| The PR part also applies to Earth Observation Satellites (ESA and EUMETSAT). (Almost) any time you see a wide area picture of the Earth from Space (particularly around a weather event), it comes from NASA's MODIS instrument [e.g. 0]. The European (approximate) equivalent, AATSR, had a lot of really nice scientific qualities, but it was missing a blue channel, meaning that the 'true-colour' images it produced always had a blue tint to the clouds. There was a similar problem with the European geostationary satellite imager (SEVIRI) [1]. Scientifically, SEVIRI was incredibly useful (and far in advance of the American equivalent at the time), but the lack of a blue channel meant that it was never really used for those shots that made it onto the news (and neither was AATSR). When you have spent multiple billions on a satellite programme, you generally want the public to see it. I remember being told at one point that this was considered such an issue that the Europeans would 'never launch a satellite without a blue channel again' - although that might be overstating it a little. [0] - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-11901718 [1] - https://www.cloudsandclimate.com/blog/got_the_blues/ |