Re: Newbie with questions

[P3D John W Roberts <roberts@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 15:46:33 -0600
>From: "P3D Dr. George A. Themelis" <fj834@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Subject: Re: Newbie with questions

[Ken Luker]
>>Other than showing the cleverness of the contributors, I think 
>>it unlikely to get any better responses than George's:  It just isn't 
>>practical. (paraphrase).   Now if one were to send the rocket into 
>>airspace where there was something worth seeing, and where a plane or 
>>helicopter couldn't reach.....

>I must confess that I agree with Ken... In our rush to discuss if this is
>possible, no one questioned if it is desirable or not.  Personally, I don't
>see the point, exactly as Ken said.  With all due respect to the "newbie" 
>who asked the question, I think this project is a big waste of time. 

Even worse - Scottish scientists have already used a sounding rocket to
take a picture of a sheep pasture! If it can be done with sheep, there's
no reason in principle we couldn't get aerial photographs of humans (and
houses, yards, etc.)! We'd better get together a panel of photoethicists to
determine whether this thing should be permitted - after all, mankind may 
not have been Meant to see What Things Look Like From Above.     
|  |  |  |  | (smiley faces as seen from above - don't look!)

Actually, I'm a little surprised that Ken and George, who I would consider
to be among the more imaginative posters, would make such a point of its
not being even worth trying. An aerial view from a place of my choosing
would seem to be of considerable interest in itself (noting that there are
some legal and practical considerations regarding the place of launch).
There are some technical difficulties, but there seem to be possible ways
around most or all of them.

Also, Paul is trying to combine two areas of interest - significant innovations
often come from such efforts. And photos of the ground were one of the earliest
scientific applications of rockets. Replicating their work in 3D could be
quite interesting, and Paul might develop skills that he could apply to other
3D projects.

>What would be more worthwhile to explore is a way to suspend a pair of
>cameras from 20 to 50 feet or so.  This will allow me to record some
>interesting stereo pairs from a unique point of view.  Since nothing will be
>moving I will have better control of the cameras, separation, alignment, etc.

Traditionally, when scientists want to place an instrument at a fixed point
in the air, they use a tethered balloon. If their budget isn't large enough to
include a balloon, and if conditions are favorable, they sometimes get
themselves a big ol' box kite, and attach the instrument either to the kite
or to the string. Box kites don't have all that much lift compared to some
other designs, but they're considered to be very stable, and they can be made
very large to provide the needed lift, if they can be placed where
there's a reasonably steady wind. Nowadays you might get good results with
a parafoil kite - the ones people sell at the beach seem to be reasonably
stable.

Somewhat-related note: there was an interesting item on television a few
weeks ago on the cameras used to cover automobile races on television.
Of course there are the fixed cameras, and the cameras mounted outside
and inside the cars, but they also have a large remote-controlled model
helicopter for moving shots from the air. Of course none of these cameras
are 3d, :-(

Somewhat-less-related note: some researchers wanted to get close-up movies
of geese in flight (geese are remarkable flyers for several reasons), so they
hatched and imprinted some young Canadian geese, installed a speaker in a
radio controlled airplane and trained the geese to fly in "V" formation with
it, then finally attached a movie camera to the model airplane. (Should have
been in 3D, but I don't think it was.)

John R


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