in the Earth observations forum... or sort of, it must be noted that yesterday the NRO declassified the KH-7 and -8 GAMBIT and KH-9 HEXAGON high resolution photographic spy sats of the 60s, 70s and 80s.
here you can find some pics of the "rolling stock-sized" KH-9 http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=1568
and on the NRO sites you can find hundreds of declassified documents http://www.nro.gov/foia/declass/GAMBHEX.html
unfortunately, all imagery from orbit seems to be redacted at this time
An old friend told me once of visiting NPIC a long time ago and seeing one wall in a lobby decorated with a single HEXAGON photo which covered almost an entire country. You could see the overall mapping of the country from far away and walk up close to the wall and see airfields and individual airplanes in incredible hi-res.
NRO has just declassified its experimental 1960s QUILL imaging radar spy satellite
http://www.nro.gov/foia/declass/QUILL.html
see in particular the sample images in the http://www.nro.gov/foia/declass/QUILL/32.%20QUILL%20Lecture%20Transcript.pdf and consider that they were taken 15 years before JPL's Seasat and 25 years before Magellan!
Powered by Invision Power Board (http://www.invisionboard.com)
© Invision Power Services (http://www.invisionpower.com)