I know you're being cynical, but these weren't the originals--they were photographic images of the originals displayed on a TV monitor (!). So though what they

I know you're being cynical, but these weren't the originals--they were photographic images of the originals displayed on a TV monitor (!). So though what they received were unopened boxes, they were unopened boxes of poor copies. In addition, the original data wasn't used for climate research, but rather weather monitoring and forecasting. One of the innovative things about rescuing this data was to put this data to a different use than its original purpose. I say this just to clarify that it is not the case that we launched these satellites and then never bothered to use the data (i.e., in case readers had an image of the Ark of the Covenant being wheeled into a warehouse).