Google Earth

[wabmester]

Google bought a company called Keyhole a while back.   They made a very cool app that lets you view satellite imagery anywhere on the planet.   This may not be news to some of you, but it's now available for download from google:

http://desktop.google.com/download/earth/index.html

Edit for some hard-to-find points of interest:

Bill Gates, 1835 73rd Ave NE, Medina, WA 98039

Bush Ranch, Prairie Chapel Road, Crawford, TX

 

[grumpy]

Tried this a while back. It won't work with Firefox.

Grumpy

 

[wabmester]

Grumpy, that was probably the web-based map.    This is an application that runs on your PC, and it's independent of web browser (but it needs a fairly muscular PC).    The PC application has many more features than the web-based app and is much faster.

I was able to see my truck parked in my driveway with this one.

 

[Michael]

Alas, no broadband. Perhaps I should upgrade...

 

[wabmester]

Alas, no broadband.  Perhaps I should upgrade...

By all means. Broadband will allow you to waste time much faster.

I got suckered into one of those "get high bandwidth cheap for three months" deals, and of course, there was no way I'd go back to less than 1.5Mbps after that.

 

[nearly50]

I've been playing with this for about a week now. It's a lot of fun looking for things left outside. I suggest you check out Edwards AFB (34 57'N 117 53'W) and see if you can find the SR-71's parked outside. The boneyard at Davis Monthan AFB (32 9'N 110 50'W) is also quite interesting to poke around.

 

[wabmester]

This thing really takes voyeurism to a new level. I saw the pair of SR-71's -- cool.

Now that I've been to Neverland Ranch and Skywalker Ranch, I think my Mesterland Ranch needs a few more outbuildings....

 

[Caroline]

They used to fly SR-71's out of Okinawa (Kadena) when I was stationed there (back when the earth was cooling.) You think they're cool sitting on the ground, I can't tell you how cool they are when they take off.

Back then it had a continget of mean-looking Marine Corps grunts with automatic weapons who stuck to it like flypaper in the hangar, on the flight line - -everywhere it went while on the ground.

Nowadays, you can see one up close at the Air Museum in Tuscon Arizona. This, among other things, is how I know I've aged...

Caroline

 

[Lazarus]

I used to work on SR-71's at Beal. They are impressive when they take off. Also got to go on a refueling mission in a KC-135. Great pictures.

 

[REWahoo]

Also got to go on a refueling mission in a KC-135.

I started flying in a KC-135 unit that refueled the Blackbird right after the unit stopped supporting the mission out of Beale.

One of the big disappointments of my life....the other is missing the launch of every Saturn rocket even though I was stationed in Florida during the last part of the Apollo program.

REW

 

[Lazarus]

Begged my parents to take me to an Apollo launch. Never did. Of course I have not seen a shuttle launch either. Guess life gets in the way. I better hurry if I want to see one.

 

[Nords]

Of course I have not seen a shuttle launch either.

I saw a shuttle launch while I was looking through the periscope. (The shuttle was launching from the launch pad, not through the periscope, but you know what I mean.) Most cool.

But when I uttered an involuntary expression of my awe, the CO practically knocked me across the control room to get his eyes on the optics.

 

[BUM]

I've been playing with Keyhole for some time. Its patchy. Some cities are well mapped others are fuzzy, even at 25,000 feet. I also saw the Jeep parked in the drieway . That was it for me.


Another application is "getting the lay of the land". Wanna move to the Texas gulf coast? You can get some idea of layout with this program. Its cool.


BUM

 

[charlie]

I think Google Earth is really neat! But the pictures of the Dallas
area are at least 2 years old. I found my house with no problem.
You just have to type in the street address and zip code.

Cheers,

Charlie

 

[HFWR]

Begged my parents to take me to an Apollo launch. Never did. Of course I have not seen a shuttle launch either. Guess life gets in the way. I better hurry if I want to see one.

Yeah, the Saturn V was a bad mutha!!

 

[dougdo]

How often do they update the images?

I was impressed that on their launch they had images from more than the USA. It seems most internet launches start with the USA and get around to the rest of us later. I was looking for my bike ride route the other day from Seattle, WA to Vancouver, BC and was interested to note that Bellingham, WA was not mapped but Vancouver was.