For those of you with HDTV, the Discovery Channel will be doing a live broadcast from space in a few minutes, at 11:30 Eastern time. This will be the first time ever that there's been such a broadcast in HD And if you miss it live, it will be repeated at 9 PM.

[Watching]

Some random thoughts. They spend a lot of time up front justifying and defending a space station. The problem is that this is a straw man. Many critics of the program agree that we should have a space station (I think that we should have multiple ones). The issue is not a space station, but this space station.

Also, there are no stars. They obviously filmed this in a movie studio, with hidden wires on the floating astronauts... (that's a joke, for those unfamiliar with my posting style).

The beginning is just the astronaut floating and describing experiments. Not that interesting a use of the medium, I think. Now they're showing views out the window, which is much more useful.

Now they've gone back to interior views, and are showing astrofood. I'm not fascinated by this, but I guess a lot of people are. Hope they won't demonstrate use of the hygienic facilities...

[A few minutes later]

OK, broadcast over. They needed to do more views of the earth below, which is really the feature attraction. I think there's a market for a camera that does nothing except orbit the earth at this resolution and show it in all its seasons, weather and diurnal cycles. It's almost like a living kaleidoscope.

[Update about half an hour after broadcast end]

Glenn agrees. Great (or some kind of) minds think alike, I guess:

It was pretty good, but it was the images of Earth from space that were really captivating -- they came across as IMAX-like -- and they didn't show enough of those. The stuff from the station interior was okay, be we've all seen people eat in zero gravity before and the demonstrations weren't especially exciting just because they were HD. I would have rather had half an hour of pictures of Earth from low orbit, with only minimal talking-head involvement.

I wonder if you could make money with a cable channel that just showed pictures from a low-earth-orbit satellite in HD? It would certainly be cool -- bringing the "Overview Effect" down to Earth -- though I don't think the technology's really there for that yet.

[Update]

I'd like to see HD of the view of this from space:

KFC Corporation today became the world’s first brand visible from outer space by unveiling a record-breaking 87,500 square feet, updated Colonel Sanders logo in the Area 51 desert.

[Update late Wednesday evening]

Jesse Londin wasn't impressed, either.

"I think there's a market for a camera that does nothing except orbit the earth at this resolution and show it in all its seasons, weather and diurnal cycles. It's almost like a living kaleidoscope."

Absolutely. They already have a show called Sunrise Earth which is visually stunning but not really engaging enough to waste an hour watching. This idea beats that concept with a stick.

For what it's worth, I turned it off half way through when it became apparent that they were going to focus on the interior of the station.

I think there's a market for a camera that does nothing except orbit the earth at this resolution and show it in all its seasons, weather and diurnal cycles.

Glenn makes the same comment, but isn't that essentially Triana (aka Goresat)? The difference is that Rand and Glenn make the case for a privately funded satellite for revenue. I think that is a good idea. Moreover, I find it interesting the Al Gore wastes his money to provide liberal radio and tv, which have failed, but on something he pushed as a politician, one would think he'd be a big sponsor of such a satellite. With his connections with INHD, it would give that network something to complete against Discovery's "Sunrise Earth" (which seems to have come from the movie "Total Recall").

Rand,

Your above europe therad is fubar. Link is messed up and the comments do not work.

No, Triana was out at ESL1, where it would only show earth in daylight, from a distance. This proposal is from LEO, in all conditions.

They might as well be broadcasting from the crew quarters of a submarine. Big frickin deal!

Since I had never seen any HD on orbit video before tonight I found the program to be "moderately" interesting. But future such programs if no better planned/produced/executed than this one would grow boring in a hurry. There is a lot they could do with the medium if they're smart about it.

Rand,

I'll agree the technical aspects are different, but the concept behind the ideas are the same. Anyway, my main point is that Gore ought to be the a major backer of such a satellite (even in LEO).

For now, I'll just spin the globe on Google Earth.