Exploring the Unknown - NASA's History Office

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OBSERVING THE EARTH FROM SPACE
should not be sold or transferred to the private sector.
The important data and work collected by these satellites underscore the need for
maintaining them in Government hands. The collection and dissemination of weather
information is crucial to every person across the Nation, from the farmers in Nebraska to
vacationers in Puerto Rico. The need for precise and reliable access must be protected
and preserved to ensure not only the health of our population but also our continued economic
vitality.
The plan to transfer the weather satellites to the private sector is misguided and inimical
to the public good. I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of this resolution and thus
send a clear signal to the administration about our position on this important issue.
Mr. McGRATH. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes, for debate purposes, to the gentleman
from Pennsylvania (Mr. WALKER).
Mr. WALKER. Mr. Speaker, in his book “The High Road,” Ben Bova talked about the
proposition that there are two types of people that approach policy in this country or
throughout history. They are the Promethians and the Luddites. The Promethians are
essentially those people who look toward the future, who try to find ways in which to use
that which is in the present to promote the future. The Luddites are those people who are
wedded to the past, who try to hold on to exactly what is without having any concept of
the future at all.
I submit, Mr. Speaker, that this is a Luddite bill. I say that by stating that we are unwilling
to move forward toward commercialization of weather satellites; we are exempting
one large area from commercialization that has the potential of being commercialized
immediately. If there is one thing that we should be all about in our space program, it is
moving out of research and development toward commercialization. The more commercialization
we promote as a nation in outer space, the more chance we have of reaping the
economic rewards that come from that.
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These are not minor economic rewards. There are some people who are farsighted
enough to believe that commercialization of outer space over the next 20 to 25 years, if
given the proper investment attitude, could reap a trillion dollar economy from outer
space, a spaced-based economy of a trillion dollars. That in terms of 1983, that is the
equivalent of 35 million jobs.
We often sit on this House floor and we hear debating about the fact, where are the
jobs going to come from? How are we going to provide jobs for the future? Where are the
jobs for people who do not have them? With hi-tech emerging, where are the jobs going
to come from?
One of the places they are going to come from is by properly industrializing and commercializing
outer space. When we pass bills of this type, when we say that we are going to
take as a matter of public policy and X-out of our consideration weather satellites, we are
taking the first step toward limiting the amount of investment that will ever be made in
outer space and the amount of jobs that can be created.
I think that is wrong. I think this is a sad bill and I hope people will vote against it.
Mr. BROOKS. Mr. Speaker, this past March the President announced his intention to
commercialize our Government’s weather and land remote sensing satellites. It was clear
from the beginning that the offer to sell the weather satellites was simply an attempt to
make the sale of the land remote sensing satellite more appealing.
I find this entire commercialization effort most bothersome and have been vocally
opposed to it from the very beginning. While many of us may disagree with the desirability
of retaining a land remote sensing satellite program within the Government, I know of
no one who disagrees with the wisdom of retaining Government control over our Nation’s