
These are Satelloons, PAGEOS, pictured above before its launch in 1966, and Echo, below, in 1959. They played a role in Stellar Geodesy which was a method to measure the earth by launching sateloons into space, then photographing the mirrored spheres against the stars from several different locations on the surface of the earth.


The practice was later replaced by the development of lasers but there is something very familiar about these images.