The Dish

The 150-foot diameter radio telescope located in the Stanford foothills is one of Silicon Valley’s most iconic landmarks. Simply known to locals as “The Dish”, it was built in 1961 by Stanford Research Institute (now SRI International) with funding from the U.S. Air Force. The Dish was originally created to fight the Cold War – specifically to research the effectiveness of our own defense radar systems in the event of a nuclear war as well as an intelligence gathering tool. Using the moon as a reflector, the Dish was used to identify and “study” large radar installations within the Soviet Union.  As the Cold War cooled, the Dish’s role shifted to the study the Earth’s ionosphere and communicating with spacecraft including Pioneer and Apollo satellites, the Mariner probe around Venus, and most recently NASA’s Mars Insight mission and CubeSat.

Peter’s photograph is offered as a signed 11×14 inch open edition print on fine art paper.