Colonel Alden Partridge Colvocoresses (1918-March 27, 2007), US Army (Ret.), developed in 1973 - 1979 the Space-oblique Mercator projection with John Parr Snyder and John L. Junkins. Colvocoresses was the first to realize that such a projection was needed and mathematically feasible, and in 1974 defined it geometrically as a projection that maps images from Landsat satellites, which he used to develop the first satellite map of the United States.