What are you talking about?
Prevent what? Google Earth itself?

Google Earth has a feature that allows you to view past aerial images of an area (in some cases, one can go as far as decades in the past).

... How is this a bad thing?

wait wait wait



I'm so gonna play with this now >.>

I would say it depends on what you planned to build there, and what is there now.

What are you talking about sir?

This is a bit vague. I'm not sure what you're driving at.

Depending on how far back he turns it, he may be driving at a wall now.

You got your Los Angeles in my Boston. You got your Boston in my Los Angeles.

What are you talking about?

Practice this phrase until you can believably deliver it. I'm talking Oscar level delivery here.

"I'm sorry _______________, (officer, professor, boss, etc.) but I didn't know I couldn't do that."

Either you're legitimately asking the question, in which case the answer is "It depends on how specific the task was", or you're speaking rhetorically, in which case... ouch, that sucks. Sorry to hear it.

Although you could maybe salvage it in a "If only you had listened to me earlier you wouldn't all be in this mess!" kind of way.

Immoral, probably not. The thesis is intended to be an exercise usually, and thus you can raise a situation in it which is now hypothetical, even if it could have been realized just a few years prior.
That said, your thesis won't be as useful now as it would have been before the change. If you're invested in your thesis already, just ask if you can finish it on its current topic. That's what grad advisors are for.

I remember you... you and your AWESOME SNES collection.

Do come visit sometime!

The purpose of the thesis is for you to both learn and to demonstrate what you have learned. Unless you have Bill Gate's or the Sultan of Oman's ear, it was never going to get built - so don't worry about that aspect of it. Enjoy doing it in the way that you think is best. Other than your plan being sound in economics, engineering, and aesthetics, don't let the real world piss on your dreams.

If this is a purely hypothetical development for a class, just admit somewhere it's hypothetical. Don't be dishonest, but don't draw attention to it either. Do whatever it takes to get the grade.

I love doing that to areas around San Diego, population just EXPLODED during the time of when satellite as it started cataloging it.

Fun to watch small dirt roads get paved, then turn into freeway 56

There's this pattern I've noticed where LPSS grid roads or infrastructure access claims a piece, then off road vehicle trails sort of carve up the land, and then developement comes. One does not lead to the other, but things like OHV activity are opportunistic in these unclaimed territories - like a creature with a preferred habitat.

maybe i'm looking at the wrong thing, but EVERY map image from the satellite is YEARS old to begin with. i can tell by looking at places i know. and where things are in them, even the things that are there, are from anywhere from two to five years in the past. maybe longer. or is that what you're talking about? i don't think they're claiming that the images are live or even current/recent, as far as i'm aware of, which admittedly isn't much.

Depends on where you are and the quality of the most recent images. Google Earth will utilize the highest quality image before they use that which is most recent or largest in scope. However, this tends to be most recent (not true for parts of California's desert). Los Angeles, for instance, has 2006 as the most recent, but the timeline function will give you 2009, 2006, and various years all the way back to 1989 for the northern half of the city.