Imaging the World in a Barrel

The CORONA satellite reconnaissance programme (1958-72), the first American enterprise for secret photography from space, was predicated on fundamental progress within the strategic earth sciences necessary to resolve the Figure of the Earth with sufficient fidelity to wage or prevent nuclear war. CORONA in turn rapidly evolved from an interim reconnaissance system to a sophisticated series of earth remote-sensing imagery and data systems, which initiated the modern era of global satellite remote sensing. These innovative scientific applications were the results of a productive convergence in the post-war strategic earth sciences, the details and mechanisms of which were diffused and concealed by elaborate security protocols. With CORONA's declassification, and prospects for further declassification of Cold War-era archives, a window is opened into the clandestine reconfiguration of the strategic earth sciences and their complex integration with military and intelligence research and applications during the Cold War.

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