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Future Use of Space Data by USDA

While the Department recognizes the potential value of satellite data, and is committing substantial resources to research, development, and testing, it has made no commitments to operational use of the data. The future of the application of space-acquired data in the Department's programs will to a great extent be established by the multiagency coordinated research, development, and testing program which is now being planned. This program was briefly described earlier in the statement. Therefore, it is too early to make definitive statements about what a future space system would look like, and who would operate it. However, we can make the following general observations:

o Satellites, alone, are not likely to produce information which is usable by the Department. The satellite data must be analyzed in conjunction with data acquired from other sources. These would include data on weather, climate, and historical trends, attache reports, maps, soil information, field surveys, census data, trade journal, and other kinds of remotely sensed data. Thus, we view satellites as potentially valuable providers of repetitive and unbiased data which can be integrated into our information systems.

o Landsats-C and D, while primarily experimental satellite systems, will provide repetitive digital data which can be delivered in near-real time, and will be capable of supporting some operational applications. This gives us the opportunity to learn as much as we can about the value of satellites to the Department.

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O In the short term, we believe that the biggest potential payoff from satellites will be in assessing the condition and production potential for foreign crops. For many foreign areas, our current information is inadequate or is received too late to be of maximum use. Data from Earth resources and meteorological satellites could be used in developing early warnings of events which may affect the total production of important world crops, and in after-the-fact assessments of the impact of these events.

O Other areas where satellite data can probably be used are in forest resource inventorying and monitoring, general land use inventories and change detection, soils association mapping, and monitoring and predicting water runoff. No doubt many other applications will surface as as technology advances and analysis techniques are developed.

The

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Your invitation to contribute my thoughts about future space programs to the
Science and Technology Committee is greatly appreciated. It is a complicated
subject, and my thoughts have evolved somewhat since answering a similar re-
quest of the Subcommittee on Science and Applications in July of 1975.
general subject will merit continuing dialogue into the indefinite future.
will summarize my viewpoints at this point in time, and sincerely hope that
they will be of use to you and your committee. My thoughts, although stimu-
lated by many conversations throughout the years with colleagues in all parts
of our space program, represent my own conclusions. In particular, they
should not be interpreted in any way as an official Lockheed Missiles and
Space Company position.

My comments 2 years ago were organized around three regions of space ... earth orbit, the solar system, and stellar. I now believe that our thinking can be better clarified by reducing the regions to only two ... the solar system and the stellar universe.

I do not plan to address the familiar missions which have been given such constant attention by many people in our business. The unmanned Landsats, Seasats, Comsats, etc., have obviously high utility and are worthwhile endeavors for the human race. Pioneers, Vikings, Voyagers, etc., are doing the same good job in planetary exploration. This discussion will concentrate, rather, on future program possibilities which may not be so familiar.

THE PRIME CRITERIA

The prime criteria for future space programs should remain what it has always
been widely quoted to be ... for the benefit of all mankind. The space program
is capable of benefitting mankind in a way that no other human endeavor can,
for only space can remove the limitations placed on the human race by the fact
that it has existed from the beginning on only one planet.

The potential contribution of space activities to our society is enormous.
The doomsayers have been attempting to envelope the earth in a massive layer
of reduced human expectations based on what they presume to be the fundamental

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fact that this one planet is all that the human race will ever have. This is obviously fallacious. We can have the whole solar system in the readily forseeable future. Placing the entire solar system at the disposal of the human race should now be our unifying space goal.

THE SOLAR SYSTEM

The solar system contains a source of energy and a manufacturing environment in the near vicinity of earth which form a basis for a whole new industrial complex which can remove the pollution of current industry from the planet. Probably more importantly in the long run, it can also produce a wide variety of new products which simply cannot be reproduced on the surface of a 1 g planet with an atmosphere. Further away, first at the moon, and then at the other planets, their moons and the asteroid belt, are vast quantities of resources which can be made available for our use.

We should recognize that we live in a solar system which can be extremely
beneficial to supplying the physical needs of the human race.
It can, I
believe, also supply the spiritual uplift which seems to have been missing
recently from the human race. Two scorpions forever sealed in a bottle is
no way to live and is not our perpetual doom. We have the means to smash
the bottle. We should become creatures not just of earth, but of the solar
system.

The advantage of using the goal of solar system utilization to solidify our space program thinking is that it provides a quasi-permanent basis for performing trade-offs of immediate program objectives. Our unmanned probes already reach throughout the solar system. They are too slow, but we have the knowledge to make transportation systems of high capacity which could handle our needs throughout the system. Reaching even the nearest of the other stars, however, presents awesome technological challenges which we cannot presently solve. We can lay hands on the entire solar system surrounding our star. We can only reach for the other stars with telescopes.

Some of the trade-offs are stimulating. Some want to colonize L-5 with man-made habitats because of population pressures. Perhaps, instead, we should start space industrialization operations and let the habitants grow routinely as an adjunct. Space habitants, as I pointed out in 1975, are about 10 million times more effective, weightwise, than a planet the size of Earth as a living area for humans.

Although as a spaceship supporting the human race, Earth is an inferior system design, this is because of its huge mass, and that mass means resources. If we choose to get resources from other planets, we may decide to inhabit them, and transform them with planetary engineering. In the process, we should learn enough to make at least Venus, Mars and Earth all beautiful human habitats. The only way to compare the relative desirability of artificial habitats with planetary engineering is in a total solar system context. can only make such program choices rationally if we have an overall goal which is not likely to change. The goal of placing the solar system at mankind's disposal has the promise both of being a stable objective of

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centuries duration, and at the same time providing a basis for selection among immediate program objectives.

DEFINING MANKIND

Progress has been made in the direction of utilizing space for the benefit of all mankind. Even 80, the space program still frequently acts as if all mankind consists only of fighter pilots, scientists, and perhaps a few scientific technicians. These are the special interest groups which have been created by the first two decades of manned space flight. It is still my contention, as it was in 1975, that the Shuttle should never go into orbit with an empty seat. The Shuttle is being designed with room for six passengers as well as a crew of four. The general view is that passengers will only be carried as needed, and that all will be either scientists or technicians which may be required to run the experiments. The Shuttle should never fly with these extra seats empty, however, except in those rare occasions when it carries the maximum weight of payload aboard. The weight of six extra people is miniscule compared to the total weight being carried to orbit.

The sooner that all segments of the human race are able to fly in space, the sooner they will start to use it to solve their problems. Means should be found to fill the empty seats with technicians from all industry, with people involved in our mental well-being (philosophers, artists and the like), with news media, with budget analysts, and even Congressmen. Everyone deserves a first hand look at space so that it can become truly for the benefit of all mankind and not simply for those groups considered appropriate by the current space bureaucracy.

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The following is quoted directly from my 1975 letter to the Subcommittee:
"Every means should be used to stimulate space industry.
has been very common in the past for many nations, including
our own, to start industries and protect them, usually by
tariff structures, until they could stand on their own two
feet. It is highly probable that a number of companies today
would be perfectly willing to pay their share of Shuttle rides
to orbit in order to be able to run experiments which might
establish them in the space manufacturing business. There is
no provision at the moment, however, for the protection of their
proprietary rights. In fact, there is a strong element which
tends to discourage them, on the basis that the American
taxpayer has paid for the space program and no special interest
should profit by it. This attitude, however, is not the way
that nations traditionally stimulate their own industries.
should address ourselves to providing equitable arrangements
whereby the private sector of the economy could invest in space
as it chose. This is very much in the American tradition, and
if such arrangements were pursued with vigor and fairness, the
amount of space activity that would be stimulated in the private
sector might be surprising."

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Substantial progress has been made in the past 2 years. It is gratifying

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