Exploring the Unknown - NASA's History Office

In 1967, with no clear mission for the post-Apollo era, some NASA officials began to talk about space
activities that could be justified in terms of public benefit. As the head of the Policy Staff, Irwin
Halpern pointed out to Assistant Administrator for Policy Jacob E. Smart in this memorandum that
the Earth Resources Survey represented the sort of justifiable program the space agency needed.
[1] NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20546
MEMORANDUM for General Smart - E
Subject: Earth Resources Survey Program
EXPLORING THE UNKNOWN 249
September 5, 1967
I would strongly recommend, from a policy point of view, that the Earth Resources
Survey [ERS] Program and its place in the overall space budget now be reassessed.
It is imperative, in my judgment, that NASA make plain that it is doing important
things for people. This is what the President and the Congress are concerned about. This
is the test to which the taxpayer is putting Federal programs. This is why, in essence, our
budget has been cut so severely.
The ERS program would score well in this test: with proper emphasis and direction,
it could provide major demonstrable economic returns in the near as well as distant
future. The need now, it seems to me, is to capitalize upon this asset, to pursue the program
with a greater level of effort than now planned, and thereby to seize an important
opportunity (while there is still flexibility in the FY ‘68 budget) to strengthen the basis for
public support for the entire space program in an election year.
We should, in my judgment, take the lead of the Vice President (who recently voiced
concern that too little was being done in the ERS Program) and the recent Woods Hole
Conference (which called for proceeding apace with an aircraft as well as satellite ERS
development program) and ensure that this program is pursued with a higher level of
effort. The Departments of Agriculture, Interior and Navy have asked NASA for support
for R&D in the ERS area. We are responding by providing only 25 percent of the $8 million
or so that is required. Such responsiveness to the interests of potential consumer
agencies may well give rise to charges that NASA, instead of leading the assault on a whole
new area of technology, is in the van dragging its feet. In my view, finding goals in common
with other Federal agencies and programs is tantamount to finding new bases of support
for the space program. This would argue, in turn, for increased responsiveness to the
interests of other agencies.
[2] Despite the low level of effort mounted to date, the NASA ERS Program has already
made a substantial contribution to the economy in stimulating a national awareness of the
potential of remote sensing. It is probably fair to say that NASA has served as a catalyst in
the field of exploiting the whole electromagnetic spectrum for economic uses. A new
industry is aborning [sic]: Teledyne is planning to establish an ERS service company that
may include from six to twenty twin-engine aircraft equipped with multiban camera systems;
Westinghouse will soon hold a conference on the use of side-looking radar for natural
resource exploitation. In my view, NASA has the opportunity and the obligation to
follow through and remain at the cutting edge of the new technology (to the extent security
considerations permit), in order to give new impetus to industry’s advance in this field.
Furthermore, what we do or fail to do in this area may importantly affect our world
position politically and economically. The ERS Program offers an opportunity to substantially
expand international cooperation (Brazil and Mexico have already sought to work