Re-imagining The Space Age: Early Satellite Development from Earthly Fieldwork Practice

ABSTRACT

Imagining space technology has been influenced by (usually American-centred) turning points in rocketry, launchers, space exploration and human spaceflight: principally in terms of techno-bureaucratic Big Science products embedded in Cold War rivalry, military and prestige objectives. While this representation is useful to understand many developments of the space age, it has tended to downplay the role of natural history practices of data collection and interpretation in the development of space technology. The notion of sociotechnical imaginary helps to reveal a more complex and complete understanding of the history of space technology. Between 1967 and 1973, the vision of the French remote-sensing satellite as both enabled by and an extension of aircraft photo-interpretation helped to shape scientific and technological expectations of remote-sensing technology. In turn, the practices, values, and visions of aircraft photo-interpreters informed the development of satellite remote-sensing work. In particular, the fieldwork-driven research mode, focusing on data collection and field observations, was an important part of satellite technology development –a tie which remains strong today. Approaching remote-sensing satellite technology through historical research not only suggests a particular way of imagining space technology within the tradition of field science practices, discourses, and history, but also allows us to reflect on the power and limitations of prevalent imaginaries to fully understand the space age and its place in history.

KEYWORDS:

• Sociotechnical imaginaries
• history of technology
• remote-sensing satellites
• aerial photography
• field sciences
• France

Acknowledgements

I am very thankful to practitioners who generously shared their experiences with me and provided access to written sources. My gratitude goes also to the reviewers and editors, whose comments helped to improve the work.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Oral Sources

Avignon, M. Interview, May 2014.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the European Commission (project number 835051), the Catalan Agency for Management of University and Research Grants [grant number 2017SGR01138] and the research group Nexus of the University Pompeu Fabra.

Notes on contributors

Gemma Cirac-Claveras

Gemma Cirac-Claveras is a researcher at the University Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona. Her work investigates the history of remote-sensing satellite technology and its implications for society, environment, and culture in the late 20th and early 21st Centuries in Europe. Amongst others she has published: Trading with Weather: Governmental and Commercial Meteorological Satellites (Entreprises et Histoire, 2021), Weather Satellites: Public, Private, and Data Sharing (Space Policy, 2019) and Satellites for What? Creating User Communities for Space-based Data in France (Technology and Culture, 2018).