By Tim Sanders

My wife’s sister, Elaine, recently e-mailed her an aerial photo of the street where they lived as children in Mt. Clemens, Michigan. Marilyn was amazed at just how much the street had changed. Of course it had been nearly forty years since she’d lived there, and even then she’d never seen the place from that vantage point. Her parents would not have allowed her to hover 1,000 ft. over their street. With or without water balloons, she would have frightened the neighbors.

The idea of aerial photography first occurred to Orville Wright on Dec. 17, 1903, at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. It was there, with the wind blowing through his hair, that he shouted over the drone of the tiny 12-horsepower engine in his fragile biplane, "Gosh, look at those people down there; they look like ants. I wish I had a camera."

To this, his brother Wilbur replied, "Those are ants, you twit! You haven’t taken off yet."

Of course Orville did finally get off the ground, and shortly thereafter all of the world’s industrialized nations were launching satellites into the stratosphere with wild abandon. And that is why today, average, everyday citizens like ourselves can have satellite dishes installed in our backyards which will put several hundred television channels at our disposal, and allow us to keep up with critical geopolitical information concerning the remains of the late Anna Nicole Smith.

But back to aerial photography. Orville’s dream of photographing those ants from his aircraft led directly to what we now know as Google Earth.

Google Earth is a computer program which uses satellite imagery to allow you to travel the globe and zoom in on various locations which may have special sentimental significance to you; like for instance the Golden Gate Bridge, the Taj Mahal, or that university dormitory where you and your friends spent the better part of a semester collecting Budweiser cans in hopes of assembling an 8 ft. replica of Sophia Loren.

When you download the free Google Earth program, you and your mouse will find yourselves staring at a globe the size of a golf ball on your computer monitor. You will be able to zoom in on that globe, and spin it in a variety of directions to find the exact continent, country, and city you are looking for. Or there is a sidebar on the screen which will allow you to type in an address and travel directly to that street and house. Once at your location, you can flick your mouse and move hundreds of feet in an instant. My guess would be that PC owners and their mice have already traveled trillions of miles via Google Earth.

Here are some interesting things I’ve learned about our planet from this computer program:

From an altitude of 39,000 miles, our world appears to be about the size of a golf ball. The continents are visible at this distance because, as any astronaut will tell you, from space you would notice that they have been outlined in yellow.

At 29,000 miles, the earth has grown to the size of a tennis ball.

At 5,500 miles, the earth is the size of a basketball, and will probably not fit on your screen.

After zooming in to an altitude of 500 miles, computer operators and their mice will see that the state of Indiana will fill up their screen.

That is, unless they are zooming in on Nairobi, Kenya.

At 50 miles, plots of land are visible, and at 30 miles you can actually see large buildings.

At about a mile, small buildings are visible, and vehicles become recognizable at half a mile or so.

If it’s any consolation, at an altitude of just half a mile, your ’78 Pinto will look every bit as good as your neighbor’s 2007 BMW.

If you visit coastal areas, at 1,500 ft. you can get an excellent view of the continental shelves. No, they do not contain any canned goods.

At 1,200 ft., flea-like people can be seen. If you’ve had unpleasant experiences with flea-like people in the past, you may prefer remaining at a higher altitude.

There are other features which I’m sure would impress you if I only knew what they were, but I don’t. I do know, however, that viewing the earth from this perspective, and realizing just how insignificant we and our golf ball-sized planet are in the universal scheme of things will lead a thoughtful person like myself to ponder some very serious philosophical questions. Like, for instance:
 

1. If two pieces of heavy equipment, for example a yellow 18-ton Caterpillar D6H bulldozer and Rosie O’Donnell in a red mu-mu, were parked side-by-side at a Beverly Hills construction site, which would first become recognizable in a satellite photo?

2. What effect would a diesel-powered Rosie have on global warming? Should Rosie O'Diesel be retro-fitted with a catalytic converter?

3. And speaking of global warming, if we all turned our air conditioners around this summer, could we solve the problem?

4. After looking at the tops of houses all over the world, do you feel that those houses would be much more interesting without roofs?

5. Every square mile of Cherokee County, Alabama appears fuzzy and out of focus on my Google Earth program. Is there something seriously wrong with my computer, or is Cherokee County just a fuzzy, out of focus place?

6. If the earth were actually the size of a golf ball, what would golf balls be the size of?

7. Let’s say that in the Twilight Zone of time and space which is Google Earth, we are but tiny ants scurrying about. If there are queen ants and worker ants, then are there philosopher ants, too? If so, would purchasing a huge can of Ortho Philosopher B-Gone be preferable to waiting for the philosopher ants to talk each other to death?

8. Is it safe for me to play philosopher-astronaut here at my computer desk without wearing a space diaper?
 

If you download the Google Earth program, you will find it severely fascinating for a few days, after which it will give you a terrific headache because of its deep philosophical implications. And also because Cherokee County, Alabama is so darned fuzzy.