Looking at the satellite images of the oceans, Orbital Imaging's Mark Pastrone realized they could be useful to fishermen. We relay e-mail from our headquarters in Dulles, Virginia, to their boats in the middle of the ocean. Farmers can use the same type of data to determine where to irrigate and fertilize, because healthy crops reflect more infrared light than crops watered or fertilized improperly. There are some pockets, growing high-valued crops, where it is being used extensively. There has been some work done with sugar beet growers in the Red River Valley in North Dakota.
Foresters seem to be catching on more quickly.
Steven Lambert, chief technology officer at the James W. Sewall Company, a consulting firm that specializes in aerial photography, mapping, and surveying, says satellite surveillance has become increasingly important to timber companies, which use space-based images to track the state of forests. According to Lambert, satellites can monitor infestations of insects by measuring the light that the forests bounce back. Orbital images can also measure trees' heights by generating stereophotographs taken from slightly different perspectives, or identify the ages and species of the trees via their widths and infrared reflections. The Internet, the biggest factor driving the widespread use of satellite imagery, makes it possible for people who never considered the benefits of orbital surveillance to browse huge collections, pay for the pictures, and download them instantly. The ambitious leader in this business is TerraServer, developed by Microsoft and now operated by Aerial Images Inc. of Raleigh, North Carolina.