Lidar Development at SRI - The First Decade

On 22 July 1963 the first lidar observations of the lower atmosphere were made at SRI with a pulsed ruby system developed by a team led by the late Myron G. H. Ligda. Since that time SRI has carried out a continuous program of exploration and development of the technique, primarily related to applications in atmospheric research in the troposphere. In this frankly personal retrospective, some of the highlights of this ten years are reviewed, both in terms of progress made and difficulties experienced. Topics discussed will include the technological aspects of the lidar systems used, the range of applications identified and explored and the various forms of information recovery and display that have been developed.