I was just listening to a presentation on the role of early spy satellites. I knew there was satellite photography in the 60′s and 70′s, but I never gave it much thought. I probably thought it was all spy planes, actually.

Today we live in a digital age, that’s a given. And part of me assumes that the government has (or did have) access to new technology years before the public. But in the 60′s and 70′s, satellite photography was still analog. The satellite shot photos to film. When the government wanted the film they pushed a button, the satellite shot out the film in a canister towards an ocean, and a plane flew by and caught it. That’s just cool.