Watching the Old Time Spooks, Watching You…
Posted by Jason on
February 29, 2008
Following on from last weeks excitement, when the Americans managed to blow up one of their dud spy satellites, you might like to know that the shadowy organisation behind these aerial snoopers has come out of the closet, just a little way…
The NRO or National Reconnaissance Office has its own web site and is publishing some of its satellite imagery. Now don’t get too excited, they’re mostly from a declassified system called Corona, which operated from 1960 to 1972, and the bulk of the images date from the mid 1960’s so unless you were around back then you are unlikely to be featured. There’s some really interesting stuff, though, including shots of Soviet airfields, Chinese nuclear test sites and for some reason, Roman ruins in Jordan. Some of it is rather grainy and by current standards it’s pretty low tech but it shows what could be done back in the day, before Google got in on the act.
