National Geographic

THEY ARE WATCHING YOU 63feet is sufficient to discern the grainy outline ofa single truck but not the contours of a human.Resolution-wise, the current state of the art ofone foot is supplied by another satellite imagingcompany, DigitalGlobe. But for now, only Planet,with its formidable satellite deployment, is capa-ble of providing daily imagery of Earth’s entirelandmass. “We’ve run the proverbial four-minutemile,” Marshall said. “Simply knowing it’s possibledoesn’t make it any easier.”Still, Planet has blazed a trail. Others somedaywill follow it. When they do, how will they har-ness the power to see so much of the globe, everysingle day? Will their aims be as benevolent asthose of Planet? Will they try to perfect satellitephotography that’s higher in resolution and thusin invasiveness? Marshall doesn’t see how this ispossible. “To identify a person from 300 milesaway, you’d need a camera the size of a bus,” hetold me. And in any event, he added, an Americanfirm seeking to accomplish that would encounterconsiderable federal regulatory hurdles.Of course, regulations can be changed. So canthe boundaries of our technological limits. Justa year or two ago, the owner of the largest num-ber of functioning satellites in orbit was the U.S.government, with roughly 170. Now Planet pre-vails over the heavens in greater numbers thanthe most powerful nation on Earth.Who is next in line to be the Biggest Brother?