AT LAST someone has come up with a useful scientific mission for the troubled International Space Station. The station’s orbit at an altitude of just 380 kilometres gives it a far clearer view than imaging satellites such as Landsat have at 700 kilometres. So a geologist is suggesting using it to look down to study the Earth’s surface.
“You could get twice as good resolution by taking the same instrument and putting it on the space station,” Robert Stern of the University of Texas, Dallas, told New Scientist. So far, astronauts have done little more than take a few spectacular snapshots out of the space station’s…
