[GSDI Legal Econ] U.S. National Research Council releases report on remote sensing

[Roger Longhorn]

The freely downloadble, Executive Summary (PDF) is available at:

http://orsted.nap.edu/execsumm_pdf/11820

This is pre-publication text, as the document is not yet finalized.

Roger Longhorn
ral at alum.mit.edu

Kate Lance wrote:

> http://books.nap.edu/catalog/11820.html
> U.S. National Research Council releases report on remote sensing
> Earth Science and Applications from Space: National Imperatives for 
> the Next Decade and Beyond
> The National Research Council has released its report on the state of 
> US Earth Observation satellite operations, which discusses the 29 
> current missions, including Landsat, and offers recommendations for 
> continuing US earth monitoring capabilities into the next decade at 
> least. I have only read the executive summary so far, but it paints a 
> disturbing picture:
> “As documented in this report, the United States’ extraordinary 
> foundation of global observations is at great risk. Between 2006 and 
> the end of the decade, the number of operating missions will decrease 
> dramatically and the number of operating sensors and instruments on 
> NASA spacecraft, most of which are well past their normal lifetimes, 
> will decrease by some 40 percent. Furthermore, the replacement sensors 
> to be flown on the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental 
> Satellite System (NPOESS), are generally less capable than their Earth 
> Observing System (EOS) counterparts. Among the many measurements 
> expected to cease over the next few years,…include total solar 
> irradiance and Earth radiation, vector sea surface winds, limb 
> sounding of ozone profiles, and temperature and water vapor soundings 
> from geostationary and polar orbits.”
> http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/16/science/space/16nasa.html?_r=2&hp&ex=1168923600&en=f748e470b377d563&ei=5094&partner=homepage&oref=slogin&oref=slogin 
> <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/16/science/space/16nasa.html?_r=2&hp&ex=1168923600&en=f748e470b377d563&ei=5094&partner=homepage&oref=slogin&oref=slogin>
> New York Times article (January 16, 2007 in Science section)
> The report [Earth Science and Applications from Space: National 
> Imperatives for the Next Decade and Beyond] is the latest in a string 
> of findings from such panels pointing to dangers from recent 
> disinvestment in the long-term monitoring of a fast-changing planet.
> The report goes beyond discussing ailing hardware and said the White 
> House science policy office should do more to ensure that society and 
> science were benefiting fully from the reams of data flowing from 
> orbiting instruments.
>
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