Exploring the Unknown - NASA's History Office

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OBSERVING THE EARTH FROM SPACE
to apply the data, then the project would not bring the benefits promised. 57 [II-25]
NASA therefore became involved not only in promoting the use of Landsat data, but
also in supporting research to develop approaches to their use. One major project
involved agricultural surveys, because better prediction of harvests was one use of Landsat
data that the space agency had predicted would bring significant benefits. 58 The Large
Area Crop Inventory Experiment (LACIE) involved NASA, the National Weather Service,
and the Department of Agriculture in an attempt to develop and test a crop forecasting
system using Landsat data. The data, it was claimed, could provide two things: information
on how much land had been planted in a given crop (assuming one could differentiate
among crops in the data) and information on crop health (because badly stressed
vegetation reflected less infrared light). The project achieved reasonable success, but the
problem of identifying and differentiating crops from satellite imagery turned out to be
much more difficult than expected. 59 [II-26] Furthermore, the Department of Agriculture
chose not to adopt the system developed by the LACIE project for operational use. 60
Several other experiments were more successful, but use of Landsat data for operational
applications continued to develop more slowly than its promoters had hoped. 61 A NASAsponsored
technology transfer and utilization program involving universities, state and
local governments, and industry could not reverse this reality.
Operational Landsat Program
The development of an operational program became the subject of a series of political
debates. Different groups proposed at least three different alternatives. First, the federal
government could develop an operational Earth resources program on the model of
the operational weather satellite program, providing satellite data for the public good.
Second, a private company might take over the existing Landsat system and run it as a
business, an option usually called privatization. Third, a private company might develop
and launch a new and separate Earth observations satellite, an option usually called commercialization.
Despite the somewhat disappointing growth of Landsat data use, the Department of
the Interior wanted an early transition to a government-sponsored operational satellite
program, but the agency faced a number of obstacles. [II-27] First, the Office of
Management and Budget questioned whether Landsat had yielded enough benefits to justify
a continued government-funded program. 62 [II-28] This issue posed a dilemma: poten-
57. James C. Fletcher to Frank E. Moss, February 20, 1973; Hans Mark to Clifford E. Charlesworth, July
31, 1973; William E. Stoney to Distribution, “Summary Thoughts on Earth Resources Transfer Meeting,” June
27, 1975. All of these documents are in the Space Policy Institute Documentary History Collection, Washington,
DC.
58. Carroll G. Grunthaver, U.S. Department of Agriculture, to Leonard Jaffe, Deputy Associate
Administrator, NASA, August 22, 1973, discusses a new research and development study to develop a computerbased
system for spring wheat yield estimation.
59. James L. Mitchell, Office of Management and Budget, to Richard E. Bell and Don Paarlberg,
Department of Agriculture, “Large Area Crop Inventory Experiment,” October 8, 1976, Space Policy Institute
Documentary History Collection, Washington, DC.
60. Mack, Viewing the Earth, pp. 146–58.
61. For a story with a successful outcome see John P. Erlandson, Army Corps of Engineers, to R. B.
MacDonald, Johnson Space Center, March 16, 1976, Space Policy Institute Documentary History Collection,
Washington, DC; Mack, Viewing the Earth, p. 130. For the reasons of slow adoption, see letter from Sally Bay
Cornwell, National Conference of State Legislatures, to Allen H. Watkins, EROS Data Center, December 3, 1977,
and letter from Allen H. Watkins to Sally Bay Cornwell, December 22, 1977, Space Policy Institute Documentary
History Collection, Washington, DC.