At 12:43 PM 12/11/2002 -0500, Tyler Durden wrote:
"Since 1994, when the U.S. government officially surrendered its domestic monopoly on satellite imagery, the world has seen an explosion of independent providers and capabilities. Under that 1994 directive, the government retains the right to exercise shutter control on commercial satellite companies. In both the Kosovo and Afghan conflicts, the Pentagon decided against this heavy-handed approach, instead resorting to economic shutter control in effect, buying up all the satellite time for the companies that could conceivably peer into the battlefield."Publically available, high-res satellite imagery...http://www.msnbc.com/news/845811.asp?0cv=CB10
Looks like a possible opportunity for a futures market. Investors could get together and predict the likely start and length of a war. Then they place exclusive orders to satellite services for specific sites which could be of interest to news media during such a war. If they correctly predict the pictures can be resold, unless the Pentagon claims shutter priority (if the satellite were operated by China or India there might be no shutter control on that bird during another Gulf War).
steve
