Satellite imaging is a reasonably large topic nowadays, with lots of research and defense money going into perfecting the process. Like many things, these pursuits are not always easy to justify, but past efforts in this area have just garnered the public a goldmine of information.
During the Cold War, it’s no surpise that we used satellite imaging to do as much spywork as we could, and now many of the photos taken are being released to the public courtesy of groups such as The National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA).
Efforts to declassify these old images are important not only because they are proof of our system at work, but because there’s important information to be gathered from the pictures taken. For one, these pictures may very well show us how the earth has changed over the past few decades geologically. For two, they will aid historians by serving as references to foreign military activities, which will help replace speculation in some areas with facts.
What I find rather interesting among all this is just how effective our spy satellites were during the Cold War, which impresses me twice as much when I consider just how keen our satellite imagery must be nowadays.
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