streaming video image of the earth from space.

And there isn't

I'm asking why. Why is a good question ask. For the most part if there's nothing but a spinning earth, some stars, maybe a satellite or two streaming by.

But the answer to why might be more than some people can handle, perhaps that's why anything from space shown to the public is filtered, edited, and doctored before it gets public view.

How in the hell did Norad end up in this discussion?!

Good points you bring up there promomag.

This thread could turn out to be very interesting.

Why is there not a live 24/7 webcam in orbit watching things, you ask?

There are quite a few reasons (and some I say have been mentioned.


1. There is not economical use, people, atleast not in a large enough number, are not going to pay to see live pictures of the Earth, most people could'nt give a d@m.

2. It's very expensive to launch thing's into orbit, add to that the expense of making the required satelite the camera would be part of, the amount of money to either replace it when it fails or fix it, and the amount of money just to keep it in orbit. All in all it's alot of money, and no one is gonna dish that kinda cash out to do this.

3. There is no point, I'd say at the most about 10% of the internet population would even bother to look at it, face it, people don't really care what the planet looks like from orbit, they have more important things to do, and better ways of spending there free time.

4. I'm sure there would be some national security issues from a few different governments, that would seriously damper there being one up there, that was'nt controlled by a joint government council.


Those are all logical, reasonable and good reasons why we there is not a live webcam in orbit.


EDIT: Fixed spelling errors.

[edit on 1/23/2006 by iori_komei]

Well, there's always theGOES weather satellites.
Try checking the GOES full disk images.

iori_komei - Wow these points really suck, and here's why:

Point 1 and 2 are pretty much the same, so you lose a point here.

Economics for the sake of science and education is not really a factor, Public and Private educational institutions could contribute to the cost as the cost to getting it up in space is really kind of mute, the technology is already up there, nasa gets live video feed of everything I'm asking about, in fact.... there were live cams fed from NASA that were pulled. The difference is we get little edits and filtered data compared to what's actually coming down with the signal.

Point 3 - I don't know where you get your data of who would pay attention to something like this is but I can assure you from the research I've done there's a LOT of people asking the same questions I am. There are lots and lots of schools in this country.

Point 4 - National Security? Uh you do reallize that there are thousand, maybe millions of satellites up orbiting our earth? Some are United States, some are not, the majority of the satellites are ours. Also, Imaging satellites that can zoom all the way down to your house is *ahem* more of an issue with national security sense not only do you get a nice clear closeup picture, you get the exact co-ordinates a la Google Earth. (Not trying to bring Google into this)

So, any other reasons?

Busymind

Yes I've seen the GOES satellites, no good. It's not real time streaming and the images are modified for weather data.

Ok. How about this, then: Subscribe to a cable or satellite TV service that offers the NASA channel. Record their "ISS mission coverage" show. Every once in a while they show a view out of the window. It's about the best you're going to get until you convince somebody to send up a payload that includes a live streaming camera.

Hm. You know, I'd pay a reasonable price to have a constant live video feed of Earth. Although, I'm also happy getting still shots for free.

First, you are not privilege to receive the image.
Second, the images are too large, and probably are in a special format.
Third, only the people who need to receive the images are receiving them.

And for a simulator that is what you get. Did you miss all the satellites that are listed there, or read about any of such data as contained in the images.

No, you start a thread and then badmouth anyone who opposes your view.

Frankly put, you just ain't gonna get the images, because you don't have the software or hardware to receive the images.

And yes, some images were a little different from newer satellites listed.

Yes, it may be more of a where is the satellite at type of image, but I think you have to work for one of the agencies receiving the images to be considered.

Point 1 and 2 are pretty much the same, so you lose a point here.

Ok, you got me there, I was distracted when I was writing those.

Economics for the sake of science and education is not really a factor, Public and Private educational institutions could contribute to the cost as the cost to getting it up in space is really kind of mute, the technology is already up there, nasa gets live video feed of everything I'm asking about, in fact.... there were live cams fed from NASA that were pulled. The difference is we get little edits and filtered data compared to what's actually coming down with the signal.

That may be true, but ask yourself this, how many of these institutions are willing to dish out the money.
The reason the NASA live cams were pulled, well I figure that it was a mixture, of funding, not as much interest and futility of running them.
Well I don't doubt some things are edited, I think it's more likely edited to fix color glitches and the like.

Point 3 - I don't know where you get your data of who would pay attention to something like this is but I can assure you from the research I've done there's a LOT of people asking the same questions I am. There are lots and lots of schools in this country.

Go out on the street, ask 100 random people if they care.
I'm quite sure very few will really give a d@m.

Point 4 - National Security? Uh you do reallize that there are thousand, maybe millions of satellites up orbiting our earth? Some are United States, some are not, the majority of the satellites are ours. Also, Imaging satellites that can zoom all the way down to your house is *ahem* more of an issue with national security sense not only do you get a nice clear closeup picture, you get the exact co-ordinates a la Google Earth. (Not trying to bring Google into this).

There are less than 10,000 satelites in orbit, I don't know the exact number, but I know it's less than 10,000, I think it was like 3-4,000.
However, the majority of those satelites are government built, owned and controlled, I don't think there are very many private satelites with cameras on them, and yes I realise there are private satelite imaging companies, but those companies do have to follow government mandates.
And when I say national security issues, I did'nt mean just American, I mean other countries as well.