Exploring the Unknown - NASA's History Office

264
[1] July 24, 1974
Summary
OBSERVING THE EARTH FROM SPACE
Foreign Policy Issues Regarding
Earth Resource Surveying by Satellite
A Report of the Secretary’s Advisory
Committee on Science and Foreign Affairs
This report considers the options for U.S. foreign policy regarding the acquisition
and dissemination of earth resource surveying data obtained from satellites (ERS).
Foreign policy issues have arisen primarily in the course of debate in the Outer Space
Committee of the UNGA, where the Brazilians, Soviets, French and others have introduced
“principles” which would limit State’s rights to acquire ERS data from space or to
disseminate such data without the prior assent of the countries affected. While ERTS-1
experiments have been accepted under the principle of freedom for unrestricted space
observations, often called “Open Skies,” there is no international political commitment to
“Open Skies” in the context of “operational” ERS systems.
For a variety of reasons, including national security, the U.S. (with the tacit support of
the USSR) has insisted on the unencumbered right to acquire data from space. This posture
must be maintained.
The present paper deals with appropriate future directions for the ERS program, and
in particular with the policy of dissemination of ERS data. The authors point out that
[2] experience with ERTS-1 and Skylab have indicated that space technology has great
promise for generating useful data bearing on agriculture, forestry, fisheries, the location
of natural resources, land use planning and in many other areas. However, experience to
date is wholly inadequate to establish the economic value of these data or the cost-benefit
character of its space acquisition as compared with other means. Extensive further
experimentation is required to develop techniques for the interpretation and analysis of
ERS data and for optimally combining that with data from other sources before its economic
potential can be reliably assessed. The cost and technical sophistication of the
appropriate data analysis, at this point, is generally beyond the reach of individual developing
countries. Cooperative projects with LDC’s could be important elements in U.S.
strategy to develop for the needed applications of R&D that are the pacing elements in
future progress. Eventually a viable commercial activity in data analysis may mature.
With respect to the policy issues, the authors cite three U.S. alternatives with regard
to data acquisition and dissemination:
– assertion of unilateral rights;
– negotiation of internationally acceptable principles, offering technical cooperation
and assistance as an incentive; and
[3] – abandonment of an open program and reliance on classified data.
The authors conclude that the further work necessary to establishing the economic
utility of ERS requires the cooperation of other nations, and U.S. participation in and technical
support of their efforts to develop data analysis techniques suited to their situation.
We should continue to assert the right to acquire and disseminate primary data. But
to encourage applications R and D, the [U.S. government] should be willing to permit