Earth View

Viewing the Earth examines the role played by interest groups in shaping the process of technological change, offering valuable insights into how technologies evolve. It traces the history of Landsat from its origins through the launch and use of the first few satellites, showing how a variety of forces shape the form and the eventual reception of any new technology. The Landsat earth resources satellite system was a project of The National Aeronautics and Space Administration that was created to collect data about earth resources from space. The first satellite was launched in 1972 with great fanfare and high expectations. The data proved useful for everything from finding oil to predicting harvests, yet today the successful commercialization of the program is still uncertain. Why? To answer this question, Pamela E. Mack focuses on the negotiating process that went on among different parts of the space agency, other interested government agencies, and various organizations that were potential users of the data. This formal and informal negotiating process, she points out, involved not only choices between alternative technologies and the satellite but also conflicting definitions of what the satellite would do. The story is full of fascinating detail, from the concerns of the intelligence community over civilian satellites looking at the earth to the politics of agricultural survey. Pamela E. Mack is Associate Professor in the History Department at Clemson University.

See our planet as never before with this collection of more than 200 high-definition satellite photos of Earth. Using images from NASA's Landsat satellite program, Earth View takes you on a journey of discovery around the globe, revealing in stunning detail the extraordinary geological features, manmade structures, and natural wonders that can only be seen from above. Reaching across all continents, and including the most remote glaciers, volcanic fields, shifting sands, and frozen wastelands, it inspires a fresh perspective of our world.

This book shows how our new-found ability to observe the Earth from “the necessary distance” has wide and profound cultural and ethical implications. First of all, it is the outcome of speculations and investigations of human beings in relation to their home planet carried out over millennia. In particular, it reveals a split between the ancient idea of the Earth as nurturing mother and the more recent conception of the Earth as a neutral resource able to be infinitely exploited by humankind. The 1968 Earthrise photograph, showing the beauty and fragility of the Earth, helped spark a worldwide environmental movement; now the comprehensive coverage of global change provided by satellites has the potential to convince us beyond reasonable doubt of the huge alterations being wrought upon the Earth and its climate system as a result of human actions, and of the need to act more responsibly.