Remote sensing: The best view in town

Remote-sensing satellites orbiting some 900 kilometers above the earth are still a source of wonderment to many space scientists and engineers. A sensor satellite “can see the whole world,” said Dudley McConnell, an assistant associate administrator with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Both land masses and oceans can be viewed in the visible, infrared, and microwave portions of the spectrum. Weather-radar sensing, as exemplified by the Nimbus series, is thought of as being the highlight of the 1960s, the Landsat series that of the 1970s, and imaging radar that of the 1980s. Nonetheless, land-resources sensing, although only a small portion of all remote-sensing activities, is a powerful example of this technology.