By Paul Boutin, 4:00 PM on Mon Sep 8 2008, 1,094 views (Edit, to draft, Top, Slurp)

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Commercial satellite imaging company GeoEye launched its first satellite from Vandenberg Air Force Base in southern California on Saturday. GeoEye 1's camera gear packs a scary 16-inch resolution from orbit. (That's for black and white images. Color photos will have 5.5-foot resolution.) The $500 million satellite is partly funded by the Department of Defense, despite the Google logo on the side of the launch rocket.

A Google spokesman said Sergey and Larry "look forward to getting some real quality, high-resolution imagery into Google Earth" in three to four months — presumably enabling close-ups in areas not trespassed by Google's Street View trucks. But with Google and the DOD sharing a satellite, the tinfoil-hat theories start now.