Re: But not to worry



Indeed, but that doesn't mean that there isn't one for *this* thing.

On the gripping hand - it hasn't been demonstrated that there _is_ one
for this thing. It's a hellishly complicated problem.

Limiting the discussion to optical and imaging spysats for the nonce,
just what "this thing" is makes a difference, IMO.

If the things are like Crystal and Lacrosse monstersats that need to
be built one at a time and launched on mighty rockets, I fully agree
that it's hellishly complicated and that "responsive" is unlikely to
be less than many months, more likely years.

If, OTOH, the things are more like Ofeq and TekSAR smallishsats
launched on more modest rockets, preferably like Shavit, Start or
something from OSC, then there is some hope for getting "responsive"
down into the sub-week category, conceivably a day or so.

Granted, the littler sats wouldn't have quite the capabilities of the
monster ones, but for the vast majority of strategic and tactical
tasks, ~50 centimeter resolution is just fine.
.