There is this great thing called
Google Earth. You can view the earth, as it is from space, and zoom straight in on a city. In real time. It takes about 10 seconds to get from moon distance to skyscraper distance. That's a correct approximation. Many places aren't very clear, like Athens Ga, but you can definitely see the color and make of an automobile in a place like Des Moines. I saw this one guy taking his baby for a walk; or it could have been his dog, but a girl was definitely making small talk because of the way she was doing her arms. All of the images used to construct the earth map spherical were taken within the last three years.
This has to be one of the most progressive things I have looked at all day. Hell, all week. I wish I had more time to f around. I don't understand why they wouldn't just do this with all the planets! That way we could finally know for certain if there were any life forms somewhere else. Like aliens.