Mars Ping!.......................
nifty neato. I love Mars stuff
My dad was the program manager on the very first “Earth Resources Technology Satellite” program (later named “Landsat” back in 1970. It was launched on July 23, 1972 by a Delta 900 rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
It was the first satellite to carry a Multispectral Scanner.
I was just starting engineering school at the time and didn’t have much knowledge of the electromagnetic spectrum. I vividly remember Dad telling me about “false color” imaging (which is the focus of this article) and I just couldn’t wrap my head around the spacecraft’s sensors seeing things that the human eye just could not see. Engineering school and physics courses fixed that right up for me.
The first picture looks like a rotten orange.