Merton Davies
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Merton E. Davies (September 13, 1917–April 17, 2001) worked for the Douglas Aircraft corporation in the 1940s and became a pioneer of spy satellite technology (including Corona) as a member of RAND Corporation after it split off from Douglas in 1948. Although the majority of his work in this regard remains classified, on August 18, 2000 he was acknowledged as one of the founders of national reconnaissance by the National Reconnaissance Office.
In the 1960s he turned his expertise in space and satellites to planetary studies and became involved in the Mariner program, working on interpreting the images of Mars sent back by Mariner probes. He was responsible for creating the geographic control net of Mars, and eventually of many other solar system bodies.
He married Louise Darling in 1948.
The Martian crater Davies is named after him.
[edit] References
- Morton, Oliver (2002). "Mert Davies' Net", Mapping Mars: Science, Imagination, and the Birth of a World. New York: Picador USA, 22-29. ISBN 0312245513.
