Exploring the Unknown - NASA's History Office

EXPLORING THE UNKNOWN 173
iting Shuttle payloads to those requiring the unique characteristics of the Shuttle. 75 This
caused NOAA to direct EOSAT to prepare for launch on an expendable launch vehicle.
Other disagreements between the administration and Congress delayed a decision to fund
the Landsat system until the spring of 1988. 76 By that time, it had become fully apparent
that the subsidy ($219 million) would cover only the development and construction of one
spacecraft. The Reagan administration and Congress nearly terminated EOSAT’s operation
of Landsats 4 and 5 several times for lack of a few million dollars of operating funds. 77
Part of the difficulty arose because, in the 1980s, proponents of land remote sensing
faced the same problem they had experienced in the 1960s. No single agency was willing
to commit funding ($15–30 million per year beyond EOSAT’s revenue from data sales) to
continue system operations. Unlike the weather satellites, which NOAA operated to provide
data for its own National Weather Service, the Department of Commerce had no
internal constituency for collecting remotely sensed land data. The Carter administration
had selected NOAA because of the agency’s experience in operating the weather satellite
systems. Congress expressed only lukewarm interest in supporting NOAA’s long-term
operation of Landsat. This lack of commitment to a continuously operated remote-sensing
system undermined what little confidence data customers had in the Landsat system.
Relatively few customers were willing to develop the necessary processing infrastructure
and training programs or make other investments that depended on the routine delivery
of Landsat data.
NOAA and EOSAT expected to launch Landsat 6 in 1992, with the federal government
providing most of the funding for building and launching the satellite. However,
even if Landsat 6 successfully reached orbit and operated as designed for five years, this
plan still left the United States with the prospect of entering the late 1990s with no capability
to collect Landsat data. It soon became clear that even if the data market doubled
or tripled, EOSAT would not earn sufficient revenue to build Landsat 7. To resolve growing
concerns over the future of the Landsat program, President Bush “directed the
National Space Council and the Office of Management and Budget to review options with
the intention of continuing Landsat-type data collections after Landsat 6.” [II-37]
The Land Remote Sensing Policy Act of 1992
By the early 1990s, several circumstances led to the decision to return Landsat system
operation to the government. First, the U.S. military made extensive use of Landsat and
SPOT data to create maps used in planning and executing U.S. maneuvers during the
1991 Gulf War. 78 Second, Landsat proponents worried that failing to develop Landsat 7
would give SPOT full control of the international market for multispectral satellite data.
Third, global change researchers began to appreciate that the twenty-year Landsat data
archive would allow them to follow environmental change on parts of Earth’s surface.
Fourth, the attempt to commercialize the Landsat system had faltered badly, and policy
makers began to feel that no private company was soon likely to be able to provide equiv-
75. The White House, “Statement on the Space Shuttle,” August 15, 1986, Space Policy Institute
Documentary History Collection, Washington, DC.
76. U.S. Congress, Congressional Research Service, “Future of Land Remote Sensing System
(Landsat),” 91-685-SPR, pp. 6–7, Space Policy Institute Documentary History Collection, Washington, DC.
77. M. Mitchell Waldrop, “Landsat Commercialization Stumbles Again,” Science 246 (January 9,
1987):155–56; Eliot Marshall, “Landsat: Cliff-hanging, Again,” Science (October 20, 1989): 321–22.
78. B. Gordon, Statement before the U.S. House of Representatives, Joint Hearing of the Committee on
Science, Space, and Technology and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Scientific,
Military, and Commercial Applications of the Landsat Program, Hearing Report 102-61, June 26, 1991.