Technological Feats
"In March, 2002, NASA and the Deutsches Zentrum für Luftund Raumfahrt, the German aerospace agency, launched a pair of satellites from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome, a former intercontinental-ballistic-missile site in northern Russia, to map changes in the earth’s surface. The satellites, nicknamed Tom and Jerry, have been chasing each other around the globe ever since. Separated by a gap of approximately a hundred and thirty-seven miles, they sometimes pull apart, only to draw closer again. By monitoring their relative positions to the fantastic exactitude of one micron—less than one-fiftieth the width of a human hair—scientists can detect tiny variations in the earth’s gravitational field."
Source: The New Yorker, March 20, 2006, p. 67 The entire article is here.
After 40 plus years of being in associated with the technology business I continue to be amazed by technological capabilities.
Regarding the above: How high? How fast? How precise the relative positions?
But more importantly than the technology is the minds behind it. To lift lines from an earlier presentation:
Without dreaming where is the daring?
Without daring where is the doing?
Without daring where is the doing?
James Drogan
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