The connections between the world of national security and commercial companies still have surprises.
December 1976 – Vandenberg Air Force Base, US Military Space Port On the Coast of California
When a Titan IIID rocket was released, he carried a spacecraft at the top that would change everything about how space intelligence gathered. Going to space was the first digital Photographic recognition satellite. A revolution in space espionage had just begun.
During the previous 16 years, three generations of US photographic recognition satellites movie, Then he sent the movie to the Earth in Reengrician vehicles that recovered in the air. After the film was developed, intelligence analysts examined him trying and understanding the last missiles, airplanes and ships of the Soviet Union. In the mid -1970s, these photographic recognition satellites could see objects as small as a few inches of space. By then, the last us movie-The hexagón -based recognition satellite was the size of a school bus and had six thesis rented vehicles that could be my movie back to Earth. State of the art of thought for its time, the configuration had an inconvenience: the images that returned could be days, weeks or even months. That meant in a crisis -g the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 or the Arab-Israeli war in 1973-Satellites of photo recognition could not provide appropriate warnings and indications, revealing what an adversary was doing at this time. The Holy Grail for the upper image from space was to send the images to intelligence analysts on the ground almost in real time.
And now, finally, after a decade of work of the CIA Science and Technology Division, the first digital photo recognition satellite, the KH-11, knows the code, which could do all that, headed to orbit. For the first time, the images of space were going to return to the ground through bits, showing images in almost real time.
The KH-11/ knowing project was not a better version of existing films satellites, it was an example of disruptive innovation. Today, we assume that billions of cell phones have digital cameras, but in the 1970s obtaining a computer chip to “see” science fiction. To do so, a series of technological innovations were required in digital image sensors, and the CIA financed years of sensor research in multiple research centers and companies. That allowed them to build the KH-11 sensor (first with a silicon diodes matrix, and then use the first linear CCD matrices), which turned the images seen by the powerful satellite telescope in bits.
Taking these bits to the ground no longer required re-entry vehicles that transport films, but required the launch of a retransmission satellit network (code called Quasar (also known as SDS, satellite data system). While the KH-11 was taking photos about the Soviet Union, the images were approved from satellite to satellite at the speed of light, then, then, then, then, then, then, then, then, then, then, then, then, then, then, then, then, then, then, then, then, then, then, the The United States, were broadcast on the coast of the United States in the new land stations.
More importantly, like most of the projects that interrupt the status quo, required a technical visionary who understood how the pieces created a new radical system and a champion with immense credibility in images and national security to save the project, convincing the president of the United States to reinvest his cancellation.
More details in a moment. But let’s move quickly, four months later, to an apparently unrelated story …
April 1977 – Needham, MA, Annual Polaroid Meeting
Edwin Land, 67 -year -old founder/CEO/CEO and Research Director of Polaroid, the company that had been sending instant chambers for 30 years, found himself on stage and launched his own Holy Grail and his last moment. movie-The homemade camera based on the house called Polavision. At that time, he sent his movie movie at home to develop and could see it on days or a week. Land was demonstrating an instant movie. You filmed a movie and 90 seconds later, you could see it. It was a technical tour of Force, this was pre-digital, so the ability to develop instantly and show a film seemed magical. Like the KH-11/Keenan, it was also a complete system camera, instant movie and player. It really was the pinnacle of analog engineering.
But Polavision was a commercial disaster. Potential clients found it without competition and its price of $ 3,500 (today’s dollars) discouraging. You can only record up to 2½ minutes of movie. And you believe it or not, with Polavision you cannot record the sound with the movies. The 8mm film couldn’t be played back on existing 8mm projectors and could only be viewed on a Special Player with a 12 ”Projection screen. Justy Justy Justy Justy Justy Justy Justy Justy Justy Justy Justy Justy Justy Justy Justy Justy Just Vhs Rememberrs That Coul Hours of Video That could be edited as a better bet in the future later in 1979.
For decades, Land’s infallible instincts for instant products enchanted customers. However, Polavision was the second mass for the earth. In 1972, Land’s insistence, Polaroid had prematurely announced the SX-70 TECHNICAL TECHANICAL TOUR FORCE-BEFORE TOURS that could climb the manufacturing. In 1975, the Board helped land to “decide” to resign as president and operations director to allow other executives to handle manufacturing and scale.
But the greatest threat to Polaroid occurred in 1976, a year before the Polavision announcement, when Kodak entered the instantaneous chamber and cinema business of Polaroid with competitive products.
After the Polavision debacle, the land was marginalized by the Board, which no longer had faith in its technical and market vision. Land resigned from the title of President in 1980. He resigned from his board in the Board in 1982, and in 1985, bitter had forced his leg to leave the company he founded, he sold all his remunerating actions, cutting all the ties with the company.
Steve Jobs considered that one of his first heroes will land, calling him “a national treasure.” (Take a look apart from a 1970 talk that mysteriously describes something that sounds like an iPhone).
Meanwhile, within Polaroid Labs, the work began in two new country technologies: ink injection printing and something called “electronic photography without films.” Neinder Project came out because the new management was worried about cannibalizing the Polaroid film business. Instead, they doubled to sell and refine the instant film. The first Polaroid digital camera would not reach the market until 1996, at which time the battle had lost.
What the hell do two stories have to do with each other?
It turns out that the person who had consulted in all photographic recognition satellites based on the film, Gambit, Gambit and Hexagon was also the most estimated expert of the United States government in spy images and satellites. He was the same person who defended the replacement of photo satellites based on the film with digital images. And he was the visionary who pushed the CIA forward in KH-11/Keenan. By 1977, this person knew more about him Application or digital Image that anyone on the planet.
Who was that?
It was Edwin Land, the founder/president of Polaroid – The same type that introduced the Polavision film.
More in the next installment here.
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