The Future of Satellites | StarTalk

So, Mr. Secretary. It's great to have you on. Good to be with you. I always thought the military should—once airplanes became important, the Air Force was invented. But now we have space.

Why isn't there a space force? Oh, there is a space force. They're under the Air Force, I guess. They're a space force under the Air Force. But the Army and the Navy and the intelligence community also build, operate satellites. Many of them are as big as a school bus. One called the Hubble Space Telescope. Excellent. And cousins. Well, we have cousins of that that point downward.

Yeah, exactly. Uh-huh. But they're really big. I wave to them, actually, every now and then when I'm out on the street. Good for you. Good for you. We'll say hi back. OK. [pinging] [laughter] Wow. Was that your satellite? The one you're waving?

-Oops! LEIGHANN LORD: OK. Oops! So I'd like to wave to satellites in case they're looking at me. Can I believe, for real, that they can resolve the fingers in my hand as I wave? Not quite yet, but you never know where technology is heading.

What do you mean, you never know? LEIGHANN LORD: That was not an answer. You do work for the government.

NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON: A, that was not an answer. B—

LEIGHANN LORD: This is a government guy for real.

--I may never know. But you know. But he may not be able to tell you.

NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON: OK. Or then he has to kill you. Do you have people for that?

NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON: Because you watch any Hollywood movie, the satellite is, you know, first it's fuzzy. You say, enhance. Which we know is all BS. But enhance, enhance.

Oh, that's not real?

NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON: No. If you start with a photo that's low resolution, you can't just say enhance and have some algorithm show detail where there wasn't detail there before. Unless you invented it to put it in there. That's all BS.

The technology that the United States military and many other militaries have is amazing and can do amazing things. And you can get great resolution from space looking at things happening on the Earth. But you're going to have to wait for a while before contemporary technology is going to be able to pick that up. Plus, while I'm waving, there has to be a satellite right there who's looking at me.

MICHAEL HOROWITZ: Right. And unless it's a geosynchronous satellite, it's got to be passing over for that to happen. Coverage is one of the biggest issues with satellites. In the movies, a satellite is always available on demand exactly when you need it to look at the bad guy.

In reality, it sometimes can take some time. Sort of like in the movie "The Martian" when they're trying to get the satellites in position to see where Matt Damon's character is.

So that was intelligently written in that regard? Absolutely.

NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON: Right.