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FOIA Number: 2012-0769-F
FOIA
MARKER
This is not a textual record. This is used as an
administrative marker by the William J. Clinton
Presidential Library Staff.
Collection/Record Group:
Clinton Presidential Records
Subgroup/Office of Origin:
Council on Environmental Quality
Series/Staff Member:
Kathleen (Katie) McGinty
Subseries:
OA/ID Number:
2893
FolderID:
Folder Title:
[Mission to Planet Earth] [Loose]
Stack:
Row:
Section:
Shelf:
Position:
S
61
5
11
3
FRIENDS OF THE EARTH SM
February 1, 1993
Memo to: Katie McGinty
From: Brent Blackwelder
Re: NASA
The attached report on what should happen to NASA's Mission to
Planet Earth should provide helpful background and recommendations
as the Administration proceeds to look at the future of NASA.
Friends of the Earth believes that Dr. John McElroy, Dean of
Engineering at the University of Texas at Arlington, would be a
superb candidate for the NASA Administrator.
But
Jane Perkins
President
218 D Street. SE
Washington, DC 20003
202-544-2600
202-543-4710 (fax)
650-192-5483 (telex)
foedc (EcoNet ID)
printed on recycled paper
BUILDING ENVIRONMENTAL LITERACY
AND CONSENSUS FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
THROUGH
NASA'S MISSION TO PLANET EARTH
CLINTON / GORE POLICY PROPOSALS
January 6, 1993
"If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could far better
judge what to do and how to do it."
Abraham Lincoln, June 1858.
'I did not understand what the United States was saying until I saw pictures of my country
from space. Madagascar is bleeding into the sea.'
Didier Ratsiraka, President of the Democratic Republic of Madagascar,
1992.
SUMMARY
Vice President Elect Al Gore wrote in Earth in the Balance,
"Mission to Planet Earth should be a Mission by the people of Planet
Earth specifically, involving as many countries as possible that will use
schoolteachers and their students to monitor the entire Earth daily..."
We agree. Mission to Planet Earth must be an open, broadly useful program
whose equal objectives are science, practical environmental resource
management applications, and the widest possible public education,
including improved environmental science literacy in all nations.
NASA must be much more aggressive in getting the information out to the people
about Earth science and environmental and global climate change, to help the Clinton / Gore
Administration build wide consensus for responsible stewardship of the planet and
sustainable development policies.
The enclosed proposals will help accomplish this objective because the
world responds to pictures of the Earth and data collected from space.
We propose changes primarily to existing NASA programs. 1 They have been reviewed
and agreed to by individual astronauts, state government and university researchers, and
public interest groups, including Conservation International, Friends of the Earth, the
Sierra Club, and representatives of the Nature Conservancy.
1 Coordination among federal government agencies must also be seriously examined, but is outside the
scope of this report.
1
TABLE OF CONTENTS
SUMMARY
1
TABLE OF CONTENTS
2
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
3
Policy Recommendations
3
Program Recommendations
6
POLICY AND PROGRAM DESCRIPTIONS
9
Introduction
9
Program Detail
10
1.
Government personnel
10
Select a NASA Administrator, NASA Center directors,
Congressional Liaison Personnel, and National Space Council
staff who will make NASA Earth science and applications the top
agency priority.
2
Mobilize the unrealized potential of all existing space remote sensing
resources to guide global environmental policies and benefit the
public
11
A. National Emergency Satellite Observation System
11
B. Shuttle Environmental Monitoring and Education Program
12
C. Landsat and EOS Precursor Applications Program
14
D. Declassification of Satellite Data
15
E. Environmental Education Mandate for NASA
15
3.
Mobilize future policy and resources for maximum environmental
education and public benefit
18
A. Assure an Open Data Policy
18
B. Stronger Environmental Applications and Regional Benefits 20
C. Environmental Literacy Mandate for the State Department
25
D. Space Station Statement
26
2
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
I.
POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS --
MISSION TO PLANET EARTH MUST BE DESIGNED TO
SERVE HUMANITY
Mission to Planet Earth (MPE) program design has been limited by Bush
Administration policies to serve theoretical science. To realize MPE's potential for
environmental protection and human betterment, the Clinton / Gore Administration
must make fundamental changes.
Policy Recommendations:
(1)
Choose NASA and White House Space Council leadership and
staff that will make NASA Earth science programs the top
NASA priority.
The new NASA Administrator must recognize the reality of the global
environmental crisis, and understand that the greatest contribution NASA
can make to future of humankind is helping to preserve the Earth.
Select Congressional Liaison Personnel who are committed to
Clinton / Gore policy on NASA Earth sciences. Designate a strong policy
oversight person at the National Space Council to assure proper
implementation of Administration priorities for MPE.
(2)
Use the space program as a strong environmental education
tool. Encourage NASA to aggressively distribute both existing and
forthcoming environmental data (Shuttle and satellite) as a high agency
priority. This should be done on an ongoing basis, through Earth Science
and public education programs, and the press.
(3)
Spread MPE data widely and systematically to all legitimate
users, including resource managers in federal, state and foreign
governments, public interest groups, universities, public libraries and
primary and secondary schools. This will serve practical natural resource
management objectives, and will improve environmental science literacy. It
can be accomplished through modifications to existing programs.
(4)
Establish a formal environmental applications program to
maximize practical use of satellite data for resource
management. with special emphasis on the needs of state
governments and resource managers.
Sensors in the EOS array are specifically designed to answer important
process questions about Earth as a working system. We recognize that
without TOMS 2 on the Nimbus 7 satellite, there could hardly have been a
Montreal Protocol. The need, however, extends beyond dedicated sensors
and pre-planned research.
2 Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer.
3
Research applications must focus particular attention on (1)
defining ecosystems and their characteristics, (2) serious
ecological problems, and (3) the regional impacts of
anticipated global climate change. Many important applications are
anticipated including: drought management, forest impacts, severely
changing storm patterns, coastal erosion, and other natural phenomena that
determine government economic planning. Regional environmental
modelling is essential to informed decision-making by states and smaller
countries as they plan their economic strategies. Current identification of
such applications is informal and ad hoc.
(5)
Formulate global environmental policy on the basis of existing
knowledge, including existing space derived data and EOS precursor
missions.
MPE must never be used to postpone necessary environmental protection
measures. Existing data must be quickly gathered, synthesized and
distributed to support actions that minimize risk in Earth science areas we do
not fully understand.
(6)
Address critical science and environmental impact issues early
in the MPE program.
Maintain the funding and schedules for those parts of NASA's
environmental satellite and information programs that precede the EOS
launch. These precursor satellites are scheduled for launch in the early
1990s, and offer opportunities to acquire essential data as soon as possible.
NASA should give the Earth Sciences programs adequate priority in its
overall budget to allow both (1) smaller or earlier environmental satellites,
with accompanying data acquisition and analysis, and (2) the EOS program.
If opportunities exist for early launch of smaller, relatively inexpensive
satellites that will provide key environmental or global change information,
these should be pursued as a priority.
(7)
Quietly systematize and accelerate the use of space data in
environmental enforcement policies.
Space-derived data has long been used in the enforcement of environmental
laws and agreements. In the 1970s, Landsat data was used to prove fault in
Great Lakes water pollution litigation, and to police illegal strip mining.
Skylab imagery together with aerial photography has tracked polluted water
plumes. NOAA satellite data has been shared with the Brazilian government
to police unpermitted forest burning and educate rural farmers.
In the last decade, the use of satellite data for enforcement has atrophied due
to commercialization policies and slack environmental law enforcement by
the Reagan and Bush Administrations. While some institutional reticence is
expected, all federal agencies with jurisdiction over environmental laws,
4
treaties and agreements should now be strongly encouraged to use space-
derived data in the full exercise of their duties, including enforcement. 3
Previous use of satellite data suggests that if a system were in place to
identify ecological and natural resource problems, and transmit timely
information to relevant regulators, at least some potentially disastrous
policies and activities might be identified and altered in time to avoid severe
ecological damage and enforce existing laws.
As increasingly sophisticated sensors are placed in orbit, and as military
satellites are made available for additional civilian missions, the potential for
using space-derived data for enforcing environmental laws and treaties will
increase.
3 From the time of Landsat 1, space derived data has demonstrated a capacity to resolve disputes. One
dramatic early example involves the African Sahel. In the early days of Landsat, scientists analyzing data
from the Sahel, which had been reduced ostensibly by drought to a veritable moonscape, encountered an
anomaly; an area of several hundred square miles, with sharply defined rectangular boundaries, that produced
a strong near infrared signal characteristic of vegetation. A visit to the site revealed a large, fenced enclave
maintained by a French ranching company that contained an isolated, intact ground cover of grass and
shrubs. This proved precisely what local scientists and observers had been saying; the loss of ground cover
across the Sahel was not caused by drought, although the overall dessification of the region is of climate
origin), but by ill-conceived technological intervention.
In the years preceding the disaster, U.N. agencies and U.S. AID drilled up to 1800 stock watering wells
across the Sahel belt, permitting seasonal nomads, who had previously been obliged to trail their herds
south out of the zone, to remain in the Sahel year round. Instead of 20 million cattle for 6 months each
year, the Sahel was soon supporting 80 million cattle annually. The natural checks against overgrazing
were bypassed, the equilibrium between the nomads and the land was shattered, and an ecological calamity
resulted, replete with human misery.
A second example from the early 1970s concerns a U.S. federal circuit court case, in which it was alleged
that asbestos laced taconite tailings discharged into Lake Superior were entering the Duluth, Minnesota
water system. The accused mills denied the allegation, but Landsat imagery defined plume tailings from the
Mesabi iron range extending south to the area of Duluth's water intakes. Landsat provided the definitive
evidence leading to a court victory for the plaintiffs, and an order limiting the discharge.
A third example is the use of the infrared sensor aboard NOAA 11 to identify unpermitted burning in remote
areas. The U.S., in cooperation with the Brazilian government, has established a system that can locate
illegal burning and transmit the information to local authorities in a matter of hours after its discovery from
space.
Finally, an anticipated example is the ability of the Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) to track seagoing
vessels. Even the single-band SARs currently aloft are able to "see" vessel wakes for several hours after a
ship has passed, and determine approximate vessel speed and class. Potentially, different kinds of vessels
will exhibit distinctive signatures. SAR is now being investigated as a means of enforcing fishing
regulations in the Bering Sea. It may be the most effective system available to locate "pirate fishing" by
use of drift nets; which have been banned under U.N. resolution. Evidence exists that Taiwan plans to
ignore the ban on a massive scale.
While systematic global monitoring with SAR may not become feasible until 1995, when Canada's
RADARSAT is launched, with a swath width of 500 miles, there is great hope that the technology can be
useful, if not crucial, for fishing treaty and regulation enforcement. Enforcement by SAR could be
especially powerful if used with high resolution DOD sensors. SAR imagery will, and Shuttle mission
photography already provides the ability to track oil slicks from bilge-cleaning by vessels world wide.
5
II. PROGRAM RECOMMENDATIONS
INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE How to use space derived data for
maximum public service, public education, environmental monitoring and
conservation, and to establish international consensus for sustainable
development.
1.
Mobilize the unrealized potential of all existing space remote
sensing resources to guide global environmental policies and
benefit the public.
A.
Establish a National Emergency Satellite Observation
System, through which pictures and imagery of hurricanes, floods,
fires, etc (including a before and after time series) are systematically
provided in as near real time as possible to emergency response
teams.
B.
Formalize and expand a Space Shuttle Global
Environmental Monitoring Program.
Shuttle Earth observations are in full swing and can provide
important information to decision-makers and the public now. The
present informal Shuttle observation project should be made an
ongoing JSC program, with aggressive distribution of photographs
to the public, media and schools. Photographs should be highly
publicized in the press by the Administration, giving the people of
the world an "Earth Status Report" on environmental conditions
and activities around the world after each Shuttle mission.
Coordination between Shuttle observations and NASA Code S Earth
Sciences should be strongly encouraged; Shuttle data should be
incorporated in the global change baseline.
C.
Establish a Landsat and EOS Precursor Satellite
Environmental Applications Program.
Landsat should be used as the starting model for training federal,
state and local government, universities, foreign governments, non-
profit environmental research organizations and others how to use
satellite data to formulate sustainable development policies, in
preparation for EOS data. A grassroots user infrastructure should be
established. This will help assure maximum practical use of MPE
data, and help to avoid costly errors in the Global Change Data and
Information System (GCDIS), National Research Education
Network (NREN) and the Earth Observation Satellite Data and
Information System (EOS/DIS).
The national user infrastructure is currently so far
behind information collection. that if the data stream
from EOS and other advanced satellites were available
today, widespread value would be slight. If we do not
develop this infrastructure, the new armada of Earth
viewing satellites will yield only a fraction of its
potential for planetary stewardship.
6
D.
Declassify as much environmentally useful data as
bonafide national security concerns will permit.
E.
Establish a strong Environmental Education Mandate in
the Mission to Planet Earth Program Office and throughout NASA.
Use existing information, as it is gathered and synthesized, in a
massive classroom environmental education program to teach Earth
System Science and our impact on the planet as they are now
understood, and involve school children in MPE research and
applications.
2.
Mobilize future policy and resources for maximum
environmental applications and public benefit.
A. Assure an Open Data Policy -- Environmental space-derived data
must be made low cost, user friendly and easily accessible for practical
applications to government resource managers and the public service
community.
Commercialization of raw or minimally processed data must be prohibited.
Commercialization should be stimulated through competitive value-added
services. "Open skies" policies must be strictly enforced.
The 1992 Landsat data policy process has established beyond rational
dispute that commercialization of unenhanced satellite data has
no place in a publicly financed remote sensing program such as
MPE. Informal studies found that the lower the cost of the unenhanced
data, the greater the overall demand, and the greater the public benefit.
The Administration should anticipate and firmly reject commercialization
proposals from the Landsat contractor and contractors for the MPE
information distribution systems.
B. Build stronger environmental applications and regional
benefits into MPE.
o
Serve the needs of the states to monitor and predict the rate of
regional global climate change and other environmental phenomena
by designing models that focus on regional impacts of global change
with the states, who manage most of the resources that will be
affected by climatic change. Include state resource scientists and
managers in MPE research and information distribution channels.
If existing data were made available to the states at the marginal cost
of reproduction, and the Landsat environmental applications
network were re-invented, state resource managers could get a head
start on the data bases necessary to determine regional environmental
climate change. It is possible that the network would be fully
operational in enough time to have adequately prepared the states for
a very advanced level of sophistication in EOS/DIS.
7
Systematically build an applications orientation in the
MPE program office.
(1)
Amend NASA's Charter to include a mandate for
applications in remote sensing.
(2)
Establish an advisory process to better identify anticipated
regional and environmental applications.
(3)
Start an Applications Branch in the Mission to Planet Earth
Program Office, and establish a formal applications
program, with a regional grassroots structure.
(4)
Seriously examine placing jurisdiction over the National
Weather Service (NWS) and the National Environmental
Satellite Data and Information System (NESDIS) at NASA.
Internalizing these programs would help NASA become
more applications oriented. The Weather Service also has an
established information distribution system that reaches both
the science community and the public, and could help get
information out to local communities.
(5)
Broaden the NASA science culture by better integrating
space scientists with federal, state, international, and non-
profit natural resource managers.
Hire more ecology scientists as NASA MPE personnel.
Require NASA theoretical scientists to perform 2 years of
duty outside NASA in their applications field, and, require
that NASA science managers must perform one year of
practical research every five years.
C.
Establish a Department of State mandate to immediately
improve scientific literacy and access to state-of-the-art
environmental resource management information in the
developing world, including space-derived data.
U.S. Fortune 500 corporations presently have better access to data about
many developing country's resources than do their own governments,
especially where there are no roads, personnel or equipment for proper
inventory. The U.S., along with other MPE participants, should build an
international infrastructure based on the best available information, to
elevate developing world leaders and natural resource managers to the
information level necessary for sustainable development.
D.
If a space station is approved on grounds strictly unrelated to
Earth sciences, maximize only the most cost effective
environmental remote sensing activities that can uniquely be
achieved through the program.
8
POLICY AND PROGRAM DESCRIPTIONS
POLICY AND PROGRAM DESCRIPTIONS
I. INTRODUCTION
Space images capture and focus the world's attention. The Administration should take the
lead to prepare humanity for sustainable development by systematically using the space
program as an environmental education and protection tool.
Basic information gathered by Mission to Planet Earth must be fully integrated into all
walks of life. Transformation of world attitude should occur from increased public
awareness combined with an improved understanding of Earth system science.
To accomplish these objectives, MPE must produce information equally for science,
practical applications for environmental resource management, the widest possible public
education, and improved environmental science literacy in all nations. 4
Information users must include: resource managers in the field, state and foreign
governments, environmental and conservation groups, universities, the press, the public,
children in the classroom, corporate interests, real estate developers, and the like.
Reaching these users will require a broadened, integrated MPE program, including: (1)
massive public education, (2) a wide information distribution system, and (3) a systematic
environmental applications focus.
A broad based approach to MPE will also help restore public confidence in the space
program by demonstrating the practical benefits of space-derived information, and
increasing return on taxpayer investment.
4 MPE is currently designed to serve research priorities established by the Committee on Earth and
Environmental Sciences (CEES). Practical resource management and education objectives have not been
methodically designed into the system. Public education efforts are fledgling. Public release of research
results and current Earth photography to a wide audience has been discouraged. To their credit, NASA MPE
program managers are now initiating an environmental applications program.
9
II. PROGRAM DETAIL
INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE -- How to use space-derived data for
maximum public service, public education, environmental monitoring and
conservation, and to establish international consensus for sustainable
development.
1. Government Personnel
A. Select a NASA Administrator and NASA Center directors who
will make NASA Earth science and applications the top agency
priority,
Since NASA's creation, science and practical applications of space technology have
always taken second place to exploration and the "manned" space program. While
the exploration of space is important for defense conversion, economic stabilization
and, to some extent, international cooperation, NASA's most immediate priority
must be to (1) speed its contribution to the U.S. global change research program,
and (2) maximize the practical applications of Mission to Planet Earth data for
global change mitigation, regional resource management and environmental
conservation.
We take no collective position on space station. However, cost effective Earth
observations should be strongly integrated into any "manned" program.
The new Administration must appoint a NASA Administrator who
recognizes the reality of the global environmental crisis, and
understands that the greatest contribution NASA can make to the
future of humankind is helping to preserve the Earth; using all
resources under NASA's jurisdiction.
It is equally important to appoint a new Administrator with the
strength and commitment necessary to overcome the inevitable
resistance of the NASA centers to MPE as a priority. NASA centers
have gradually acquired the characteristics of independent fiefdoms,
each with its own congressional and corporate protectors. This has
made it acutely difficult for central leadership to amend the agency's
mission or institute structural and cultural reforms.
B. Select Congressional Liaison Personnel who are committed to
Clinton /Gore policy on NASA Environmental Programs.
NASA congressional liaison has historically reflected the overall agency preference
for manned space, with an unfortunate perception that if MPE becomes the
agency's top priority, space station will be terminated. This prejudice has been true
at both management and line levels. Congressional liaison is a key point in
implementing the Vice President's policy priority for MPE.
C. Designate a strong policy oversight person at the National Space
Council to assure proper agency and congressional implementation of
Administration priorities for NASA Environmental Programs.
Experience with MPE policy dynamics over the last 4 years, together with
observations made of Admiral James Watkin's attempts to change the cultural
10
attitude at DOE from bomb production to reconfiguration and environmental clean-
up, indicate that if the Administration seriously intends to shift NASA agency
priorities to the environment, a counter-balancing force outside the agency is
absolutely necessary. Strong Space Council oversight will be necessary to
accomplish the Vice President's stated priorities for NASA environmental
programs.
2. Mobilize the unrealized potential of all existing space remote sensing
resources to guide global environmental policies and benefit the public.
A.
Establish a National Emergency Satellite Observation System.
Comprised of all federal agencies engaged in satellite and aircraft environmental and
observation activities,⁵ this system would, perhaps under Space Council control,
provide as near real-time information as possible to aid national and local
emergency response teams during hurricanes, oil spills, earthquakes, fires,
flooding, drought and other emergencies around the world. Before and after images
should be quickly provided to natural resource managers. Each appropriate satellite
owned by the U.S. government, and perhaps other governments, should be
focussed on the current worldwide emergency of the day. The existing defense
emergency satellite system should be examined as a model for this service. Program
planning may be as simple as broadening the definition of "national emergency" to
include natural and anthropogenic disasters.
To the extent possible considering national security concerns, before and after
results should also be shared immediately with non-profit group and academic
environmental researchers.
The Administration should search the potential for high resolution maps to be given
to local U.S. police for logistical support in 911 services in an ongoing program.
Rural Texas officials are especially interested in these applications due to the
difficulty of directing emergency vehicles in unfamiliar areas by dispatch.
5 Those agencies known to own or manage satellite observation systems include: NASA, National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Department of Defense, National Reconnaissance
Organization, and Central Intelligence Agency. The Department of Agriculture and the Department of
Interior use extensive aerial photography. The U.S. Geological Survey is an extensive user of both satellite
data and aerial photography, but operates no satellites.
11
B.
Formalize a Space Shuttle Global Environmental Monitoring
Program.
'Each Shuttle mission brings fresh evidence of human impact on the Earth.' 6
The Shuttle now monitors over 600 selected sites around the world, including
environmental, geological, atmospheric, oceanographic, and ephemeral events.
A normal Shuttle mission returns about 4,200 large format analog photographs and
several hundred digital images of Earth's environmental phenomena. Data are
digitized on return, then archived, catalogued, and made available to the public by
electronic access using Johnson Space Center (JSC) computer nodes. This program
provides the longest length record of orbital data (1961 - 1992) that is useful for
documenting and assessing global environmental change.
The Shuttle's Earth observations are in full swing, and can provide
important information to decision-makers and the public now, at a
crucial time for environmental policy. Its easy to understand
photography can vastly improve public understanding of global
environmental changes over the last 11 years. Using advanced electronics
and information systems, information can be passed to decision-makers around the
world quickly, in many cases in time to stop environmentally dangerous activities in
progress. The collective time series can also make a significant contribution to the
baseline for global change data.
NASA management has historically considered Shuttle Earth observations an
informal mission adjunct. Equipment upgrades have been made largely at the
expense of non-NASA agencies, including the Navy, Army and Department of
Defense.
Despite these restrictions, the Shuttle program has unique capabilities that are useful
for environmental monitoring and high profile environmental education.
Recommendations:
(1) Formalize the Space Shuttle Earth Observations Program at
JSC, with science goals, in association with Code S at NASA
Headquarters (Earth Sciences) and a budget. Immediately reverse the
decision to close in the near future JSC's "Environmental Resource Satellite
Analysis Facility" (ERSAF -- the global monitoring, communications and
analysis facility for Shuttle photography).
6 Paraphrased from the video documentary entitled "Space Age: Mission to Planet Earth." Produced in
Association with the National Academy of Sciences and a Centerpiece of the International Space Year,
1992.
7 These include: uplink capability to an on-orbit crew, downlink capability of crew-acquired data; routine
stereo photography and imagery capability; demonstrated polarization and bi-directional reflectance (multi-
angle) imaging; routine multiple sun angle imaging; technically unlimited spatial resolution capability;
receipt of near real-time satellite data and Geographic Information System (GIS) information for identifying
Earth environmental conditions worldwide (volcanic eruptions, weather situations, flooding, tropical
cyclones, major fires and forest fires, oil spills, etc.) Shuttle missions monitor the entire globe in real-
time, using unmanned satellites to reconnaissance ahead of shuttle overpasses.
12
(2) Continue to place all Shuttle data in the public domain and significantly
improve awareness of its availability for wide public and resource
management use at the marginal cost of reproduction (consistent with
Landsat policy). Either NASA or the EROS Data Center should
aggressively distribute the data.
Assuming phase out of the Shuttle in the early 2000s, and termination of an
aggressive Shuttle Earth observations program, what photography program
to serve ongoing environmental education needs will replace it?
(3) Work Shuttle photography into a national grammar school and
high school curriculum to encourage technology, computer and
environmental literacy (see environmental education section), and produce
astronaut tutorial videos on Earth observations after each mission
for distribution to classrooms nationwide.
(4) After each Shuttle mission, the astronauts should conduct a widely
publicized press conference to make an ongoing "Earth Status
Report" based on observations made aloft, and using cumulative Shuttle
and other remote sensing data to show change detection. Many
astronauts are eager and prepared to participate in such a
program.
(5) Expand the number of scientists and ecologists in the Space Shuttle
Earth Observations Office at Johnson Space Center and choose JSC
leadership who will fully support this program.
(6) Establish summer internships for college students in the JSC
Astronaut and Earth Observations Offices for training in Earth observations
science.
(7) Continue to digitize and improve Shuttle Earth observation
data and mandate integration of the data into the Pathfinder baseline for
global change.
(8) Encourage NASA scientists to publish Shuttle research
results in accessible journals with wide distribution and in
magazines accessible to the common person.
13
C.
Establish a Landsat and EOS Precursor Satellite Environmental
Applications Program 8
Landsat should be used as the starting model for training federal, state and local
government, universities, foreign governments, non-profit environmental research
organizations and others how to use satellite data to formulate sustainable
development policies, in preparation for EOS data.
Landsat data is available now, and an infrastructure still exists around the country,
and to some extent, the world, that can use it. 9 EOS data, on the other hand, will
be much more voluminous and complex, and will come later in the decade. Landsat
data is also a substantial part of the baseline pathfinder data from which scientists
will measure global change. The lessons learned from maximizing the practical
applications of Landsat for public services / interest can be incorporated into the
Mission to Planet Earth data system design.
Landsat, then, is the natural precursor to achieving maximum practical use of
MPE/EOS data. NASA and other federal agencies should institute training
programs, through grants, centers of excellence, and the like, to renovate the
necessary infrastructure in federal and state government and in universities to assure
maximum use of MPE/EOS data for practical purposes. Distribution at the practical
management level will also help to bring resource management into the 20th
century. Many states, for example, are far behind in computerization.
8 A full-fledged applications program for EOS and all remaining MPE satellites would be substantially
similar to the Landsat applications program and be added later, as satellites are launched and specific
applications are determined. For a full applications program description, see "Build Stronger Environmental
Applications and Regional Benefits into MPE."
9 During the 1970s and early 1980s, NASA and other federal agencies promoted use of Landsat MSS and
other remote sensing data for practical applications, such as forestry and agriculture. Unfortunately, just at
the time an infrastructural base of sufficient size to nourish rapid growth of remote sensing technology had
been developed, and a more useful Earth observing sensor (Thematic Mapper) had been launched aboard
Landsat 5, the decision was made to commercialize Landsat.
The high price of data, in combination with the marketing approach of EOSAT (the unregulated commercial
monopoly established under the Land Remote Sensing Act of 1984 to market data) resulted in a precipitous
decline in the use of Landsat for academic research and conservation. The chief purchasers of Landsat data are
now federal agencies, especially DOD and NASA, and large corporations. Academic researchers, state natural
resource managers, local government planners, public interest conservationists and small businesses have
turned away from remote sensing in favor of older systems, such as aerial photography and ground based
methods. In some places (such as the University of Nebraska) radiometers and spectrometers have been
mounted on light planes. While research is continuing, and hundreds of new remote sensing applications
have been developed since commercialization of Landsat data in 1984, the remote sensing infrastructure
overall has seriously declined. Some universities that taught remote sensing a decade ago have dropped the
subject.
The 1992 Land Remote Sensing Policy Act, passed into law in October 1992, brought Landsat data back
into the public domain after a decade of failed commercialization. The price of data will now gradually
decline to the marginal cost of reproducing a scene (ultimately about $400 - $600 U.S.). With low cost,
easily available data, we have been given an important opportunity to rebuild the Landsat user infrastructure
that existed in the states during the 1970s, and use it for MPE data.
14
Background:
Every expert agrees there is vastly more information available in Landsat and other
Earth viewing satellites than we have learned to extract. This is especially true of the
SAR (JERS-1 and ERS-1), now aloft. National user infrastructure is SQ far
behind information collection, that if the data stream from EOS and
other advanced satellites were available today, widespread value
would be slight. If we do not develop this infrastructure, the new
armada of Earth viewing satellites will yield only a fraction of its
potential for planetary stewardship.
There is no reason to expect that an infrastructure sufficient to accommodate
expanding demand will develop spontaneously during the during the interim
transition period before Landsat 7's launch. If we are to grasp the potential value to
conservation of the advanced instruments planned for Landsat 7, the planned EOS
and EOS precursor satellites, and all existing satellite resources, it will be necessary
for NASA and other federal agencies to rebuild and expand the civilian remote
sensing infrastructure through a vigorous remote sensing applications program.
By rebuilding a user infrastructure around existing satellites, we will be better
equipped to utilize information from EOS, Landsats 7 and 8, RADARSAT, and
Almaz 2. Experience with existing AVHRR data is essential to using MODIS
effectively for applications.
D.
Declassify as much environmentally useful data as bonafide
national security concerns will permit.
Where possible, intelligence satellite environmental data should be de-classified and
incorporated into the on-line Landsat distribution and applications system.
Where de-classification is not possible, a national interpretive center should be
instituted to share research and observation results for public purposes. (Perhaps
modelled on the National Photographic Interpretive Center.)
E.
Establish a Strong Environmental Education Mandate in the
MPE Program Office and throughout NASA. 10
Use existing information, as it is gathered and synthesized, to begin
a massive classroom environmental education program that
documents our impact on the planet as it is now understood, and
involve school children in MPE research and applications.
Environmental, scientific and technological literacy can be improved through
classroom use of space photography and satellite data about the local and global
environment. MPE should promote "hands on" student experiences in a strong
environmental education program. By doing this, NASA can change the way our
future leaders view the Earth.
10 See also Shuttle program section.
15
Vice President Gore's proposal to use schoolchildren around the world for "ground
truthing" satellite data can actually assist global change researchers and is
now in process. 11
Knowing the condition of the environment at the time satellites record the
reflectance of ground features is important. An interactive educational curriculum
can be easily developed to incorporate ground truthing principles with "hands on"
computer applications.
Student involvement is uncomplicated. A remote sensing GIS training program is
currently underway in South Carolina, directly involving secondary school
students in practical research of the Congaree Swamp, including ground truthing,
manipulation of remote sensing data on personal computers, and interpretation of
aerial photography.
In Maine, 7th and 8th graders are learning to manipulate SPOT Image data on
MacIntosh computers, identifying wetlands, ground cover types and endangered
species habitat. The imaged sites are visited to truth their conclusions, and "close
the gap" between computer screens and the natural world. Through these programs,
students are also becoming familiar with map making science, problem solving,
and on site investigations.
Such programs enrich the minds of youth, and provide an indispensable educational
substrate for development of the kind of ecologically oriented remote sensing
infrastructure that will be necessary if remote sensing is to provide answers to the
critical policy questions of global change in the coming decades. 12
Recommendations:
(1) NASA should substantially enlarge its environmental education
programs in primary and secondary schools by providing training and
educational grants for integrated remote sensing projects with
focus on practical applications. Ultimately, this program should be
established in every primary and secondary school in the country.
11 The Aspen Institute at the Windstar Foundation in Colorado has instituted hands-on remote sensing
curricula, and has trained teachers from 32 states. These efforts should be supported and expanded throughout
the country and in foreign nations.
12 A problem that constantly evades school administrators and research scientists is the inability to take
conventional research and apply it to instructional K through 12 problem solving exercises. Innovative
curriculum programs must be developed to catch student attention and let them interactively experience what
data are required for making real world decisions; such as balancing economic development and
environmental protection.
To be successful, the student must first become familiar with computer technology and remote sensing
applications through the use of data sets that examine their state or local community. Much of these data
are currently available to the public through the U.S. Geological Survey and state agencies. Once remote
sensing concepts are learned by interpreting familiar and easy-to-visit study sites, student knowledge and
newly acquired capabilities can be extrapolated to study sites located in other geographic regions of the U.S.
and the world. For example, both South Carolina and Nebraska have a Sand Hills Physiographic region.
Students in South Carolina study the historical, economic, geographic, environmental and land use concepts
of this region and then determine how the Sand Hills in the two states differ.
16
(2) NASA employees and principal investigators must be
available to schools for demonstrations and the development of data to
be used with school computer technology.
(3) NASA should integrate its educational programs with other
agencies
o
Environmental remote sensing studies, including ground truth
activities, should be made required science in primary and
secondary schools across the nation as quickly as possible. A
national interactive global change research curricula
should be established. NASA scientists and astronauts should be
encouraged to tutor in Earth science through classroom visits,
video tutorials and on-line computer communications.
Preparation and dissemination of more educational videos (in
numerous languages) should be made. Special effort should be
made to supply hard copy remote sensing images, Shuttle Earth
photography, (and eventually floppy disks or CD ROMs) of
particular regions to libraries within those regions. NASA should
make such materials available nation wide through the GPO
Federal Depository Library Program and the National
Cartographic Information Centers.
Environmental education programs should be continually
upgraded at the National Air and Space Museum and in
space and technology museums and public display
centers (eg., Park Service information centers) around the country,
and abroad (e.g., through U.S. Information Agency Centers). 13
During Shuttle missions, Earth observation downlinks should be
made to major museums around the country and the world for an
integrated on-site learning program.
(4) NASA should encourage one-on-one relationships between high school
students and agency Earth scientists in an "Environmentors" program,
similar to the national "Big Brothers" program. This will both
shepherd career development in Earth sciences and help to make the NASA
Earth science culture more applications oriented.
(5) An Earth science education specialist should be assigned to the
National Space Council, and to the offices of the new Administrator to
elevate the public education component of Mission to Planet
Earth.
13 Shuttle photography has already been distributed to and is on display at the U.S. National Park Service
Visitors Centers at the Grand Canyon and Mount St. Helens National Parks, and at the Florissant Fossil
Beds National Monument.
17
3. Mobilize future policy and resources for maximum environmental
applications and public benefit.
A. Assure an Open Data Policy.
Environmental Space Derived Data must be low cost, user friendly
and easily accessible to the public service community.
Commercialization of raw or minimally processed data must be
prohibited. Commercialization should be stimulated through
competitive value-added services. "Open skies" policies must be
strictly enforced.
The recent Landsat data policy process has established beyond rational dispute that
commercialization of unenhanced satellite data has no place in a
publicly financed remote sensing program. Informal studies found that the
lower the cost of the unenhanced data, the greater the overall demand, and the
greater the public benefit. 14
Landsat and other EOS precursor satellites, such as Upper Atmospheric Research
Satellite (UARS), and SEAWIFs, have commercial or hybrid data policies that
prevent publicly financed data from immediately entering the public domain. To the
extent practicable, these policies should be changed and the research results
incorporated into a public domain applications program. Due to existing contract
and licensing agreements, this may be difficult with UARS and SEAWIFS.
In no case should commercialization policies in any form be repeated
for planned MPE satellites, despite anticipated industry efforts to the
contrary. The Administration should expect continuing
commercialization proposals from the Landsat contractor and
contractors for the MPE EOS/DIS system.
Recommendations:
MPE/EOS data policy should --
(1) Anticipate and firmly reject efforts by contractors to
commercialize and privatize publicly financed environmental
space remote sensing data. All such data should immediately
enter and remain in the public domain.
(2) Assure that the data is available in a timely, user-friendly
fashion to practical end users. This data must be available on-line through
personal computers to state based natural resource managers from the onset
14 Well documented research shows a drastic drop in use of Landsat upon a price increase and
commercialization in 1984. Informal surveys taken during the 1992 Landsat policy debate indicate that
university researchers would use the data significantly more at lower cost. These sentiments were echoed
unanimously by major U.S. environmental groups and over 15 state governments, (including Texas,
California, Nebraska, Maryland, Florida, South Carolina, Tennessee, New York, Ohio, Kansas, Oregon,
Vermont, Wyoming, Missouri and Alaska.) Dr. Robert Jenkins, Vice President for Science at The Nature
Conservancy, estimated that TNC would use Landsat data up to 50 times more if it were available at the
marginal cost of reproduction ($500 per scene). Jenkins' sentiments were echoed in varying degrees by
Conservation International, Wilderness Society, and others.
18
of the Global Change Data and Information System (GCDIS), National
Research Education Network (NREN) and the Earth Observation Satellite
Data and Information System (EOS/DIS).
(3) Assure that the unenhanced data is available at the marginal cost of
reproduction to all users, so long as they are willing to share research
results in a timely manner with other researchers. Exclusive marketing
rights should never be given to a commercial entity.
(4) Nurture and encourage the commercial growth of the value-added and
software services that can aid in making MPE/EOS data-user friendly to
non-global change environmental researchers and other end users. Where
necessary, the federal government can stimulate the commercial
value-added sector by commissioning the development of user
friendly software that helps to accomplish U.S. public education,
foreign policy and intergovernmental relations objectives.
19
B. Build stronger environmental applications and regional benefits
into MPE.
0
Building an applications orientation.
Potential remote sensing users often complain that sensors are designed for
specialized research, with little thought given to practical applications. Early in the
design process, NASA should begin to consider which general and regional
applications an instrument might serve. It should be especially alert to ways to
increase the sensor's capacity for practical applications without compromising its
basic research mission.
Once the satellite is launched, NASA should hold periodic workshops to determine
which applications each sensor has served, and to consider additional applications,
based on the experience compiled.
A major reason the public receives so few practical benefits from space-derived data
(other than information generated by weather satellites), is that public service users
are largely excluded from the decisions governing both sensor and program design.
If MPE is a program for the people, then, as Justice Brandeis wrote, "Sunlight is
the best disinfectant."
Thus, it is extremely important that public service users be provided real input to the
satellite design and policy formulation process.
o
Designing models and applications that focus on regional
impacts of global change.
States need to predict regional impacts of global climate change.
Mission to Planet Earth will have minimal use to policy makers unless state
resource managers, who directly manage most of the nation's agricultural and
coastal lands, and waterways can access information that can be used to predict
regional impacts and their rates, in time to plan mitigation and adaptation measures.
One of the most important reasons for studying and monitoring global climate
change is to determine its regional consequences. For example, will the state of
California continue to be a major agricultural producer over the next 25 years, or
will drought continue to be so severe that the U.S. should consider growing
vegetables and fruit further north? What land use policies are necessary now to
preserve these options? How will sea level rise affect coastlines and impact coastal
land use policy? In regions dependent on hydroelectric power, will there be enough
water in 20 years to sustain power grids for anticipated local population growth?
State resource scientists and managers should be included in the MPE
research and information distribution channels, beginning with all
existing satellites, and continuing through the life of the program.
As mentioned, NASA, together with state governments previously built resource
management infrastructures with federally funded satellite information systems
when Landsat data was used widely used in the 1970s.
An extensive environmental applications network was built through the outreach of
NASA and its regional centers. This program included hands-on training programs
20
for state resources personnel. As a result, Landsat was extensively applied to state
level management and environmental monitoring. Resource management was
initiated into the information age. 15
If existing data were made available to the states at the marginal cost
of reproduction, and the Landsat environmental applications network
were re-invented, state resource managers could get a head start on
the data bases necessary to determine regional environmental climate
change. It is possible that the network would be fully operational in
enough time to have adequately prepared the states for a very
advanced level of sophistication in EOS/DIS.
Recommendations:
(1) Amend NASA's Charter to include a mandate for
Applications.
While NASA's charter limits the agency's mandate to technology
demonstration rather than applications, it is clear that unless some (or all)
government agencies are charged with maximizing the applications of the
vast taxpayer investment in space and satellite technology, the societal
improvements the public expects from technology will continue to be lost
and the quality of environmental analysis will remain substandard. Perhaps
the most simple way to initiate a cultural change at NASA for applications is
to mandate the responsibility by statute.
(2) Establish an advisory process to better identify anticipated
regional and environmental applications.
NASA is establishing a broadly based Landsat advisory committee of
remote sensing experts and users, including qualified representatives from
state and local government, American Indian Tribes, conservation and farm
groups, the value added sector, and academic experts. The advisory
committee should be kept fully informed on all technical and policy
proposals affecting applications and information distribution. Decisions
affecting applications should not be made before the committee has been
consulted, and has the opportunity to respond. This committee should be
expanded to consider applications for all MPE satellites.
15 Landsat has been used by state governments for (partial listing): flood hazard mapping; fire hazard
evaluation; land use, water use, and water quality analysis; mapping of natural features, models for energy
use, groundwater protection; air quality monitoring; tracking of natural habitats adjacent to agricultural areas
to protect endangered species; siting toxic waste incinerators; timber conditions; timber supply projections;
wildlife habitat suitability analysis; wild land conversion to urban and agricultural land use; range
conditions, hardwood monitoring, vegetation cover, forest land habitat and rangeland residue mapping; fuel
loading cartography; vegetation change detection; wilderness mapping; general cartography under contract
to other government agencies; sediment transport along coastlines; sediment discharges from coastal
streams; shoreline and land use changes; growth management and land use policy analysis.
During the 1970s, Landsat was running continually, feeding back data as changes in the environment
occurred. Under the commercialization act of 1984, the satellite was only turned on at the request of
commercial purchasers for specific geographic locations, and much continuity of data for environmental
management was lost.
21
(3) Start an Applications Branch in the MPE program office,
and establish an applications program.
The Mission to Planet Earth Program office is establishing an environmental
applications branch. This effort should be approved, nurtured and
expanded to become a key characteristic of MPE.
There are many thousands (by one estimate up to 80,000) of public service
users and would be users of remote sensing data in the U.S. who have
derived little or no benefit from remote sensing activities since the early
1980s. While federal agencies have largely ignored this community, the
commercial entity set up to market Landsat data has actively victimized it.
An active applications program can can confer major public benefits at
comparatively modest costs, and establish an infrastructure to help carry out
global change research.
The program can produce maximum public benefit per dollar
expended if:
it is nationwide, eventually involving every state in the Union, and
is focused on critical international problems as well,
a wide spectrum of users participate in the program. These
should include academic institutions, state agencies, local
government units, farm groups, conservation and environmental
groups, public schools and so on,
the involved interests have direct "hands on" participation in
the research being funded,
the data and research results obtained and generated are useful in a
direct, immediate and practical way, to the interests involved,
the program builds a lasting technical infrastructure as it
proceeds, including coordinating centers and a communications
network that can serve program, policy and technical functions, and,
a deliberate effort is made to integrate applications research
and infrastructure development with Mission to Planet Earth
research and related satellite functions.
Program Description:
A national applications program should be built around universities
and other institutions with strong expertise in remote sensing, who
form centers of excellence¹⁶ to carry out research and training on
behalf of user consortia.
A center of excellence would be an existing institution with a "track
record" in remote sensing (for example, universities, non-profit
16 These centers of excellence would be distinct from and should not be confused with NASA Centers of
Excellence in technology transfer.
22
organizations or state government entities), that is willing and able
to: (a) process raw, or nearly raw, data, (b) provide basic training
in remote sensing applications to would be users, (c) make floppy
disks and/or CD ROMs of parts of a scene for local users, (d)
involve local users and students in ground truthing, (e) assist
colleges and high schools in setting up remote sensing programs, (f)
work out cooperative "boundary" agreements so that scenes that
straddle state lines are fully used, and (g) assist in setting up
electronic communications networks.
A consortia would be a group of data users, and potential users,
such as state and local government units, farm and conservation
groups, Indian tribes, and others, who need data but who cannot
use it effectively without expert help. The research results would
eventually become the joint property of the consortia and,
presumably, of the involved center of excellence.
To facilitate infrastructure, every research grant should be
accompanied by a node, or nodes, to an electronic communication
network involving NASA as a contributor and recipient of data.
A bureaucracy would not be necessary to service centers of
excellence. NASA can safely rely upon the self interest of centers
and participating elements of consortia to produce the organizational
features necessary in their regions. We are confident, after
numerous meetings and discussions with users, that the structures
suggested here can be readily organized by the users themselves.
(4) Seriously examine giving NASA jurisdiction over the
National Weather Service (NWS) and the National
Environmental Satellite Data and Information System
(NESDIS).
The Presidential Transition Team is entertaining proposals to move the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration out of the Department of
Commerce. Putting the National Weather Service and NESDIS under
NASA jurisdiction would substantially increase the applications culture at
NASA, which is a strong prerequisite to programmatic change.
This transfer is programmatically logical, as global climate change may
induce severe changes in worldwide and regional weather patterns.
Additionally, there is existing sentiment to consolidate all civilian satellite
resources in a single agency. Public education and information distribution
objectives would be served by use of the existing Weather Service
information distribution systems, that already reach from scientific research
to emergency services and into television, for selected purposes.
One immediate practical program change facilitated by this transfer could be
a daily stratospheric ozone index report, made through the Weather Service
to local television stations nationally, and perhaps world wide. The size and
location of the ozone hole, along with anticipated increased in UVL could be
provided to communities in real-time.
23
(5) Broaden the NASA science culture by better integrating
space scientists with federal, state, international, and non-
profit natural resource managers.
Techniques could include hiring more ecology scientists as NASA MPE
personnel, requiring NASA theoretical scientists to perform 2 years of duty
outside NASA in their applications field, and, requiring that NASA science
managers must perform one year of practical research every 5 years.
24
C. Establish a Department of State mandate to immediately improve
scientific literacy and access to state-of-the-art environmental
resource management information in the developing world.
Developing counties are at the threshold of repeating (and exceeding) the
environmental management mistakes of the developed world. The Clinton / Gore
Administration should assure that the leaders and resource managers of all
developing countries receive state-of-the-art data about changes in the Earth's
environment to start them down the road toward sustainable development with the
proper baseline of information. U.S. Fortune 500 corporations presently have
better access to data about many developing country's resources than do their own
governments, especially where there are no roads, personnel or equipment for
proper inventory. The U.S., along with other MPE participants, should build an
international infrastructure based on the best available information, to elevate the
developing world to the information level necessary for sustainable development.
Background:
Conservation efforts in the developing world have been seriously hampered by a
paucity of information on environmental changes within national territories. Natural
resource departments lack field personnel and have inadequate budgets to conduct
overflights. Some must rely on hearsay for information regarding events in remote
areas. In a number of African countries, natural resource departments lack reliable
maps of their own territory.
American environmental groups and universities who train resource managers in
developing countries strongly support the distribution of basic Landsat and other
Earth remote sensing hard copy maps on mylar (and other appropriate formats) that
can be used for years in outlying areas for many purposes. Conservation
International has distributed such maps, for example, with great success,
throughout South and Central America, limited only by the cost of the data.
Recommendation:
Providing Landsat and other satellite data in a variety of useful forms to the
natural resource agencies of underdeveloped nations, along with enough
training and technical assistance to enable them to use it on a routine basis,
would probably represent the most cost effective conservation directed
foreign assistance possible. Providing this indispensable tool to
underdeveloped nations should be a significant element of any global
conservation strategy.
25
D. Space Station statement.
The public interest community does not advocate a space station. However,
if one is built, it should be used only for environmental remote sensing that
cannot be accomplished by any other means (1) in a more cost effective
manner, and (2) in a manner that produces the best Earth science.
Space station cannot be justified on the basis of Earth observations, and
environmental groups do not advocate a space station. However, if a space
station is ultimately approved by the new Administration and Congress on grounds strictly
unrelated to Earth observations, the public interest community would likely advocate
maximizing station use for Earth observations that cannot be accomplished (1) in a more
cost effective manner by other programs (including consideration of whole life cycle costs),
and (2) in a manner that produces better Earth science and observations than any other
program.
###
26
BUILDING ENVIRONMENTAL LITERACY
AND CONSENSUS FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
THROUGH
NASA'S MISSION TO PLANET EARTH
CLINTON / GORE POLICY PROPOSALS
January 6, 1993
"If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could far better
judge what to do and how to do it."
Abraham Lincoln, June 1858.
'I did not understand what the United States was saying until I saw pictures of my country
from space. Madagascar is bleeding into the sea.'
Didier Ratsiraka, President of the Democratic Republic of Madagascar,
1992.
SUMMARY
Vice President Elect Al Gore wrote in Earth in the Balance,
"Mission to Planet Earth should be a Mission by the people of Planet
Earth specifically, involving as many countries as possible that will use
schoolteachers and their students to monitor the entire Earth daily..."
We agree. Mission to Planet Earth must be an open, broadly useful program
whose equal objectives are science, practical environmental resource
management applications, and the widest possible public education,
including improved environmental science literacy in all nations.
NASA must be much more aggressive in getting the information out to the people
about Earth science and environmental and global climate change, to help the Clinton / Gore
Administration build wide consensus for responsible stewardship of the planet and
sustainable development policies.
The enclosed proposals will help accomplish this objective because the
world responds to pictures of the Earth and data collected from space.
We propose changes primarily to existing NASA programs. 1 They have been reviewed
and agreed to by individual astronauts, state government and university researchers, and
public interest groups, including Conservation International, Friends of the Earth, the
Sierra Club, and representatives of the Nature Conservancy.
1 Coordination among federal government agencies must also be seriously examined, but is outside the
scope of this report.
1
TABLE OF CONTENTS
SUMMARY
1
TABLE OF CONTENTS
2
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
3
Policy Recommendations.
3
Program Recommendations
6
POLICY AND PROGRAM DESCRIPTIONS
9
Introduction
9
Program Detail
10
1.
Government personnel
10
Select a NASA Administrator, NASA Center directors,
Congressional Liaison Personnel, and National Space Council
staff who will make NASA Earth science and applications the top
agency priority.
2
Mobilize the unrealized potential of all existing space remote sensing
resources to guide global environmental policies and benefit the
public
11
A. National Emergency Satellite Observation System
11
B. Shuttle Environmental Monitoring and Education Program
12
C. Landsat and EOS Precursor Applications Program
14
D. Declassification of Satellite Data
15
E. Environmental Education Mandate for NASA
15
3.
Mobilize future policy and resources for maximum environmental
education and public benefit
18
A. Assure an Open Data Policy
18
B. Stronger Environmental Applications and Regional Benefits. 20
C. Environmental Literacy Mandate for the State Department
25
D. Space Station Statement
26
2
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
I.
POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS --
MISSION TO PLANET EARTH MUST BE DESIGNED TO
SERVE HUMANITY
Mission to Planet Earth (MPE) program design has been limited by Bush
Administration policies to serve theoretical science. To realize MPE's potential for
environmental protection and human betterment, the Clinton / Gore Administration
must make fundamental changes.
Policy Recommendations:
(1)
Choose NASA and White House Space Council leadership and
staff that will make NASA Earth science programs the top
NASA priority.
The new NASA Administrator must recognize the reality of the global
environmental crisis, and understand that the greatest contribution NASA
can make to future of humankind is helping to preserve the Earth.
Select Congressional Liaison Personnel who are committed to
Clinton / Gore policy on NASA Earth sciences. Designate a strong policy
oversight person at the National Space Council to assure proper
implementation of Administration priorities for MPE.
(2)
Use the space program as a strong environmental education
tool. Encourage NASA to aggressively distribute both existing and
forthcoming environmental data (Shuttle and satellite) as a high agency
priority. This should be done on an ongoing basis, through Earth Science
and public education programs, and the press.
(3)
Spread MPE data widely and systematically to all legitimate
users, including resource managers in federal, state and foreign
governments, public interest groups, universities, public libraries and
primary and secondary schools. This will serve practical natural resource
management objectives, and will improve environmental science literacy. It
can be accomplished through modifications to existing programs.
(4)
Establish a formal environmental applications program to
maximize practical use of satellite data for resource
management, with special emphasis on the needs of state
governments and resource managers.
Sensors in the EOS array are specifically designed to answer important
process questions about Earth as a working system. We recognize that
without TOMS 2 on the Nimbus 7 satellite, there could hardly have been a
Montreal Protocol. The need, however, extends beyond dedicated sensors
and pre-planned research.
2 Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer.
3
Research applications must focus particular attention on (1)
defining ecosystems and their characteristics, (2) serious
ecological problems, and (3) the regional impacts of
anticipated global climate change. Many important applications are
anticipated including: drought management, forest impacts, severely
changing storm patterns, coastal erosion, and other natural phenomena that
determine government economic planning. Regional environmental
modelling is essential to informed decision-making by states and smaller
countries as they plan their economic strategies. Current identification of
such applications is informal and ad hoc.
(5)
Formulate global environmental policy on the basis of existing
knowledge, including existing space derived data and EOS precursor
missions.
MPE must never be used to postpone necessary environmental protection
measures. Existing data must be quickly gathered, synthesized and
distributed to support actions that minimize risk in Earth science areas we do
not fully understand.
(6)
Address critical science and environmental impact issues early
in the MPE program.
Maintain the funding and schedules for those parts of NASA's
environmental satellite and information programs that precede the EOS
launch. These precursor satellites are scheduled for launch in the early
1990s, and offer opportunities to acquire essential data as soon as possible.
NASA should give the Earth Sciences programs adequate priority in its
overall budget to allow both (1) smaller or earlier environmental satellites,
with accompanying data acquisition and analysis, and (2) the EOS program.
If opportunities exist for early launch of smaller, relatively inexpensive
satellites that will provide key environmental or global change information,
these should be pursued as a priority.
(7)
Quietly systematize and accelerate the use of space data in
environmental enforcement policies.
Space-derived data has long been used in the enforcement of environmental
laws and agreements. In the 1970s, Landsat data was used to prove fault in
Great Lakes water pollution litigation, and to police illegal strip mining.
Skylab imagery together with aerial photography has tracked polluted water
plumes. NOAA satellite data has been shared with the Brazilian government
to police unpermitted forest burning and educate rural farmers.
In the last decade, the use of satellite data for enforcement has atrophied due
to commercialization policies and slack environmental law enforcement by
the Reagan and Bush Administrations. While some institutional reticence is
expected, all federal agencies with jurisdiction over environmental laws,
4
treaties and agreements should now be strongly encouraged to use space-
derived data in the full exercise of their duties, including enforcement. 3
Previous use of satellite data suggests that if a system were in place to
identify ecological and natural resource problems, and transmit timely
information to relevant regulators, at least some potentially disastrous
policies and activities might be identified and altered in time to avoid severe
ecological damage and enforce existing laws.
As increasingly sophisticated sensors are placed in orbit, and as military
satellites are made available for additional civilian missions, the potential for
using space-derived data for enforcing environmental laws and treaties will
increase.
3 From the time of Landsat 1, space derived data has demonstrated a capacity to resolve disputes. One
dramatic early example involves the African Sahel. In the early days of Landsat, scientists analyzing data
from the Sahel, which had been reduced ostensibly by drought -- to a veritable moonscape, encountered an
anomaly; an area of several hundred square miles, with sharply defined rectangular boundaries, that produced
a strong near infrared signal characteristic of vegetation. A visit to the site revealed a large, fenced enclave
maintained by a French ranching company that contained an isolated, intact ground cover of grass and
shrubs. This proved precisely what local scientists and observers had been saying; the loss of ground cover
across the Sahel was not caused by drought, although the overall dessification of the region is of climate
origin), but by ill-conceived technological intervention.
In the years preceding the disaster, U.N. agencies and U.S. AID drilled up to 1800 stock watering wells
across the Sahel belt, permitting seasonal nomads, who had previously been obliged to trail their herds
south out of the zone, to remain in the Sahel year round. Instead of 20 million cattle for 6 months each
year, the Sahel was soon supporting 80 million cattle annually. The natural checks against overgrazing
were bypassed, the equilibrium between the nomads and the land was shattered, and an ecological calamity
resulted, replete with human misery.
A second example from the early 1970s concerns a U.S. federal circuit court case, in which it was alleged
that asbestos laced taconite tailings discharged into Lake Superior were entering the Duluth, Minnesota
water system. The accused mills denied the allegation, but Landsat imagery defined plume tailings from the
Mesabi iron range extending south to the area of Duluth's water intakes. Landsat provided the definitive
evidence leading to a court victory for the plaintiffs, and an order limiting the discharge.
A third example is the use of the infrared sensor aboard NOAA 11 to identify unpermitted burning in remote
areas. The U.S., in cooperation with the Brazilian government, has established a system that can locate
illegal burning and transmit the information to local authorities in a matter of hours after its discovery from
space.
Finally, an anticipated example is the ability of the Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) to track seagoing
vessels. Even the single-band SARs currently aloft are able to "see" vessel wakes for several hours after a
ship has passed, and determine approximate vessel speed and class. Potentially, different kinds of vessels
will exhibit distinctive signatures. SAR is now being investigated as a means of enforcing fishing
regulations in the Bering Sea. It may be the most effective system available to locate "pirate fishing" by
use of drift nets; which have been banned under U.N. resolution. Evidence exists that Taiwan plans to
ignore the ban on a massive scale.
While systematic global monitoring with SAR may not become feasible until 1995, when Canada's
RADARSAT is launched with a swath width of 500 miles, there is great hope that the technology can be
useful, if not crucial, for fishing treaty and regulation enforcement. Enforcement by SAR could be
especially powerful if used with high resolution DOD sensors. SAR imagery will, and Shuttle mission
photography already provides the ability to track oil slicks from bilge-cleaning by vessels world wide.
5
II. PROGRAM RECOMMENDATIONS
INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE -- How to use space derived data for
maximum public service, public education, environmental monitoring and
conservation, and to establish international consensus for sustainable
development.
1.
Mobilize the unrealized potential of all existing space remote
sensing resources to guide global environmental policies and
benefit the public.
A.
Establish a National Emergency Satellite Observation
System, through which pictures and imagery of hurricanes, floods,
fires, etc (including a before and after time series) are systematically
provided in as near real time as possible to emergency response
teams.
B.
Formalize and expand a Space Shuttle Global
Environmental Monitoring Program.
Shuttle Earth observations are in full swing and can provide
important information to decision-makers and the public now. The
present informal Shuttle observation project should be made an
ongoing JSC program, with aggressive distribution of photographs
to the public, media and schools. Photographs should be highly
publicized in the press by the Administration, giving the people of
the world an "Earth Status Report" on environmental conditions
and activities around the world after each Shuttle mission.
Coordination between Shuttle observations and NASA Code S Earth
Sciences should be strongly encouraged; Shuttle data should be
incorporated in the global change baseline.
C.
Establish a Landsat and EOS Precursor Satellite
Environmental Applications Program.
Landsat should be used as the starting model for training federal,
state and local government, universities, foreign governments, non-
profit environmental research organizations and others how to use
satellite data to formulate sustainable development policies, in
preparation for EOS data. A grassroots user infrastructure should be
established. This will help assure maximum practical use of MPE
data, and help to avoid costly errors in the Global Change Data and
Information System (GCDIS), National Research Education
Network (NREN) and the Earth Observation Satellite Data and
Information System (EOS/DIS).
The national user infrastructure is currently SO far
behind information collection, that if the data stream
from EOS and other advanced satellites were available
today, widespread value would be slight. If we do not
develop this infrastructure, the new armada of Earth
viewing satellites will yield only a fraction of its
potential for planetary stewardship.
6
D.
Declassify as much environmentally useful data as
bonafide national security concerns will permit.
E.
Establish a strong Environmental Education Mandate in
the Mission to Planet Earth Program Office and throughout NASA.
Use existing information, as it is gathered and synthesized, in a
massive classroom environmental education program to teach Earth
System Science and our impact on the planet as they are now
understood, and involve school children in MPE research and
applications.
2.
Mobilize future policy and resources for maximum
environmental applications and public benefit.
A. Assure an Open Data Policy -- Environmental space-derived data
must be made low cost, user friendly and easily accessible for practical
applications to government resource managers and the public service
community.
Commercialization of raw or minimally processed data must be prohibited.
Commercialization should be stimulated through competitive value-added
services. "Open skies" policies must be strictly enforced.
The 1992 Landsat data policy process has established beyond rational
dispute that commercialization of unenhanced satellite data has
no place in a publicly financed remote sensing program such as
MPE. Informal studies found that the lower the cost of the unenhanced
data, the greater the overall demand, and the greater the public benefit.
The Administration should anticipate and firmly reject commercialization
proposals from the Landsat contractor and contractors for the MPE
information distribution systems.
B. Build stronger environmental applications and regional
benefits into MPE.
o
Serve the needs of the states to monitor and predict the rate of
regional global climate change and other environmental phenomena
by designing models that focus on regional impacts of global change
with the states, who manage most of the resources that will be
affected by climatic change. Include state resource scientists and
managers in MPE research and information distribution channels.
If existing data were made available to the states at the marginal cost
of reproduction, and the Landsat environmental applications
network were re-invented, state resource managers could get a head
start on the data bases necessary to determine regional environmental
climate change. It is possible that the network would be fully
operational in enough time to have adequately prepared the states for
a very advanced level of sophistication in EOS/DIS.
7
Systematically build an applications orientation in the
MPE program office.
(1)
Amend NASA's Charter to include a mandate for
applications in remote sensing.
(2)
Establish an advisory process to better identify anticipated
regional and environmental applications.
(3)
Start an Applications Branch in the Mission to Planet Earth
Program Office, and establish a formal applications
program, with a regional grassroots structure.
(4)
Seriously examine placing jurisdiction over the National
Weather Service (NWS) and the National Environmental
Satellite Data and Information System (NESDIS) at NASA.
Internalizing these programs would help NASA become
more applications oriented. The Weather Service also has an
established information distribution system that reaches both
the science community and the public, and could help get
information out to local communities.
(5)
Broaden the NASA science culture by better integrating
space scientists with federal, state, international, and non-
profit natural resource managers.
Hire more ecology scientists as NASA MPE personnel.
Require NASA theoretical scientists to perform 2 years of
duty outside NASA in their applications field, and, require
that NASA science managers must perform one year of
practical research every five years.
C.
Establish a Department of State mandate to immediately
improve scientific literacy and access to state-of-the-art
environmental resource management information in the
developing world, including space-derived data.
U.S. Fortune 500 corporations presently have better access to data about
many developing country's resources than do their own governments,
especially where there are no roads, personnel or equipment for proper
inventory. The U.S., along with other MPE participants, should build an
international infrastructure based on the best available information, to
elevate developing world leaders and natural resource managers to the
information level necessary for sustainable development.
D.
If a space station is approved on grounds strictly unrelated to
Earth sciences, maximize only the most cost effective
environmental remote sensing activities that can uniquely be
achieved through the program.
8
POLICY AND PROGRAM DESCRIPTIONS
POLICY AND PROGRAM DESCRIPTIONS
I. INTRODUCTION
Space images capture and focus the world's attention. The Administration should take the
lead to prepare humanity for sustainable development by systematically using the space
program as an environmental education and protection tool.
Basic information gathered by Mission to Planet Earth must be fully integrated into all
walks of life. Transformation of world attitude should occur from increased public
awareness combined with an improved understanding of Earth system science.
To accomplish these objectives, MPE must produce information equally for science,
practical applications for environmental resource management, the widest possible public
education, and improved environmental science literacy in all nations. 4
Information users must include: resource managers in the field, state and foreign
governments, environmental and conservation groups, universities, the press, the public,
children in the classroom, corporate interests, real estate developers, and the like.
Reaching these users will require a broadened, integrated MPE program, including: (1)
massive public education, (2) a wide information distribution system, and (3) a systematic
environmental applications focus.
A broad based approach to MPE will also help restore public confidence in the space
program by demonstrating the practical benefits of space-derived information, and
increasing return on taxpayer investment.
4 MPE is currently designed to serve research priorities established by the Committee on Earth and
Environmental Sciences (CEES). Practical resource management and education objectives have not been
methodically designed into the system. Public education efforts are fledgling. Public release of research
results and current Earth photography to a wide audience has been discouraged. To their credit, NASA MPE
program managers are now initiating an environmental applications program.
9
II. PROGRAM DETAIL
INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE -- How to use space-derived data for
maximum public service, public education, environmental monitoring and
conservation, and to establish international consensus for sustainable
development.
1. Government Personnel
A. Select a NASA Administrator and NASA Center directors who
will make NASA Earth science and applications the top agency
priority.
Since NASA's creation, science and practical applications of space technology have
always taken second place to exploration and the "manned" space program. While
the exploration of space is important for defense conversion, economic stabilization
and, to some extent, international cooperation, NASA's most immediate priority
must be to (1) speed its contribution to the U.S. global change research program,
and (2) maximize the practical applications of Mission to Planet Earth data for
global change mitigation, regional resource management and environmental
conservation.
We take no collective position on space station. However, cost effective Earth
observations should be strongly integrated into any "manned" program.
The new Administration must appoint a NASA Administrator who
recognizes the reality of the global environmental crisis, and
understands that the greatest contribution NASA can make to the
future of humankind is helping to preserve the Earth; using all
resources under NASA's jurisdiction.
It is equally important to appoint a new Administrator with the
strength and commitment necessary to overcome the inevitable
resistance of the NASA centers to MPE as a priority. NASA centers
have gradually acquired the characteristics of independent fiefdoms,
each with its own congressional and corporate protectors. This has
made it acutely difficult for central leadership to amend the agency's
mission or institute structural and cultural reforms.
B. Select Congressional Liaison Personnel who are committed to
Clinton /Gore policy on NASA Environmental Programs.
NASA congressional liaison has historically reflected the overall agency preference
for manned space, with an unfortunate perception that if MPE becomes the
agency's top priority, space station will be terminated. This prejudice has been true
at both management and line levels. Congressional liaison is a key point in
implementing the Vice President's policy priority for MPE.
C. Designate a strong policy oversight person at the National Space
Council to assure proper agency and congressional implementation of
Administration priorities for NASA Environmental Programs.
Experience with MPE policy dynamics over the last 4 years, together with
observations made of Admiral James Watkin's attempts to change the cultural
10
attitude at DOE from bomb production to reconfiguration and environmental clean-
up, indicate that if the Administration seriously intends to shift NASA agency
priorities to the environment, a counter-balancing force outside the agency is
absolutely necessary. Strong Space Council oversight will be necessary to
accomplish the Vice President's stated priorities for NASA environmental
programs.
2. Mobilize the unrealized potential of all existing space remote sensing
resources to guide global environmental policies and benefit the public.
A.
Establish a National Emergency Satellite Observation System.
Comprised of all federal agencies engaged in satellite and aircraft environmental and
observation activities,⁵ this system would, perhaps under Space Council control,
provide as near real-time information as possible to aid national and local
emergency response teams during hurricanes, oil spills, earthquakes, fires,
flooding, drought and other emergencies around the world. Before and after images
should be quickly provided to natural resource managers. Each appropriate satellite
owned by the U.S. government, and perhaps other governments, should be
focussed on the current worldwide emergency of the day. The existing defense
emergency satellite system should be examined as a model for this service. Program
planning may be as simple as broadening the definition of "national emergency" to
include natural and anthropogenic disasters.
To the extent possible considering national security concerns, before and after
results should also be shared immediately with non-profit group and academic
environmental researchers.
The Administration should search the potential for high resolution maps to be given
to local U.S. police for logistical support in 911 services in an ongoing program.
Rural Texas officials are especially interested in these applications due to the
difficulty of directing emergency vehicles in unfamiliar areas by dispatch.
5 Those agencies known to own or manage satellite observation systems include: NASA, National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Department of Defense, National Reconnaissance
Organization, and Central Intelligence Agency. The Department of Agriculture and the Department of
Interior use extensive aerial photography. The U.S. Geological Survey is an extensive user of both satellite
data and aerial photography, but operates no satellites.
11
B.
Formalize a Space Shuttle Global Environmental Monitoring
Program.
'Each Shuttle mission brings fresh evidence of human impact on the Earth.' 6
The Shuttle now monitors over 600 selected sites around the world, including
environmental, geological, atmospheric, oceanographic, and ephemeral events.
A normal Shuttle mission returns about 4,200 large format analog photographs and
several hundred digital images of Earth's environmental phenomena. Data are
digitized on return, then archived, catalogued, and made available to the public by
electronic access using Johnson Space Center (JSC) computer nodes. This program
provides the longest length record of orbital data (1961 - 1992) that is useful for
documenting and assessing global environmental change.
The Shuttle's Earth observations are in full swing, and can provide
important information to decision-makers and the public now. at a
crucial time for environmental policy. Its easy to understand
photography can vastly improve public understanding of global
environmental changes over the last 11 years. Using advanced electronics
and information systems, information can be passed to decision-makers around the
world quickly, in many cases in time to stop environmentally dangerous activities in
progress. The collective time series can also make a significant contribution to the
baseline for global change data.
NASA management has historically considered Shuttle Earth observations an
informal mission adjunct. Equipment upgrades have been made largely at the
expense of non-NASA agencies, including the Navy, Army and Department of
Defense.
Despite these restrictions, the Shuttle program has unique capabilities that are useful
for environmental monitoring and high profile environmental education.⁷
Recommendations:
(1) Formalize the Space Shuttle Earth Observations Program at
JSC, with science goals, in association with Code S at NASA
Headquarters (Earth Sciences) and a budget. Immediately reverse the
decision to close in the near future JSC's "Environmental Resource Satellite
Analysis Facility" (ERSAF the global monitoring, communications and
analysis facility for Shuttle photography).
6 Paraphrased from the video documentary entitled "Space Age: Mission to Planet Earth." Produced in
Association with the National Academy of Sciences and a Centerpiece of the International Space Year,
1992.
7 These include: uplink capability to an on-orbit crew, downlink capability of crew-acquired data; routine
stereo photography and imagery capability; demonstrated polarization and bi-directional reflectance (multi-
angle) imaging; routine multiple sun angle imaging; technically unlimited spatial resolution capability;
receipt of near real-time satellite data and Geographic Information System (GIS) information for identifying
Earth environmental conditions worldwide (volcanic eruptions, weather situations, flooding, tropical
cyclones, major fires and forest fires, oil spills, etc.) Shuttle missions monitor the entire globe in real-
time, using unmanned satellites to reconnaissance ahead of shuttle overpasses.
12
(2) Continue to place all Shuttle data in the public domain and significantly
improve awareness of its availability for wide public and resource
management use at the marginal cost of reproduction (consistent with
Landsat policy). Either NASA or the EROS Data Center should
aggressively distribute the data.
Assuming phase out of the Shuttle in the early 2000s, and termination of an
aggressive Shuttle Earth observations program, what photography program
to serve ongoing environmental education needs will replace it?
(3) Work Shuttle photography into a national grammar school and
high school curriculum to encourage technology, computer and
environmental literacy (see environmental education section), and produce
astronaut tutorial videos on Earth observations after each mission
for distribution to classrooms nationwide.
(4) After each Shuttle mission, the astronauts should conduct a widely
publicized press conference to make an ongoing "Earth Status
Report" based on observations made aloft, and using cumulative Shuttle
and other remote sensing data to show change detection. Many
astronauts are eager and prepared to participate in such a
program.
(5) Expand the number of scientists and ecologists in the Space Shuttle
Earth Observations Office at Johnson Space Center and choose JSC
leadership who will fully support this program.
(6) Establish summer internships for college students in the JSC
Astronaut and Earth Observations Offices for training in Earth observations
science.
(7) Continue to digitize and improve Shuttle Earth observation
data and mandate integration of the data into the Pathfinder baseline for
global change.
(8) Encourage NASA scientists to publish Shuttle research
results in accessible journals with wide distribution and in
magazines accessible to the common person.
13
C.
Establish a Landsat and EOS Precursor Satellite Environmental
Applications Program 8
Landsat should be used as the starting model for training federal, state and local
government, universities, foreign governments, non-profit environmental research
organizations and others how to use satellite data to formulate sustainable
development policies, in preparation for EOS data.
Landsat data is available now, and an infrastructure still exists around the country,
and to some extent, the world, that can use it. 9 EOS data, on the other hand, will
be much more voluminous and complex, and will come later in the decade. Landsat
data is also a substantial part of the baseline pathfinder data from which scientists
will measure global change. The lessons learned from maximizing the practical
applications of Landsat for public services / interest can be incorporated into the
Mission to Planet Earth data system design.
Landsat, then, is the natural precursor to achieving maximum practical use of
MPE/EOS data. NASA and other federal agencies should institute training
programs, through grants, centers of excellence, and the like, to renovate the
necessary infrastructure in federal and state government and in universities to assure
maximum use of MPE/EOS data for practical purposes. Distribution at the practical
management level will also help to bring resource management into the 20th
century. Many states, for example, are far behind in computerization.
8 A full-fledged applications program for EOS and all remaining MPE satellites would be substantially
similar to the Landsat applications program and be added later, as satellites are launched and specific
applications are determined. For a full applications program description, see "Build Stronger Environmental
Applications and Regional Benefits into MPE."
9 During the 1970s and early 1980s, NASA and other federal agencies promoted use of Landsat MSS and
other remote sensing data for practical applications, such as forestry and agriculture. Unfortunately, just at
the time an infrastructural base of sufficient size to nourish rapid growth of remote sensing technology had
been developed, and a more useful Earth observing sensor (Thematic Mapper) had been launched aboard
Landsat 5, the decision was made to commercialize Landsat.
The high price of data, in combination with the marketing approach of EOSAT (the unregulated commercial
monopoly established under the Land Remote Sensing Act of 1984 to market data) resulted in a precipitous
decline in the use of Landsat for academic research and conservation. The chief purchasers of Landsat data are
now federal agencies, especially DOD and NASA, and large corporations. Academic researchers, state natural
resource managers, local government planners, public interest conservationists and small businesses have
turned away from remote sensing in favor of older systems, such as aerial photography and ground based
methods. In some places (such as the University of Nebraska) radiometers and spectrometers have been
mounted on light planes. While research is continuing, and hundreds of new remote sensing applications
have been developed since commercialization of Landsat data in 1984, the remote sensing infrastructure
overall has seriously declined. Some universities that taught remote sensing a decade ago have dropped the
subject.
The 1992 Land Remote Sensing Policy Act, passed into law in October 1992, brought Landsat data back
into the public domain after a decade of failed commercialization. The price of data will now gradually
decline to the marginal cost of reproducing a scene (ultimately about $400 - $600 U.S.). With low cost,
easily available data, we have been given an important opportunity to rebuild the Landsat user infrastructure
that existed in the states during the 1970s, and use it for MPE data.
14
Background:
Every expert agrees there is vastly more information available in Landsat and other
Earth viewing satellites than we have learned to extract. This is especially true of the
SAR (JERS-1 and ERS-1), now aloft. National user infrastructure is so far
behind information collection, that if the data stream from EOS and
other advanced satellites were available today, widespread value
would be slight. If we do not develop this infrastructure, the new
armada of Earth viewing satellites will yield only a fraction of its
potential for planetary stewardship.
There is no reason to expect that an infrastructure sufficient to accommodate
expanding demand will develop spontaneously during the during the interim
transition period before Landsat 7's launch. If we are to grasp the potential value to
conservation of the advanced instruments planned for Landsat 7, the planned EOS
and EOS precursor satellites, and all existing satellite resources, it will be necessary
for NASA and other federal agencies to rebuild and expand the civilian remote
sensing infrastructure through a vigorous remote sensing applications program.
By rebuilding a user infrastructure around existing satellites, we will be better
equipped to utilize information from EOS, Landsats 7 and 8, RADARSAT, and
Almaz 2. Experience with existing AVHRR data is essential to using MODIS
effectively for applications.
D.
Declassify as much environmentally useful data as bonafide
national security concerns will permit.
Where possible, intelligence satellite environmental data should be de-classified and
incorporated into the on-line Landsat distribution and applications system.
Where de-classification is not possible, a national interpretive center should be
instituted to share research and observation results for public purposes. (Perhaps
modelled on the National Photographic Interpretive Center.)
E.
Establish a Strong Environmental Education Mandate in the
MPE Program Office and throughout NASA. 10
Use existing information, as it is gathered and synthesized, to begin
a massive classroom environmental education program that
documents our impact on the planet as it is now understood, and
involve school children in MPE research and applications.
Environmental, scientific and technological literacy can be improved through
classroom use of space photography and satellite data about the local and global
environment. MPE should promote "hands on" student experiences in a strong
environmental education program. By doing this, NASA can change the way our
future leaders view the Earth.
10 See also Shuttle program section.
15
Vice President Gore's proposal to use schoolchildren around the world for "ground
truthing" satellite data can actually assist global change researchers and is
now in process. 11
Knowing the condition of the environment at the time satellites record the
reflectance of ground features is important. An interactive educational curriculum
can be easily developed to incorporate ground truthing principles with "hands on"
computer applications.
Student involvement is uncomplicated. A remote sensing GIS training program is
currently underway in South Carolina, directly involving secondary school
students in practical research of the Congaree Swamp, including ground truthing,
manipulation of remote sensing data on personal computers, and interpretation of
aerial photography.
In Maine, 7th and 8th graders are learning to manipulate SPOT Image data on
MacIntosh computers, identifying wetlands, ground cover types and endangered
species habitat. The imaged sites are visited to truth their conclusions, and "close
the gap" between computer screens and the natural world. Through these programs,
students are also becoming familiar with map making science, problem solving,
and on site investigations.
Such programs enrich the minds of youth, and provide an indispensable educational
substrate for development of the kind of ecologically oriented remote sensing
infrastructure that will be necessary if remote sensing is to provide answers to the
critical policy questions of global change in the coming decades. 12
Recommendations:
(1) NASA should substantially enlarge its environmental education
programs in primary and secondary schools by providing training and
educational grants for integrated remote sensing projects with
focus on practical applications. Ultimately, this program should be
established in every primary and secondary school in the country.
11 The Aspen Institute at the Windstar Foundation in Colorado has instituted hands-on remote sensing
curricula, and has trained teachers from 32 states. These efforts should be supported and expanded throughout
the country and in foreign nations.
12 A problem that constantly evades school administrators and research scientists is the inability to take
conventional research and apply it to instructional K through 12 problem solving exercises. Innovative
curriculum programs must be developed to catch student attention and let them interactively experience what
data are required for making real world decisions; such as balancing economic development and
environmental protection.
To be successful, the student must first become familiar with computer technology and remote sensing
applications through the use of data sets that examine their state or local community. Much of these data
are currently available to the public through the U.S. Geological Survey and state agencies. Once remote
sensing concepts are learned by interpreting familiar and easy-to-visit study sites, student knowledge and
newly acquired capabilities can be extrapolated to study sites located in other geographic regions of the U.S.
and the world. For example, both South Carolina and Nebraska have a Sand Hills Physiographic region.
Students in South Carolina study the historical, economic, geographic, environmental and land use concepts
of this region and then determine how the Sand Hills in the two states differ.
16
(2) NASA employees and principal investigators must be
available to schools for demonstrations and the development of data to
be used with school computer technology.
(3) NASA should integrate its educational programs with other
agencies
0
Environmental remote sensing studies, including ground truth
activities, should be made required science in primary and
secondary schools across the nation as quickly as possible. A
national interactive global change research curricula
should be established. NASA scientists and astronauts should be
encouraged to tutor in Earth science through classroom visits,
video tutorials and on-line computer communications.
o
Preparation and dissemination of more educational videos (in
numerous languages) should be made. Special effort should be
made to supply hard copy remote sensing images, Shuttle Earth
photography, (and eventually floppy disks or CD ROMs) of
particular regions to libraries within those regions. NASA should
make such materials available nation wide through the GPO
Federal Depository Library Program and the National
Cartographic Information Centers.
o
Environmental education programs should be continually
upgraded at the National Air and Space Museum and in
space and technology museums and public display
centers (eg., Park Service information centers) around the country,
and abroad (e.g., through U.S. Information Agency Centers). 13
During Shuttle missions, Earth observation downlinks should be
made to major museums around the country and the world for an
integrated on-site learning program.
(4) NASA should encourage one-on-one relationships between high school
students and agency Earth scientists in an "Environmentors" program,
similar to the national "Big Brothers" program. This will both
shepherd career development in Earth sciences and help to make the NASA
Earth science culture more applications oriented.
(5) An Earth science education specialist should be assigned to the
National Space Council, and to the offices of the new Administrator to
elevate the public education component of Mission to Planet
Earth.
13 Shuttle photography has already been distributed to and is on display at the U.S. National Park Service
Visitors Centers at the Grand Canyon and Mount St. Helens National Parks, and at the Florissant Fossil
Beds National Monument.
17
3. Mobilize future policy and resources for maximum environmental
applications and public benefit.
A. Assure an Open Data Policy.
Environmental Space Derived Data must be low cost, user friendly
and easily accessible to the public service community.
Commercialization of raw or minimally processed data must be
prohibited. Commercialization should be stimulated through
competitive value-added services. "Open skies" policies must be
strictly enforced.
The recent Landsat data policy process has established beyond rational dispute that
commercialization of unenhanced satellite data has no place in a
publicly financed remote sensing program. Informal studies found that the
lower the cost of the unenhanced data, the greater the overall demand, and the
greater the public benefit. 14
Landsat and other EOS precursor satellites, such as Upper Atmospheric Research
Satellite (UARS), and SEAWIFs, have commercial or hybrid data policies that
prevent publicly financed data from immediately entering the public domain. To the
extent practicable, these policies should be changed and the research results
incorporated into a public domain applications program. Due to existing contract
and licensing agreements, this may be difficult with UARS and SEAWIFS.
In no case should commercialization policies in any form be repeated
for planned MPE satellites, despite anticipated industry efforts to the
contrary. The Administration should expect continuing
commercialization proposals from the Landsat contractor and
contractors for the MPE EOS/DIS system.
Recommendations:
MPE/EOS data policy should --
(1) Anticipate and firmly reject efforts by contractors to
commercialize and privatize publicly financed environmental
space remote sensing data. All such data should immediately
enter and remain in the public domain.
(2) Assure that the data is available in a timely, user-friendly
fashion to practical end users. This data must be available on-line through
personal computers to state based natural resource managers from the onset
14 Well documented research shows a drastic drop in use of Landsat upon a price increase and
commercialization in 1984. Informal surveys taken during the 1992 Landsat policy debate indicate that
university researchers would use the data significantly more at lower cost. These sentiments were echoed
unanimously by major U.S. environmental groups and over 15 state governments, (including Texas,
California, Nebraska, Maryland, Florida, South Carolina, Tennessee, New York, Ohio, Kansas, Oregon,
Vermont, Wyoming, Missouri and Alaska.) Dr. Robert Jenkins, Vice President for Science at The Nature
Conservancy, estimated that TNC would use Landsat data up to 50 times more if it were available at the
marginal cost of reproduction ($500 per scene). Jenkins' sentiments were echoed in varying degrees by
Conservation International, Wilderness Society, and others.
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of the Global Change Data and Information System (GCDIS), National
Research Education Network (NREN) and the Earth Observation Satellite
Data and Information System (EOS/DIS).
(3) Assure that the unenhanced data is available at the marginal cost of
reproduction to all users, so long as they are willing to share research
results in a timely manner with other researchers. Exclusive marketing
rights should never be given to a commercial entity.
(4) Nurture and encourage the commercial growth of the value-added and
software services that can aid in making MPE/EOS data-user friendly to
non-global change environmental researchers and other end users. Where
necessary, the federal government can stimulate the commercial
value-added sector by commissioning the development of user
friendly software that helps to accomplish U.S. public education,
foreign policy and intergovernmental relations objectives.
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B. Build stronger environmental applications and regional benefits
into MPE.
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Building an applications orientation.
Potential remote sensing users often complain that sensors are designed for
specialized research, with little thought given to practical applications. Early in the
design process, NASA should begin to consider which general and regional
applications an instrument might serve. It should be especially alert to ways to
increase the sensor's capacity for practical applications without compromising its
basic research mission.
Once the satellite is launched, NASA should hold periodic workshops to determine
which applications each sensor has served, and to consider additional applications,
based on the experience compiled.
A major reason the public receives so few practical benefits from space-derived data
(other than information generated by weather satellites), is that public service users
are largely excluded from the decisions governing both sensor and program design.
If MPE is a program for the people, then, as Justice Brandeis wrote, "Sunlight is
the best disinfectant."
Thus, it is extremely important that public service users be provided real input to the
satellite design and policy formulation process.
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Designing models and applications that focus on regional
impacts of global change.
States need to predict regional impacts of global climate change.
Mission to Planet Earth will have minimal use to policy makers unless state
resource managers, who directly manage most of the nation's agricultural and
coastal lands, and waterways can access information that can be used to predict
regional impacts and their rates, in time to plan mitigation and adaptation measures.
One of the most important reasons for studying and monitoring global climate
change is to determine its regional consequences. For example, will the state of
California continue to be a major agricultural producer over the next 25 years, or
will drought continue to be so severe that the U.S. should consider growing
vegetables and fruit further north? What land use policies are necessary now to
preserve these options? How will sea level rise affect coastlines and impact coastal
land use policy? In regions dependent on hydroelectric power, will there be enough
water in 20 years to sustain power grids for anticipated local population growth?
State resource scientists and managers should be included in the MPE
research and information distribution channels, beginning with all
existing satellites, and continuing through the life of the program.
As mentioned, NASA, together with state governments previously built resource
management infrastructures with federally funded satellite information systems
when Landsat data was used widely used in the 1970s.
An extensive environmental applications network was built through the outreach of
NASA and its regional centers. This program included hands-on training programs
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for state resources personnel. As a result, Landsat was extensively applied to state
level management and environmental monitoring. Resource management was
initiated into the information age. 15
If existing data were made available to the states at the marginal cost
of reproduction, and the Landsat environmental applications network
were re-invented, state resource managers could get a head start on
the data bases necessary to determine regional environmental climate
change. It is possible that the network would be fully operational in
enough time to have adequately prepared the states for a very
advanced level of sophistication in EOS/DIS.
Recommendations:
(1) Amend NASA's Charter to include a mandate for
Applications.
While NASA's charter limits the agency's mandate to technology
demonstration rather than applications, it is clear that unless some (or all)
government agencies are charged with maximizing the applications of the
vast taxpayer investment in space and satellite technology, the societal
improvements the public expects from technology will continue to be lost
and the quality of environmental analysis will remain substandard. Perhaps
the most simple way to initiate a cultural change at NASA for applications is
to mandate the responsibility by statute.
(2) Establish an advisory process to better identify anticipated
regional and environmental applications.
NASA is establishing a broadly based Landsat advisory committee of
remote sensing experts and users, including qualified representatives from
state and local government, American Indian Tribes, conservation and farm
groups, the value added sector, and academic experts. The advisory
committee should be kept fully informed on all technical and policy
proposals affecting applications and information distribution. Decisions
affecting applications should not be made before the committee has been
consulted, and has the opportunity to respond. This committee should be
expanded to consider applications for all MPE satellites.
15 Landsat has been used by state governments for (partial listing): flood hazard mapping; fire hazard
evaluation; land use, water use, and water quality analysis; mapping of natural features, models for energy
use, groundwater protection; air quality monitoring; tracking of natural habitats adjacent to agricultural areas
to protect endangered species; siting toxic waste incinerators; timber conditions; timber supply projections;
wildlife habitat suitability analysis; wild land conversion to urban and agricultural land use; range
conditions, hardwood monitoring, vegetation cover, forest land habitat and rangeland residue mapping; fuel
loading cartography; vegetation change detection; wilderness mapping; general cartography under contract
to other government agencies; sediment transport along coastlines; sediment discharges from coastal
streams; shoreline and land use changes; growth management and land use policy analysis.
During the 1970s, Landsat was running continually, feeding back data as changes in the environment
occurred. Under the commercialization act of 1984, the satellite was only turned on at the request of
commercial purchasers for specific geographic locations, and much continuity of data for environmental
management was lost.
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(3) Start an Applications Branch in the MPE program office,
and establish an applications program.
The Mission to Planet Earth Program office is establishing an environmental
applications branch. This effort should be approved, nurtured and
expanded to become a key characteristic of MPE.
There are many thousands (by one estimate up to 80,000) of public service
users and would be users of remote sensing data in the U.S. who have
derived little or no benefit from remote sensing activities since the early
1980s. While federal agencies have largely ignored this community, the
commercial entity set up to market Landsat data has actively victimized it.
An active applications program can can confer major public benefits at
comparatively modest costs, and establish an infrastructure to help carry out
global change research.
The program can produce maximum public benefit per dollar
expended if:
it is nationwide, eventually involving every state in the Union, and
is focused on critical international problems as well,
a wide spectrum of users participate in the program. These
should include academic institutions, state agencies, local
government units, farm groups, conservation and environmental
groups, public schools and so on,
the involved interests have direct "hands on" participation in
the research being funded,
the data and research results obtained and generated are useful in a
direct, immediate and practical way, to the interests involved,
the program builds a lasting technical infrastructure as it
proceeds, including coordinating centers and a communications
network that can serve program, policy and technical functions, and,
a deliberate effort is made to integrate applications research
and infrastructure development with Mission to Planet Earth
research and related satellite functions.
Program Description:
A national applications program should be built around universities
and other institutions with strong expertise in remote sensing, who
form centers of excellence¹⁶ to carry out research and training on
behalf of user consortia.
A center of excellence would be an existing institution with a "track
record" in remote sensing (for example, universities, non-profit
16 These centers of excellence would be distinct from and should not be confused with NASA Centers of
Excellence in technology transfer.
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organizations or state government entities), that is willing and able
to: (a) process raw, or nearly raw, data, (b) provide basic training
in remote sensing applications to would be users, (c) make floppy
disks and/or CD ROMs of parts of a scene for local users, (d)
involve local users and students in ground truthing, (e) assist
colleges and high schools in setting up remote sensing programs, (f)
work out cooperative "boundary" agreements so that scenes that
straddle state lines are fully used, and (g) assist in setting up
electronic communications networks.
A consortia would be a group of data users, and potential users,
such as state and local government units, farm and conservation
groups, Indian tribes, and others, who need data but who cannot
use it effectively without expert help. The research results would
eventually become the joint property of the consortia and,
presumably, of the involved center of excellence.
To facilitate infrastructure, every research grant should be
accompanied by a node, or nodes, to an electronic communication
network involving NASA as a contributor and recipient of data.
A bureaucracy would not be necessary to service centers of
excellence. NASA can safely rely upon the self interest of centers
and participating elements of consortia to produce the organizational
features necessary in their regions. We are confident, after
numerous meetings and discussions with users, that the structures
suggested here can be readily organized by the users themselves.
(4) Seriously examine giving NASA jurisdiction over the
National Weather Service (NWS) and the National
Environmental Satellite Data and Information System
(NESDIS).
The Presidential Transition Team is entertaining proposals to move the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration out of the Department of
Commerce. Putting the National Weather Service and NESDIS under
NASA jurisdiction would substantially increase the applications culture at
NASA, which is a strong prerequisite to programmatic change.
This transfer is programmatically logical, as global climate change may
induce severe changes in worldwide and regional weather patterns.
Additionally, there is existing sentiment to consolidate all civilian satellite
resources in a single agency. Public education and information distribution
objectives would be served by use of the existing Weather Service
information distribution systems, that already reach from scientific research
to emergency services and into television, for selected purposes.
One immediate practical program change facilitated by this transfer could be
a daily stratospheric ozone index report, made through the Weather Service
to local television stations nationally, and perhaps world wide. The size and
location of the ozone hole, along with anticipated increased in UVL could be
provided to communities in real-time.
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(5) Broaden the NASA science culture by better integrating
space scientists with federal, state, international, and non-
profit natural resource managers.
Techniques could include hiring more ecology scientists as NASA MPE
personnel, requiring NASA theoretical scientists to perform 2 years of duty
outside NASA in their applications field, and, requiring that NASA science
managers must perform one year of practical research every 5 years.
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C. Establish a Department of State mandate to immediately improve
scientific literacy and access to state-of-the-art environmental
resource management information in the developing world.
Developing counties are at the threshold of repeating (and exceeding) the
environmental management mistakes of the developed world. The Clinton / Gore
Administration should assure that the leaders and resource managers of all
developing countries receive state-of-the-art data about changes in the Earth's
environment to start them down the road toward sustainable development with the
proper baseline of information. U.S. Fortune 500 corporations presently have
better access to data about many developing country's resources than do their own
governments, especially where there are no roads, personnel or equipment for
proper inventory. The U.S., along with other MPE participants, should build an
international infrastructure based on the best available information, to elevate the
developing world to the information level necessary for sustainable development.
Background:
Conservation efforts in the developing world have been seriously hampered by a
paucity of information on environmental changes within national territories. Natural
resource departments lack field personnel and have inadequate budgets to conduct
overflights. Some must rely on hearsay for information regarding events in remote
areas. In a number of African countries, natural resource departments lack reliable
maps of their own territory.
American environmental groups and universities who train resource managers in
developing countries strongly support the distribution of basic Landsat and other
Earth remote sensing hard copy maps on mylar (and other appropriate formats) that
can be used for years in outlying areas for many purposes. Conservation
International has distributed such maps, for example, with great success,
throughout South and Central America, limited only by the cost of the data.
Recommendation:
Providing Landsat and other satellite data in a variety of useful forms to the
natural resource agencies of underdeveloped nations, along with enough
training and technical assistance to enable them to use it on a routine basis,
would probably represent the most cost effective conservation directed
foreign assistance possible. Providing this indispensable tool to
underdeveloped nations should be a significant element of any global
conservation strategy.
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D. Space Station statement.
The public interest community does not advocate a space station. However,
if one is built, it should be used only for environmental remote sensing that
cannot be accomplished by any other means (1) in a more cost effective
manner, and (2) in a manner that produces the best Earth science.
Space station cannot be justified on the basis of Earth observations, and
environmental groups do not advocate a space station. However, if a space
station is ultimately approved by the new Administration and Congress on grounds strictly
unrelated to Earth observations, the public interest community would likely advocate
maximizing station use for Earth observations that cannot be accomplished (1) in a more
cost effective manner by other programs (including consideration of whole life cycle costs),
and (2) in a manner that produces better Earth science and observations than any other
program.
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