Exploring the Unknown - NASA's History Office

EXPLORING THE UNKNOWN 177
Conclusion
One might anticipate that space applications programs would have been the least controversial
aspects of the space program because they would seem to be the most obviously
beneficial. An examination of their history, however, suggests that applications satellites
raised difficult institutional policy issues, resulting particularly from the large number of
interested organizations involved. A project such as Apollo served primarily public and
political interests in a space race. For basic space science, NASA had a clear constituency
of scientists. In the 1970s, NASA sought to control research and development for satellite
applications in the same way it controlled space science, but the space agency found that
user agencies expected to direct research to meet their own perceived needs. In addition,
the technological potentials of the various applications fields that scientists found most
interesting were not necessarily the ones with the most short-term practical value.
During the 1980s, government-funded applications satellite systems faced an increasingly
difficult budgetary climate. Continuing development of satellite technology made it
possible to offer more and more sophisticated services, but in a time of tremendous pressure
on the federal budget, the government has been reluctant to fund more expensive
systems, even if they resulted in better services.
Commercial interests in land remote sensing and international cooperation in meteorological
observations have helped invigorate these two applications. As history demonstrates,
land remote-sensing applications have proven more difficult to integrate into
existing systems than meteorological or communications satellites had been. The obstacle
was not primarily a lack of usefulness of the data produced by the satellites; rather, proponents
of the Landsat program faced an intense debate over the proper role of government
in developing and operating a system that benefits both public and private data
users. 87 If the operation of commercial remote-sensing satellites proves successful, it may
resolve not only the long-standing tensions between research and operational uses of
remotely sensed Earth observation data, but also the question of the proper role of government
and the private sector in supplying them.
In contrast to land remote sensing, most observers continue to support the public
provision of meteorological data. However, pressure to reduce satellite system costs has
endangered the robustness of NOAA’s system. A changed political environment resulting
in a merged civil-military system and increased international cooperation should improve
the ability of the government to continue to provide high-quality meteorological data
while reducing system costs.
Document II-1
Document title: Dr. Harry Wexler, “Observing the Weather from a Satellite Vehicle,”
Journal of the British Interplanetary Society 7 (September 1954): 269–276.
This article was originally presented by Harry Wexler, Chief of the Scientific Services Division of the
U.S. Department of Commerce Weather Bureau, as a speech at the Third Symposium on Space Travel,
held at the Hayden Planetarium in New York City on May 4, 1954. It is one of the earliest inquiries
into the possible uses of satellites in forecasting weather. While correct in anticipating a satellite’s utility
in observing large-scale weather patterns, it is interesting that Wexler nevertheless dismisses a satellite’s
potential for what are now routine observations of pressure, temperature, and humidity. The two
87. Philip J. Hilts, “Landsat Satellites Termed Incapable of Profitable Operation This Century:
Substantial Demand Not Enough to Sustain Business, Reports Say,” Washington Post, March 12, 1989, p. A4.