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1111111 lilll lllll 111111111111111111111111111111111111111~111 IIII 14 00026009D 

11 July 1969 

Director of Space Systems 

Headquarters, United States Air Force 

Washington, D. c. 20330 

Attention: Colonel Paul E. Werthman 

Dear Paul: 

L--13227 

Returned, belatedly, and with much thanks for its loan, is a 

classified report you called to my attention. How so much 

can be written about things we know so little about is beyond 

me. The report also suggests, by indirection, that the largest 

snowpack in the country may not be high in the mountains, but 

may indeed occur on the shores of the Potomac. 

Enclosed as well, is a letter to the editor of ASTRONAUTICS/ 

AERONAUTICS, consisting of my comments on a letter by one 

w. E. Moeckel, whose letter to the editor is also enclosed. 

Both of these are scheduled to be printed in the August issue 

of that journal. I thought you might like to have a look in 

advance. If you recognize pieces and snipetts in my letter 

it's because that letter is largely composed of pieces and 

snipetts from other things. 

Your comments will, as always, be valued. 

AHK:bg 

Enclosures: 

CL-1449 --

Sincerely yours, 

Amrom H. Katz 

Engineering Sciences 

"A Systems Analysis of Applications of Earth 

OTIC!1 nrns MIJI.TERI.IC CONTAINS 111'f1)RMJIJION 

fFECTING THE AATIONAL .EFENSE Of _"1"/!E UNITED 

TATES \IIITHI~ THE MEANING Of TH' E,SJ"IONAGE 

AWS. TITLli 1a U.S.C,, SECTIONS 79f Mi;> JU. 

Hf TRUl!tMISStON on REVELATION ef WHICH IN 

NY MANC<f>. ro All UNAlHHOHIZED PERSON 1$ 

Orbital Space Technology to Selected Cases in 

Water Management and Agriculture (U)", Volume II -

Technical Discussions, PRC R-1224, March 24, 1969, 

SECRET, l copy; Others, as mentioned above 

flt lltttclosur~ are wltl'tdrewn ,r not •t~ached the 

f_-:, ·•.~ "" ,',_-.\.· ., .. cltlsitf1"1itlctfl or this correspenden• wlll 11111 

· _ .. ,_ ,canc<!llfd; P!O.HIWl'l lcD IJY L,-W. 

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COMMENTS ON "LET AIRCRAFT MAKE EARTH RESOURCES SURVEYS" 

by W. E. Moeckel 

NASA-Lewis Research Center 

Cleveland, Ohio 

Mr. Katz's provocative article makes several valid points, and forms 

tt ,~oo~l hrwln for d:l:Hcuse:l.on of the rclntlvc rolls of :drcrnft ,rnd .s~1tcllites 

. in Earth surveys. Thia is one of the major questions that. the current E.'.l.rth 

Surveys Program is aimed at answering. One of the most significant points ,' 

. in the article is that the value of Earth surveys.?whether by aircraft or 

satellite, should not be oversold at this time; we should avoid accumnrulating, processing, and storing vast amounts of data which nobody wants and 

nobody is Ml yet prepared to use. Although the ;1rticlc makes this point, 

it nevertheless seems to be advocating that we start right away on 

a program but using aircraft instead of satellites. 

I 

just sucj 

In addition to this apparent inconsistency, there are a number of 

arguments in the article which 

who is not personally involved 

seem fallacious even to someone (like myself) 

-\ 

in the Earth Surveys Program. Let us conHider whether it Ls really true, as the :irtl.clc clnims, th.it E:n·th-"rc:~ources 

surveys can be done "easier, cheaper, sooner, and better, and in a politically more palatable and manageable manner from aircraft than can be done 

from satellites." 

With respect to the "easier" and "sooner" there is no argument. The 

technology of aerial photography is very well developed, and extensive 

a demand existed. Of course, limlted surveys~ undertaken, for vnrious 

purpqses, and seemed to serve those purposes adequately. New sensors and 

scann~rs could also be used easier and sooner with aircraft than with 

"··:u~·:---;· •., ''f 

i 

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satcl 1.itc; i.n fnct, they :ire prencntly l>clng evaluated with alrct·aft. 

The point of the current program on Earth Resources Satellites is to 

determine, despite the greater difficulty, what information can be obtained 

better from satellites than with aircraft, and wh.ether that information 

'will pe worth the cost. 

This leads to t.he question of whether nircraft surveys nrc "cheaper" 

th nn sn tc 11 itc surveys. In h la cost comp"r l son, Mr, Kn tz nssumcs thn t tlw f ~,~ _ goal. of the survey.s is to obtain good images (or scans) of large areas of ~ ).,,.:> 6" 

the Earth at the lowest possible cost per square mile. Although I question P ~ 

the validity of this assumption (see below) let us go along with it for a 

moment. 

'lfv-fA r -1/ 

It would seem obvious that a satellite survey system should be 

£:i.:om airplanes, namely, their tendency to keep circling the Earth with no 

further propulsion power and their repeated coverage of the Earth without 

.... ·.· .. ·additional hardware cost. Yet Mr. Katz in his cost analysis assumes that 

the satellite survey system wi 11 consist of a large number of photographic 

satellites, each or which takes pictures steadily for two weeks and is then 

re~cntered .and recovered to process the film. Obviously, this is nn expensive way to take pictures! Small wonder thnt the cost is 18 times greater, 

per square mili, than mass-production aircraft surveys. But if we allow the 

s.atellite to ·remain active for, say, five years, the cost per square mile 

immediately becomes only about 15 percent of the cost of the aircraft survey! 

Of course, this type of satellite survey requires a non-photographic imaging 

system with telcmotcrcd rcndout rm<l recording ct1pabili.ty. But snch systems 

ar·c avail:lblc, Dn<l nre conHtnntly being improved. 
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This brings us to the question whether aircraft surveys are better 

'thari satellite surveys. Mr.. Kntz defines better primarily in terms of 

imnge resolution, but :lncludcs nlso the poss:l.hility of more complete cov-. 

cragc. The cover,ige limitation with satellites i~' easily disposed of if 

one rejects the 2..:weck photographic satellite system. A group of longlife polar-orhit satellites can eventually cover the entire Earth, even 

.though .in some areas it may be a long time between breaks in clcod cover • 

. But high ... flying aircraft would also have difficulties in those 3..reas. 

With regard to im.1.ge resolution, the advantage is clearly with aircraft, becaus.e they, can fly as low as necessary to achieve any desired 

ground resolution.. One can, of course, point out a corresponding advantage 

of satellite surveys, which is not attainable with aircraft, namely, the 

large-scale, synoptic single-image coverage, which defines and'clarifies 

mnny lfa.rth features. 

But one slwuld not give up too ensily on ground resolution from satellites either. Some non-photographic imaging systems (such as vidicons 

and photosensitive transistors) are approaching the 80 lines per millimeter 

.resolution quoted for photographic film. The main difficulty with achieving 

high ground reso l_ution from satellites is the need for an optical system 

with large focal. lcn8th (several feet), together with excellc.nt poi.nting 

nccnrm:y · 11nd flit.ll~ U l.t.:n mot Jon eompcmnnt I.on. lint ngnin, nl l of t·h(WO · fentureti 

are becoming available, although not all in a single system. The current 

ground resolution goal for satellite surveys is in the neighborhood of 300 

feet but there is no fundamental reason why this should not be reduced to 

10 feet.or less eventually. Such a resolution would be of the same order 

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as .that obt.'.linable with high-flying aircraft. A greater effort to develop 

a htgh-rcsolution non-photographic sntellite imaging system: would seem to 

·· he wnrr.n.ntcd •. 

Turning now to the question of politicnl palotabili ty, Mr. Katz points 

out that some nations may not like continuous overflights by our observational satellites. So far, this difficulty has not arisen, despite the 

wide variety of satellites and sensors already in orbit. The problem may, 

of course, become more serious as high-resolution satellite systems become 

operational. However, all nations arc probably nwarc that observations 

could just as easily be done with secret satellites as wi tb unclassified 

ones. In any cas~, the possibility of objections from abroad is nb reason 

to forego development of a new and useful capability. 

I am not sure what the author meant by the statement that aircraft 

survey is more manageable than the satellite survey. If this means the 

joh of accumm11lr1tlng, process.i.ng, nnaly7.:l.ng, storing, retrieving nnd <l.Lsaeminati.ng the vast quantities of data that would result from a large-area 

Earth Resources Survey, the article correctly assumes that this job is of 

the same magnitude for aircraft and satellites. The job is certainly an 

m1esome one, and sh~uld not be undertaken in one swoop. 

This information management problem raises the question whether the 

implied goal of accummulating and processing vast quantities of data for 

all conceivable future uses is a proper one for nn Eartl1 Surveys. Pro gr nm. 

and libraries, but the program should not be directed primarily toward mere 

accummulation.of information, most of which might never, or only rarely, be 

- sr,----:t'·~.,-.-.,. ~·-·,. 

,. 

:f 

_,; · ~ • ' ! 

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•. 

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used. Instead, art Earth survey system would probably be more beneficial if 

it were aimed toward development of a versatile, user-oriented c_ommand and 

n:nponnc cnpnh n i,l:y, wh I.ch would produce rather quickly, on request, and 

at reasonable cost; a color image or multi-spectral scan of any nrea of the 

.Earth in which a prospective customer may be interested. In this way, the 

·· system avoids the need to acquire, process, analyze and store vast quanti-

• ties of data in a wide variety of forms for possible future use. In addition, 

· such a system may attract users who have so far not been identified by the 

various study groups. For example, news mcdin or publishers may wish to 

obtain images of a particular area to enhance interest or increase the information content of news or feature programs or publications. Or a private 

citizen may wish to have a satellite image of his neighborhood or his vacat_ion spot. The secret of economic payoff, whether for survey. satellites 

or for old movies, is massive and repeated use. If, £01.· exrimplc, 20 mil lion 

uscn1 per year, throughout the world, found it worthwhile to pay nn tivcrar-;e 

_of five dollars each for a satellite image or scan, the Earth survey program 

would more than pay for itself in a short period of time. With television 

rights, copyrights, and the many other previously identified commercial and 

governmental users for Earth observations, perhaps we could eventually 

f:i.nnncc a mnnnnd Pxplor.nti..on of tho plnnetn wi.th tho p1:0c('1,dn from .the. 

·Earth obl::lervntion satellites alone. 

To summarize my comments, although the subject article contains some 

excellent viewpoints, the arguments in favor of using aircraft for Earth 

Resources Surveys rather than satellites are not convincing, becmrne none 

·of the potential advantages of satellites over aircraft are used in the 

comp:n:Jflotw. l~Hn:IH1 nnoro, t:lw l7C'11t:r.lc1:ron o[ tlm (L!.11cur1nlon to J•:orth 

:,: ';' :a+:, , , ! , :•, .1. ,·.,••'<'j'," lf';!'.I' .. ,t;.;i::~• 1:t •) " <f'! .. ( {\ >' 

~ . . . 

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Resources Surveys, is unwarranted, because the so-called Earth Resources 

Satei.lites wil.l have a wide variety of other uses and functions. Many of 

do not now fprcsec. 

I 

·.-• '''"" C'.'i ''C',,V, f '; ' , { 

;; 

l· 

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COMMENTS ON W.E. MOECK.EL'S COMMENTS ON 

"LET AIRCRAFT MAKE EARTH RESOURCE SURVEYS" . 

by 

Amrom H. Katz 

The RAND Corporation 

July 1, 1969 

~:appreciate the opportunity to comment, however briefly and 

hastily, pecause of deadlines, on W. E. Moeckel's comments on my 

June 1969 piece in ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS. 

lt is flattering to note that although he is uninvolved in the 

Earth Respurces Program, and is, by both profession and geography, 

removed fi:-om the. mainstream of tension and contention, he was moved to 

take pen in hand. Would that those directly concerned, and ardent 

advoc~tes of the program, in both government and industry; would have 

respondeq in the past two years. Not a peep from them! 

Inst:ead of trying a jerky line by line rebuttal, I will attempt 

to put my arguments in strong form. Of course, where Moeckel agrees 

with me, I do· not disagree with him. 

In ~y paper, I gave NASA full credit for making a subject out of 

the disparate, fragmented disciplines, and elements of earth r~source 

studies. It was, and remains, a bold, innovative, far reach.ing synthesis--

and_ whetber the data collection job is to be done by aircraft, satellites, 

or a mixture of both is irrelevant to giving deserved credit to NASA 

for the grand conception. 

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HAviqg said that, it is not unfair for me to add that, as far as 

I know 1 t~e earliest published suggestion that collecting earth 

resourpes data from space was both feasible and desirable~-and a description of advantages, tasks, and promise--was made in the RAND 

Corporation SPACE HANDBOOK, (1958) and greatly expanded oq. in my 1959 

paper ''Observation Satellites -- Problems, and Prospects." My record 

is clear &nd open. 

Hpwever, Moeckel serioualy misunderstood poth me and the program 

when he sciys: 

Katz assumes that the goal of the surveys is to obtain good 

iwages (or scans) ot la~ge areas of the earth at the lowest 

posstble cost per square mile. 

What we- need is data, not pictures. Sometimes, but_ not always, 

' the result:s of the program may be superimposed on a photograph. The 

purpose Of the earth resources program and the expectations raise'd 

around the world--will not be fulfilled if photographs alone are 

produced.•· They are not the final product. The goal is the production 

of information and data--data useful and usable to enhance, enlarge, 

and help direct man's use of this planet. Data collection, as I've 

stressed in my article (but apparently I've not stressed it enough!) 

is only first step. The history of the International Geophysical 

Year (10') -- written properly -- would be a monument to nearly pure 

data collection .. The object of the Earth Resources Prog1:am begins 

with photographs; it better not end with photographs only. 

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lt is impossible to compare costs of surveys performed by aircraft 

with those performed by satellite -- unless both systems deliver useLet us now, once and for all, face up to what the long 'life TV 

system can do compared to what aircraft can do. Specs for the ERTS 

call £or. three Return Beam Vidicons (REV) operating in three separately 

filtered bands of the job. The 2 inch REV has an imaging surface about 

one iqch square, and early promises were to l:>e 6,000 TV lines across 

the t1,Jbe fa'ce. There is reason to believe that th:1.s specification 

will be lo~ered, and considerably. To imaga a 100 mile square onto 

this tuba fiice implies that 100 feet on the ground equals the width 

of one 1ine. Going from TV resolution to equivalent photo resolution 

usualiy fakes a preliminary negotiation at qny meeting where both kinds of 

engineers are present. But the answer, neglecting such esotericia 

as the Kell factor, is that 100 feet per TV line is 200 feet, in photo 

resolution terms. Superimposing TV pix for three different ~ameras 

(to make color pix) will not improve resolution, One can only hope that 

it doesn't degrade resolution too much. 

What all this boils down to is that we caq expect about 400•500 

feet ground resolution out of the first syst~m, Now go back and read 

the applicable paragraph from my June paper (p. 64, June ASTRONAUTICS/ 

AERONAUTICS), where after discussing my aircraft proposal -- using 

photo, infra-red, and radar, I say: 

No direct comparison with a satellite system can be made, 

because no one dares design a satellite system that will 

deliver·this volume, type, or quality of data. (To. those 

who.argue the case for a long-life TV satellite system of, 

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say 300-ft ground resolution, I suggest a hard look at the 

re$olution requirements stipulated as necessary by users of 

da~a. Comparison with the data system I propose, to be fair, 

should be based on proposals that deliver the goods at 

quality levels specified, at sufficient volume, and over the 

spectrum. 

(Emphasis added this time around. This seems to be an elusive point - AHK) 

The questions arise; (a) whether I propose producing too much data 

at too good quality, and/or (b) whether TV systems, at 300-500 feet resolu~ 

tion will be good enough, 

'Here I fell back on e~perience, and even better, on the user regui~e" 

ments as ~tated by NASA to the 1967 Summer Study, and as reproduced in 

summary form on p. 47 of the July 1968 issue of SPACE/AERONAIITICS. 100 

foot (photo) ground resolution is the worst μsable. All users want 

better resolution. The quality of the colle~tion system I proposed is 

close to what the users specified. 

NASA people are not at all surprised by this; because, as ;Ls readity 

demonstrable, the technical competence to IJ1ake these calculations is not 

an asset unique to me alone. The widely advertised requirements of the 

users, and such experience as I am familiaf with, all suggest that this· 

particular satellite will not be able to deliver data which can be pro~ 

cessed to deliver the various goodies in tha several fields of agriculture, 

forestry, etc. In fairness to NASA, they never said it would. Their 

testimony is properly conservative. Their view, and it's entirely in 

order, is that this is the first of a series of satellites, .that it is 

experimental, and that there is much to learn. I share .this opinion, 

but I hasten to add that Congress and the media in turn have been feeding 

on (and generating) publicity, magic and expectation suggested by others 

who do not have this scientific, conservative, and cautio~s view point. 

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-sThe systems being proposed for the earth resource satellite 

will pe good enough to raise all sorts of questions of propriety and 

security without, I argue, being good enough to do the jobs that have 

been advertised. Whe_n I talk to the people who are doing this work in 

data red~ction and attempting to automate it I find that they are more 

conservative than are others who are talking about their work. For 

exampie, not long ago I asked one of the key figures in this work when ; 

he'woμld be ready to take a contract to reduce the agriculture data 

from aome :f;oreign country, say like Liberia or Tanzania. Re said that 

he is far :f;rom ready to do it for the u.s., and that _in about 10 years, 

li.fil luch• they would have it down pat for the Wabash Valley (he's at 

Purdue apd so is the Wabash Valley}. 

Ihe problem of prematurely and greatly raised expectations, is, 

typically, one of our own making. But national sensitivities to being 

photographed is not a problem we originated~ 

On a recent trip to Israel I discoverecf, experimentally, that 

aerial photography over Israel is not permitted. Casual and incomplete 

investigation has turned up the fact that tqts prohibition on aerial 

photography is true for France, Sweden and J;ndia as well. This list 

is far from exhausted; it would be interesting to have a complete list. 

The four I found are numbered among the free nations; I thought it 

pointless to list the communist countries. Difficulty arises be.cause 

objects of security interest are sprinkled aμiopg crops, trees and rocks. 

For purposes of the earth resource program it: would be better if the 

' ' 

crops did .not surround airfields, nuclear power stations, and rel~ted 

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man-m~de artifacts. But alas, that's the way that nature and man have 

co-consp!red. The kinds of satellite photographs that would be good 

for crops, etc., would be plenty adequate to get other nations aroused 

about these other matters. It has been observed that there has been 

little aqverse reaction to the Gemini, Apollo and other space photography made public thus far. Well, either by design or inadvertence 

the r~lea.sed photographs have been taken over places like Tibet, West 

·,. 

Africa, et~., and have shown such sparce deta:U as to make complaints 

premature. Take and release a few good sho(:s over France,·for example, 

and st:and back.· Those nations who might object to being looked at 

would not: believe (nor would I) that we are cooperating by shutting 

down aat~llite operations over their countr+es. Nor would they trust 

a shut:-off switch that we gave them to oper&te because they (like I) 

. wouldn't believe it works• Again, all these J?roblems can pe avoided 

by use of aircraft. 

So what if, as Moeckel suggests, TV satellites can stay up a long 

time? If they don't cut the mustard, who cares about their longevity? 

And by the way, the 6000 line RBV was to perform at 50% better than 

Moeckel's hoped for 80 lines/mm. Resolutioq in lines/mm on the image 

tube isn't the problem. It's the tiny, lonaly, one inch square image 

tube, up at 500 miles, so far way. Even so, because of b~ndwidth 

limitations, available readout time, etc., this tiny image collector 

can collect more than it can send back! Sure, one can, in principle, 

exchange the 5 inch focal length lens on a RBV camera at 500 mile 

altitude for a 500 inch focal length lens. Andpresumablythe ground 

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resolution could improve by a factor of 100. But the area covered 

(per photograph) would decrease by a factor of 10,000! 

There is a widespread belief, sktllfully, enthusiastically, 

repetitively.spread by government agencies, Congress, the aerospace 

indu~try, and others at technical meetings, symposia, international 

meetinga, and in the media such as FORTUNE, and National Geographic 

to the effect that we are on the threshold of a great leap forward in 

our underatanding, and hence our ability to deal more effectively with 

earth resources. 

'.Thij 'biggest leap in this proposition ia in the sentence itself--

. that out"· einhanced understanding directly increases our ability to deal 

more efteatively, etc. I claim that it's not the shortage of data 

which hAs inhibited our abilities to deal more effectively with the 

earth's rE1sources. There is, I am assured, more data in existence than 

has beep. t.JSed., The implications that effective mana_gement of resources 

is a prize to be delivered by these sensing mechanisms raises false 

.hopes. In brief, there is one tremendous ~utnp from elegant demonstrations of the detection of plant diseases from low-altitude aerial 

photography over selected areas to an ability to do this from space on 

a wholesale basis. This is not to say that these tasks will never be 

done. I am suggesting that it may not be done within the time limits 

of the expectations aroused in the popular press, the Congr,ess, and 

international meetings. 

Let us turn briefly to the political problems. I would ask Moeckel 

and others to consider the pairs of problems located almost everywhere. 

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Take the antagonisms in the Middle East, and the war still going on 

there~ How would the UAR like Israel to have easy access to comparatively good pix of Egypt? And how about Israel? 

And this is only one situation out of many. It is not completely 

relevant to refer to secret satellites as Moeckel does. What about the 

ones we are here considering? If there were some overwhelming onesided advantages to doing the earth resource job by satellite, advantages 

so large that we Id be willing to incur the political problem, perhaps 

I'd reconsider. But here, as in other area~, we'd have·the disadvantage 

without tha advantages, the worst of both wqrlds. 

Warpen Kornberg, editor of SCIENCE NEW~, published an article on 

the spacf:! program in the LOS ANGELES TIMES on 30 Mc+rch 1969. I quote 

from that article: 

Eut even without a massive effort at earth surveys from space, 

U.S, companies have been accused already by their foreign 

competitors of being able to get the jump in overseas resources 

investments and development, on the basis of casual photography 

done from space. The suggestion is, in fact, that .resources 

information from classified military photo-intelligence missions 

has be~n leaked to U.S. industry. 

The competitive advantage problem is built intA the satellite system, 

and exists, but at much smaller scale and in'more manageable form, even 

with aircraft. 

The French journal, Air Et Cosmos, 1fa270, 30 November J.969, quoted 

K. C. Pardoe of Hawker Siddley Dynamics and Mr. O'Hagan of Standard 

Telephone and Cable of London as claiming that the USA is using 

satellites for exonomic espionage. They were participating in a seminar 

sponsored by the Conservative Party. Neither the speakers nor the forum 

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are irrespcmsible. It is useful to quote more extensively frbm this 

article: 

According to these two specialists "there is absolutely no 

doubt that the Americans are utilizing photographs taken from 

satellites in order to delimit the terrestrial zones which 

would justify prospecting for minerals and oils." To support 

this thesis Mr. Pardoe cites the "surprising success achieved 

by the American prospecting company in North Africa, in the 

Middle East, in zones which no one long had thought of up 

until then." 

Mr.'O'Hagan goes even farther since he declares "Americans 

have pμrchased in foreign countries, lands containing 

Illinerals riches, based on information furnished by photographs from s~tellites for the study of terrestrial 

res9ur~es. Mr. Pardoe for his part affirmed that only l3 

pho~o~ of the 8,000 taken during the flight of Apollo 7 have 

bee~ published as of now (cf. Air et Cosmos, n° 268, p. 18) 

the others having been ''classified" because of their too 

gre~t resolution. 

I do not share their beliefs. The point is that they hold them, 

and have expressed them. A belief doesn't have to be true to be widespread and operational. Even though NASA has 'refuted these charges 

(see Air et Cosmos #274, 28 December 1968) doubts may linger, because 

of the diff;i.cutly of providing negative proof. The article containing 

the. original charges goes on: 

One certain fact is that up until now satellites for the study 

of terrestrial resources fly over -- or have flown over --

a great part of the globe, but that they are not controlled 

in any way by the countries flown over. The only controlling 

authority is the one who puts them in orbit; and it's only 

that one which decided to communicate to the third country, 

information received of interest on a national scale. · 

Many economic and technical problems need solution before a viable 

earth resources program emerges. However, and this may come as a 

surprise to the doubtful reader, I think that a strong effort on cost 

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effectiveness is not to be encouraged. Cost-effectiveness analysis is 

certcl.inly applicable to things we understand. We don't understand 

earth resource surveys well enough at this ti111e to let •them be carved 

up by this powerful clinical tool. If we can start small and quietly, 

in what perhaps will be an uneconomic fashion, I suspect that we will 

·find unapticipated uses of the surveys and that benefits will be 

obtained once removed from the actual and proximate results. This 

does no~ mean that given a choice of two Wqys of doing a job we should 

favor the 1ess economic one~ It is in this area that aircraft have 

it, ij~ f.'ve demonstrated. 

It ts in this context that one must copsider the various ideas 

for intern~tional cooperation in earth resource satellites programs as 

a way o! sharing costs. 

This notion reflects what I consider to be a widespread and strongly 

held fallacy. Broad partic:i.pation may be a desirable end in itself 

and if so, we should be willing to pay for it and not expect to get 

this benefit and also save money. It may cost more, not less; if we 

want cooperation, let's pay for it. 

That costs may increase, is of course, also true with respect to 

other proposals for international cooperation, such as joint U.S./Soviet 

space exploration. But that's another matter, and I mention it only in 

passing •.. 

Other- countries will want and expect benefits but. may not be willing 

to share the full cost; 

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Of co,urse there are jobs for which satellites are preferable to 

aircraft. In my original memo (unfortunately for this debate, not 

reprinted in my paper) to the 1967 Summer Study Group, (included in 

RAND f-3753, December 1967) I stated, in part: 

As. I listened, read, and talked, it seemed to me that two 

pu~e areas were unlikely to receive adequate treatment --

the role of aircraft and the need for a BIG analysis center. 

further, it seemed fairly clear that meteorology and oceanPgrflphy (except· for coastal areas) are not "natural" 

applications for photographic techniques (again, in the 

~ase Qf meteorology, where pictures are relevant, that 

aubjeQt is in good shape). 

gence the concentration on land use and earth resources. The 

land is where the people are, and whera most of the money in 

the business of this summer study is likely to be made,. 

The m~pping/cartographic group here is both capable and 

autonomous; hence nothing of what I've written is directly 

aboμt their work. 

l'hi~ ahould help clarify both the recorcl and my positions. In 

my ea~ly pqpers on satellites I proposed mapptng from satellites.and 

discussed it at least as accurately as any of the current discussions 

do. Further, in my earth resources paper I deliberately excluded 

mapping from the subject. I didn't do this by omission or neglect, 

but by positive statement. Mapping is different. 

The honest-to-God fact of the matter is that mappers are a curious 

and separate breed; they are driven by a consuniing passion to map, remap, 

revise and measure, sometimes for purposes that are obscure and sometimes 

for purposes that are their own. They are neat people, who hate the 

thought that somewhere there remains an unmapped area. Worldwide mapping 

has little, if anything, to do with the earth resources program. So 

much for mapping. A couple of definitions will help distinguish mapping 

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from observation. Mapping from space or aerial platforms w,ill tell 

you about the character of the terrain. Aerial (or space) observation 

tells you about the characters on the terrain. Mapping is hi-fi gebmetry.· 

For all other purposes, such as all the other purposes of the earth 

resource program, geometrical fidelity is of second or lower priority. 

An ipeal mapping satellite would look and behave differently than would 

an earth resource satellite. 

'Now, let me say once and for all, clearly and unequivocally, that 

whatever anybody has proposed doing for the various earth resources 

tasks, I argue can be done easier, quickly, sooner, and in a more 

politipally palatable fashion from aircraft. 

A.~~.in let me be specific so as to minimize chances of misinterpre., 

tat;t.on, · I proposed an equipment load for the aircraft consisting of 

6_carnei'a~, a multichannel infrared recording spectrophotometer (like 

the_Univarsity of Michigan system) and two side-looking radars' (as 

propos~d by the University of Kansas team). This equipment can be 

bought, installed, and made to work from aircraft cheaper, sooner, 

better tqan it can from satellites; and it will give better results. 

No one h4s chosen to dispute this with me, How much clearer can I 

mkae thiil simple idea? 

Maybe satellites will be useful in an earth-resource mission sometime. But we'ver got to find out what data is needed, how frequently 

it is.needed, how to get it, how to analyze it, and how to exploit it. 

Some of us, (as I indicate in the last portions of my paper) have 

more doubts now about our understanding of foreign aid than we used to. 

Further, the·political problems, noted in my report, are real enough. 

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It is in&ppropriate, by any measure, for technical peop~e skilled in 

earth sensing to utter gratuitous fatuities about problems they never 

heard of~ don't understand, and that they regard only as a nuisance. 

Experts an the political side, when confronted with nonsense, be it 

errant, arrant or aberrant--are liable--perhaps wrongly--to mistrust 

the technical types in other things as wellperverse insight suggests that when confronted with a real pro~ 

posalfor getting going .. -such as my proposai to do it with aircraft .... 

some people prefer to take refuge in a more distant and less available 

prospect, Why? I leave the job of remote make-sensing to others, 

more gifteq than I am in the black art of telepsychoanalysis. 

Occasionally people arguing for better resolution from space 

borne Ca+l}eras murmur about the DoD and clasaification .•. 'The hobgoblin 

of classification is no impediment or threat to carrying out my proposal. 

Whatever hqs held up the application of remote sensing techniques, it's 

not the DoD's classification policies, but rather the unwillingness 

to face the.magnitude of the analysis jobs, the production character 

of the job and the fact that earth sensing, !fit's to do good for man~ 

kind in the large instead of individual researchers in the small, must 

not be the subject of high-voltage sales pitches no matter how camouflaged 

they are in scientific garb. 

High resolution? I'll give anyone more detail than he can digest,. 

Higher resolution? We can always fly the ai~craft at 5000 feet and get 

better than 6 inch ground resolution! Is this what everyone wants? 

Hell, no! They want .it from space. Why? Do the rocks or vegetables 

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care? Do the farmers, geologists care? Dq the underdeveloped countries 

care? No! If I could find out where this slippery, elupive advocacy 

anq its. constituency resides, I'd be happy to .enter into direct argument. 

There seem to be two kinds of people interested in this earth 

resources business. If I may be pardoned for the highly dichotomous 

caricature, they are astronauts and farmers. The astronauts want to 

fly and the farmers want data. The farmers could care less whether I 

gave it to them from an airplane, a satellite, or the Farmer's Almanqc~ 

They pould care less whether I dug it ou~ of a hole in the ground or 

from I hole in the wall. The astronauts want to fly in space, or build 

gadge#a from space, and they are hitching Rn to this mi~sion to get 

themselves launched. The reader will reco&nize, I am sure, the over• 

drawn ch~racter of these remarks; however. in .essentials, I argue thay 

are tl!'ue. 

But again, I come back to the hard theorem that most of these 

guys want to experiment and when I ask the question "suppose I give 

you all·the damn data you want from satellites or airplanes, which one 

of you is ready to take the contract to dp the job for any country?" 

everyone falls silent. Nobody is ready to put these plausible, interesting, heuristic experiments on a production line. And I continue to 

argue that we ought to stop teasing (or conning) the world till we 

know what we're talking about. 

The airplane system I "designed" ~ncorporated more and better hardware than anyone would dare put in a satellite for many years to come. 

Why ,q_on' t we do it? Why don I t we say to ourselves (as I said in the 

paper) that the U.S. is the only place where we can try experimental 

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and possibly uneconomic techniques. Let's set aside a state, California, 

Texas,.Rh~de Island--I don't care which one ... -and do the earth resources, 

geology, soils, urban area analysis, forestry 1 etc., etc. for that state. 

Let's· get a measure of the job, and thus get ready to d6 the international 

job! 

I still argue that we ought to proceed quietly within the U.S. 

with an aitcraft system which can be used to find out how to do the intel."-

national·, job, if indeed that job ever becomes ours for the doing. 

I state again that international sensitivity, state of the art, 

the preference to fail privately rather thaq publicly (or at least hedge 

against public failure) -- all these and many more factors argue for 

starting the job with aircraft starting in the U.S., building up analysi$ 

centers. Then, after we have demonstrated a capability instead of a 

plausibility, we can go public and international, starting with bilateral 

arrangements. There is a fundamental difference between this satellite 

and weather and communications satellites. Communications and meteorology 

are "naturals" for satellites. The latter have little meaning unless 

they are international. But this is not tr~e for the earth resource 

problem. 

I choose not to comment on Moeckel's notipns that economic payoffs 

for the earth resource satellite are to be found in the enirepreneurial 

aspects--that individuals could order particular photog:i;-aphs to be taken. 

This idea falls afoul of the political probiem I raised earlier. Besides, 

and more to the point, this is a diversion from the central argument 

about how to conduct a meaningful and significant earth resources program. 

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But Moeckel is to be given points for his ingenioμs, inventive ideas. 

It ;is good that he wrote, thus forcing me to answer,. Let's keep 

it up! 

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