An Historical Perspective on Remote Sensing

Initially, the only way humans could get a broad view of the Earth was to climb a tree or hike a mountain. Later we used hot air balloons (1792), cameras( mid-1800’s), and kites to gain a birds-eye view. Human ingenuity in 1906 resulted in the construction of an array of 17 kites moored to a boat in the San Francisco Bay to take pictures of the aftermath of the historic earthquake and resulting fires.

The dawn of the space age in the 1950s enabled scientists to launch satellites into space equipped with remote sensing instruments that continuously monitor Earth. The first weather satellite was launched in 1960. Since then humans have launched thousands of satellites that orbit Earth and enable continuous remote sensing of our atmosphere, lithosphere, biosphere, and hydrosphere.