Dissertation Research: The Cold War, Position, and Gravity:The World Geodetic System and the Sociotechnological Evolution of Geodesy from Space

这篇论文的研究项目将产生现代大地测量学的第一个历史，将最近解密的日冕侦察卫星计划和辅助大地测量计划的资料整合在一起。通过这样做，它将为冷战时期的地球科学做出贡献，并在历史和地理学科之间架起一座桥梁。在揭示和探索世界大地测量系统(WGS)以前隐藏的起源和演变过程中，该项目将展示民用、军事和情报团体以反映冷战对知识生产过程的影响的复杂方式相互联系。这项工作必须跨越大地测量学和遥感与技术史之间的跨学科共同点，并借鉴两者的术语和方法。该项目将1)分析为什么和如何创建WGS，由谁创建，以及冷战背景对其创建者施加的特殊限制；2)采访参与这一过程的个人，并检查实现WGS创建的技术硬件和组织结构，以便尽可能地记录技术集合；以及3)将WGS的具体案例与社会技术集合的“封闭盒子”模式联系起来。WGS作为技术发展的案例研究，其特点是机密军事技术和并行民用技术之间的联系极其紧密，流向后者的资金导致意想不到的回报增加，使进一步的双重用途甚至解密成为可能。研究方法包括检查现在解密的档案和一手和二手资料，采访WGS的科学家，并回顾以前对WGS的描述，以检查这项工作是如何真正完成的，以及这项成就是如何被掩盖的。

This dissertation research project will generate the first history of modern geodesy to integrate materials from the recently-declassified CORONA reconnaissance satellite program and ancillary geodetic programs. In doing so, it will make a contribution to Cold War earth science and bridge the disciplines of history and geography. In revealing and exploring the previously hidden origins and evolution of World Geodetic System (WGS), the project will demonstrate that the civilian, military, and intelligence communities were bound to each other in complex ways that reflect the impact of the Cold War on the processes of knowledge production. The work necessarily straddles the interdisciplinary common ground between geodesy and remote sensing on the one hand, and the history of technology on the other, and borrows terminology and methodology from both. The project will 1) analyze why and how the WGS was created, and by whom, and the extraordinary constraints imposed upon its creators by the context of the Cold War; 2) interview individuals involved in the process and examine the technology hardware and organizational structures that accomplished the created of WGS so that the technological ensemble is documented as far as possible; and 3) relate the specific case of WGS to a `shuttered box` model of the sociotechnical ensemble. WGS as a case study of technological development is characterized by an extremely tight link between classified military and parallel civilian technologies, where flows to the latter resulted in unanticipated increasing returns that made further dual use and even declassification possible. Research methods include an examination of now declassified archives and primary and secondary sources, interviews with WGS scientists, and revisting previous descriptions of WGS to examine both how the work was really accomplished, and also how the accomplishment was disguised.