The European Space Agency has involvement with remote earth 
observation, and I presume this includes surveillance (optical etc.).
So it's not just the US/USSR(ex) who are in the game.

But what *is* the game? What can be done with space observation?
The military functions of missile spotting, troop spotting etc. are well
documented, but what about anything else?

The biggest eg I can think of is to get a  metal sensing sat over a
paying country and scan their territory for  precious metals.

More importantly, if radar can spot water vapour (clouds), presumably
a radar based sat will be capable of spotting rivers,open water and 
*underground water* from space. This would be a positive life saver
for African or other drought affected countries. Implementing a
clean water and irrigation program would be of imense benifit to such
countries and should cut down mortalities considerably.

So how about it? Is there a charity or government agency that would
pay for a third world country to have their minerals and water deposits
mapped?

Or is this still sci-fi?

Mail replies would be great.

Thought for the day: Thermal energy needs water to make steam so sstick
it in the ocean!

