It’s crime fighting, Jim, but not as we know it — especially if you want to solve an intractable planning dispute. The first space detective agency has opened in London, offering to use the power of satellite imagery to investigate crimes and misdemeanours anywhere in the world.
While the arrival of private eyes in space has prompted a minor flurry of requests from clients — including one who wants to see aerial footage of an attack on him and to follow the assailant’s car, 24-style, across town — Raymond Purdy, the academic behind the company, has admitted that he has a different sort of client in mind. “We are looking at things like illegal landfill,” he said. “Or boundary disputes.”
There is now a