Exploring the Unknown - NASA's History Office

EXPLORING THE UNKNOWN 167
the determination of several elements of the administration and Congress to follow
through on their program commitments.
4. Maintaining close international cooperation. Cooperating with EUMETSAT and in time
possibly other nations in operating a fleet of operational environmental satellites
poses additional challenges for the three agencies. EUMETSAT policies and funding
mechanisms will continue to be driven by the needs, philosophies, and funding mechanisms
of its member weather organizations, which are likely to be different than
those of the IPO. Maintaining the system and high-quality data delivery over time will
require continued flexibility on the part of the IPO in negotiating system upgrades.
Adding additional organizations to the system will further complicate such negotiations,
although this could increase system capability and further reduce U.S. costs.
Despite these challenges, the attempt to consolidate NOAA’s and DOD’s meteorological
programs is more likely to succeed than past efforts because of the confluence of
several factors. First, continuing pressures to maintain reduced agency budgets will
encourage agency officials to continue to seek program efficiencies. Cost savings are also
an important factor in resolving possible frictions among congressional oversight and
appropriations committees over programmatic aspects of the converged system. Second,
earlier plans by NOAA and DOD to upgrade both the DMSP and POES instruments and
spacecraft shortly after the turn of the century will support technical convergence. Third,
the changed international security environment will cause DOD analysts and managers to
continue to moderate their historical objection to shared military-civilian systems. In addition,
the opportunity to involve EUMETSAT and perhaps other nations or organizations
in providing environmental data could further reduce overall program costs. Finally,
including NASA explicitly in the partnership provides the opportunity to plan ongoing
innovation and the transition of research instruments built in support of NASA’s Earth
Science activities to operational status for the converged system.
Earth Resource Satellites
Earth resource satellites suffered many of the same kinds of controversies in their
transition from research to operations as meteorological satellites, with worse results. Part
of the tension over this transition resulted from worries about whether a program to collect
images of the Earth for civilian purposes would threaten the secrecy surrounding
DOD’s reconnaissance satellite programs. Another more important source of difficulty
was a fragmented data user community; the images taken from Earth resource satellites
were useful for geologists, hydrologists, agricultural scientists, city and regional planners,
geographers, and people from other disciplines. Yet, a system serving all these disciplines
was unable to meet the needs of any one extremely well. Even within the federal government,
two agencies with different interests, the Department of the Interior and the
Department of Agriculture, sought to shape the program. Another problem was that
Earth resource satellite projects started later than meteorological satellites. With a first
launch in 1972, the Earth resource satellite program began only after enthusiasm for
Apollo had waned; at this point, NASA’s budget was subject to much more intense scrutiny
from the Office of Management and Budget and Congress.
Research Program