CONTENTS
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Seminar this Thursday â âLidar and Landscape Legacies in the Maya Lowlandsâ
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Thursday September 11: Sebastián DÃaz Angel Presents âCold War and Satellite Diplomacyâ
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More âAerospace Latin America: A Historyâ Seminars in September
Seminar this Thursday â âLidar and Landscape Legacies in the Maya Lowlandsâ

âLidar and Landscape Legacies in the Maya Lowlands: Insights from Belizeâ
Brett A. Houk
(Texas Tech University, Lubbock) and
Amy E. Thompson (The University of Texas at Austin)
Thursday, September 4 at 2:00 pm EDT / 1:00 pm CDT / 11:00 am PDT
The central Maya lowlands is notable for its pre- and post-Columbian archaeological resources as well as its place in the history of aerospace and remote sensing in Latin America. As early as the 1970s,
Maya archaeologists began working with NASA engineers to develop innovative remote sensing technologies to search for Maya sites from the air and from space. While these early efforts had mixed results, they paved the way for the adoption of airborne lidar
to penetrate the dense forests of the Maya lowlands to map large swaths of land, which revolutionized our ability to use remotely sensed data to reveal both ancient anthropogenic and natural landscape features. In this presentation, Houk and Thompson will
discuss several lidar datasets from different regions of Belize, and the impacts of modern vegetation and topographic variation that must be considered while using lidar data to remotely observe pre-Columbian settlement. They will also show the effectiveness
of lidar to study 2,500 years of landscape history in northwestern Belize. Their analysis is framed around landscape legaciesâthe physical remains of human-caused disturbances to the landscapeâto examine Late Preclassic and Classic Maya settlement and the
extensive disturbances caused by British logging in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The findings from the study regions highlight the trajectories of using remotely sensed data to elucidate landscape legacies.
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Thursday September 11: Sebastián DÃaz Angel Presents âCold War and Satellite Diplomacyâ

âCold War and Satellite Diplomacy: The First Panamerican Symposium on Remote Sensing (Panama City, 1973)â
Sebastián DÃaz Angel (Postdoctoral Researcher, CLIMASAT project, Institut d'Història de la Ciència, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain)
Thursday, September 11 at 2:00 pm EDT / 1:00 pm CDT / 11:00 am PDT
Abstract: This talk examines the "First Panamerican Symposium on Remote Sensing," held in Panama
City in 1973, as a critical moment for satellite data infrastructure formation in the Americas. Organized by the U.S. EROS Program, the Pan American Institute of Geography and History, the Inter-American Geodetic Survey, and Panama's Instituto Geográfico Nacional
Tommy Guardia, this symposium represents a key event for understanding how satellite technologies became embedded in hemispheric power relations during the Cold War. Drawing from symposium proceedings and archival materials, Sebastián DÃaz Angel analyzes how
remote sensing technologies were framed as necessary tools for national development and environmental management. The symposium both reinforced existing power asymmetries and created opportunities for Latin American countries to assert influence over emerging
satellite data infrastructures. This historical case study illuminates how early remote sensing collaborations established enduring patterns in data governance, science diplomacy, and surveillance infrastructure that continue to shape contemporary debates
on technological sovereignty, national security, environmental management, and resource development in the Global South.
More âAerospace Latin America: A Historyâ Seminars in September
Mark your calendars for the two remaining seminars in the âAerospace Latin America: A Historyâ series. Hereâs whatâs coming up each Thursday in September at 2:00 pm EDT / 1:00 pm CDT / 11:00 am PDT.
SEPTEMBER 18
Sean T. Mitchell
(Rutgers UniversityâNewark)
âAn Ethnographic History of Brazilâs Spaceportâ
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SEPTEMBER 25
Brad Massey
(NASA History Office)
âSatellites, Sterilized Flies, and the Screwworm Scourge: NASA, la Comisión Nacional del Espacio Exterior, and the Mexican-American Screwworm Eradication Campaign, 1972â1980
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