Future Tech: Satellite Imagery

Back in 1987, I flirted briefly with the idea of going to work for the central Intelligence Agency. I had just graduated from college and fantasized about participating in covert operations in distant lands. The recruiter had other ideas, and I ended up spending two days in Washington, D.C., learning about the somewhat less glamorous job of satellite analyst. In those days, much of what the United States knew about the Soviet Union came from surveillance satellites. Imaging experts counted cars in a parking lot to deduce how many people were working in a factory, measured the factory's infrared brightness to estimate its output, or monitored road construction to keep our maps up-to-date.