40th anniversary of ATS-1 and its full view of Earth
UW Researcher Changed Our View Of The World 40 Years Ago
Madison WI (SPX) Dec 28, 2006
Forty years ago this month, thanks to an inventive University of Wisconsin-Madison scientist, our view of the world was changed forever. On Dec. 6, 1966, a NASA Atlas rocket lofted the world's first Earth-observing geostationary satellite into a 23,000-mile-high orbit, high enough to precisely match the spin of our planet on its axis and remain over a fixed point.
http://www.spacemart.com/reports/UW_Researcher_Changed_Our_View_Of_The_World_40_Years_Ago_999.html
Scroll down this page to see some of the Earth images from ATS-1:
http://history.nasa.gov/SP-168/section1.htm