Serendipitous Outcomes in Space History: From Space Photography to Environmental Surveillance

Abstract

On February 8, 1962, the US Navy, in collaboration with the US Weather Bureau and the Canadian government, launched a major observation effort “to correlate observations of the ice conditions in the Gulf of St. Lawrence made from surface ships and aircraft with those made from the TIROS [Television Infrared Observation] satellite.”1 Observation correlation in the context of satellite remote sensing meant two things. First of all, it implied learning how to look at the images provided by the first meteorological satellite program in order to use them in scientific studies. In order to make sense of the pictorial evidence, these images had to be correlated with other, better know “topographies of knowledge,”2 such as aerial photography, which had already become fully operational during World War I. Secondly, observation correlation required cooperation between major Cold War military and civilian organizations, such as the US Navy and the US Weather Bureau. Their participation thus reveals that these correlation studies had hidden surveillance ambitions and were sponsored not just in light of benefits to scientific knowledge but also because of a national security imperative.