The Human Eye In Space

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Himalaya mountain area.... I saw a steam locomotive by
seeing the smoke first..... I also saw the wake of a boat on a large river
in the Burma-India area... and a bright orange light from the British oil
refinery to the south of the city (Perth,Australia.)"

The above observation was made by Gordon Cooper in Faith 7 [1963] and
which generated much skepticism in the light of the thesis by Muckler and
Narvan "Visual Surveillance and Reconnaissance from space vehicles" in
which they determined that a visual angle of ten minutes was the
operational minimum, and that the minimum resolvable object length
[M.R.O.L] at an altitude of 113 miles would be 1730 ft. This limitation of
acuity was revised the next year to 0.5 seconds of arc for an extended
contrasting line and 15 seconds of arc for minimum separation of two
points sharply contrasting with the background.

Orbiting at 237 miles in the skylab it was possible to see the entire east
coast [Canada to Florida Keys] and resolve details ...

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