There’s no substitute for assessing a disaster on the ground, of course, but space has become a useful vantage point for viewing the destruction done by Hurricane Mitch. In the wake of the hurricane, the Canadian Space Agency scanned Honduras and Nicaragua using the only commercial radar satellite with an adjustable field of view. The satellite,launched in 1995,has been put to a variety of uses in its brief history, such as helping to guide ships through ice and taking the first complete, high-resolution snapshot of the Antarctic. But in the aftermath of Mitch it’s getting its first test in a large, developing world disaster. Since the satellite’s radar penetrates thick clouds, experts employed it immediately in an effort to plan medium- and... [Log in to read more]