High-tech camera will take crop photos from space

by Tom Crann, Minnesota Public Radio

St. Paul, Minn. — When the Space Shuttle Endeavour blasts off just before 7 p.m. Friday night, it will be carrying a powerful camera that's designed to help farmers in the upper Midwest.

Astronauts will install "AgCam" on the international space station, where it will begin snapping "multispectral" photos of farm fields and beaming them back to farmers and researchers back here on Earth.

Scientists and students at the University of North Dakota have been designing the AgCam for seven years now. The program director of the project, Doug Olsen is in Florida to watch the AgCam go into space and he joined Tom Crann by phone to talk about the project.

Broadcast Dates

• All Things Considered, 11/14/2008, 4:45 p.m.