National Aeronautics and

Space Administration

NASA History Division

Office of External Relations

NASA Headquarters

Washington, DC

NASA SP-2005-4538
i

by W. Henry Lambright

NASA SP-2005-4538

NASA AND THE ENVIRONMENT

National Aeronautics and

Space Administration

NASA History Division

Office of External Relations

NASA Headquarters

Washington, DC

Monographs in Aerospace History No. 38
ii

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Lambright, W. Henry, 1939-

NASA and the environment : the case of ozone depletion / by W. Henry Lambright.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

1. Ozone layer depletion—Environmental aspects—United States. 2. Ozone layer depletion—Government 

policy—United States. 3. Air—Pollution—Environmental aspects—United States. 4. Air—Pollution—

Government policy—United States. 5. Environmental policy—United States. I. Title.

QC879.73.C5L36 2005

363.738’75—dc22 2005001712
iii

CONTENTS

Introduction.................................................................................................................................1

Stage 1..........................................................................................................................................3

Stage 2..........................................................................................................................................5

Stage 3..........................................................................................................................................7

Stage 4..........................................................................................................................................9

Stage 5........................................................................................................................................17

Stage 6........................................................................................................................................25

Stage 7........................................................................................................................................35

Stage 8........................................................................................................................................41

Conclusion.................................................................................................................................47

Endnotes....................................................................................................................................49

About the Author........................................................................................................................59

NASA History Monographs........................................................................................................61

Index.....................................................................................................................................................65
 
1

INTRODUCTION

 While the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is widely perceived as a space 

agency, since its inception NASA has had a mission dedicated to the home planet. Initially, this mission 

involved using space to better observe and predict weather and to enable worldwide communication. 

Meteorological and communication satellites showed the value of space for earthly endeavors in the 

1960s. In 1972, NASA launched Landsat, and the era of earth-resource monitoring began.1

 At the same time, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the environmental movement swept throughout 

the United Sates and most industrialized countries. The first Earth Day event took place in 1970, 

and the government generally began to pay much more attention to issues of environmental quality. 

Mitigating pollution became an overriding objective for many agencies. NASA’s existing mission to 

observe planet Earth was augmented in these years and directed more toward environmental quality. 

In the 1980s, NASA sought to plan and establish a new environmental effort that eventuated in the 

1990s with the Earth Observing System (EOS). The Agency was able to make its initial mark via 

atmospheric monitoring, specifically ozone depletion.

 An important policy stimulus in many respects, ozone depletion spawned the Montreal Protocol 

of 1987 (the most significant international environmental treaty then in existence). It also was an 

issue critical to NASA’s history that served as a bridge linking NASA’s weather and land-resource 

satellites to NASA’s concern for the global changes affecting the home planet. Significantly, as a global 

environmental problem, ozone depletion underscored the importance of NASA’s ability to observe 

Earth from space. Moreover, the NASA management team’s ability to apply large-scale research efforts 

and mobilize the talents of other agencies and the private sector illuminated its role as a “lead” agency 

capable of crossing organizational boundaries as well as the science-policy divide.

APPROACH

In the analysis below, the approach used to examine the evolving relationship between an agency 

and a program focuses on decision-making. The decision-making process goes through a number 

of stages that can span many years.

Stage 1—Awareness. The first stage entails the emergence of a problem that needs public and 

government attention. Initially, there may be little activity by an agency with respect to the issue. 

No one is responsible for dealing with the problem at this point.

Stage 2—Trigger. Subsequently, some event occurs that triggers action. Government places 

the issue on its agenda. It is “framed” as a particular kind of problem or opportunity. Who is in 

charge of the issue or problem still remains unclear, and there may be numerous parties contesting 

for ownership.

Stage 3—Establishing a Program. Next, a decision is reached by appropriate government 

authorities to assign jurisdiction over the issue to an agency. Legislation is passed, which confers 

The Case of Ozone Depletion
2 NASA and the Environment 

legitimacy and resources. The agency establishes a program to cope with the problem. In the case 

at hand, it is a research and development (R&D) program that is established.

Stage 4—Early Implementation. The agency plans, organizes, and executes a program 

of action. This stage can involve numerous substages. The nature of the program can change as 

progress is made, as can the organization.

Stage 5—Evaluation/Reorientation. At some point along the way, there is a pause and 

the program is evaluated. The evaluation can be formal or informal, scientific or political. The 

results of the evaluation may lead to various outcomes: a decision to continue the program as is, a 

plan to reorient it, or a decision to terminate it.

Stage 6—Amplification. This important stage is often overlooked in decision-making 

literature, perhaps because it does not always occur. When it does occur, it involves the expansion 

of the program into new areas, even as the existing program continues to be implemented. In other 

words, not only does the agency reorient the program, but the agency itself changes.

Stage 7—Later Implementation. In this stage, the agency reimplements the program, in a 

greatly modified organizational and policy context. Scientific progress is made, but so are mistakes. 

The agency, perhaps carried along by the momentum of stages 5 and 6, overreaches and has to lower 

the program’s profile.

Stage 8—Institutionalization. In the eighth stage, the issue dims in the public’s perception 

and may even cease to be considered as a problem. The program becomes a routine, ongoing agency 

activity, but it is now one that operates at a lower priority than before.

 The above decision-making model has a linear structure that does not exist in reality. However, 

it conveys, in a general way, the overall course of the decisions being made over time. The ozone 

depletion issue has moved through the first seven stages at NASA, and it is now advancing into 

the eighth. The ozone decision-making process began in the late 1960s. Along the way, NASA 

assumed a new role and developed new relationships with other agencies. It made key decisions in 

the program’s birth and development. While no longer acute, the ozone policy process continues, 

and there is increased scientific recognition of the link between ozone depletion and climate change. 

That link, along with other issues remaining to be understood, has required constant attention. 

Ozone depletion thus represents an important case study in the history of NASA and environmental 

sciences. It is one from which many lessons can be learned about the management of science and 

technology and the application of knowledge to policy-making decisions.

 In tracking NASA’s decision-making process, the author has made use of the various books on 

ozone policy—and it should be emphasized this paper’s orientation is on ozone policy and the 

NASA government program, not the history of environmental science. For other approaches, see the 

works of Benedick, Andersen and Sarma, Christie, and Parson.2

 Benedick deals with the diplomatic 

story; Andersen and Sarma, the role of the United Nations; Christie, the scientific debate and 

consensus-building process in science; and Parson, most comprehensively, government policy and 

the evolution of scientific thought. None of these books focuses on NASA.
The Case of Ozone Depletion 3

STAGE 1—AWARENESS

 When ozone depletion first became an issue in the late 1960s, NASA was preoccupied with 

Apollo and landing a man on the Moon. The Department of Transportation (DOT) had primary 

responsibility for another huge project—the Supersonic Transport (SST). The SST was, at this 

time, still in development, but it was already a target of the environmental movement, whose power 

rose rapidly in the latter part of the decade.

 Environmentalists attacked the SST for its sonic boom (noise pollution). They also said it 

would pollute the atmosphere and dilute the ozone layer, which lay in the upper reaches of the 

atmosphere—a region approximately 15–50 km above Earth’s surface known as the stratosphere. 

If the ozone layer were depleted, dangerous ultraviolet (UV) rays would reach Earth, increasing 

the incidence of human skin cancer, and affect other living creatures. The Massachusetts Institute 

of Technology (MIT) conducted a study in 1969 concluding that the SST might well have some 

impact on the stratosphere, and it recommended that a permanent stratospheric monitoring 

program be initiated to assess the SST’s true impact.3

 Such a monitoring program did not materialize initially. Instead, there was debate within the 

scientific community. One scientist who took up the environmentalists’ cause was James McDonald 

of the University of Arizona. He testified before Congress and championed the issue. Because 

he was also a researcher of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) and extraterrestrial visitation, his 

credibility was easily attacked. Harold Johnston, a University of California at Berkeley scientist, also 

concluded SSTs were a possible menace to the ozone layer. A draft of an article he sent to Science

magazine was leaked to the New York Times in 1971. It charged that a fleet of SSTs would deplete 

the ozone layer enough to allow sufficient radiation to reach Earth’s surface and to cause blindness.4

The National Research Council (NRC) looked into the matter and reported that there was adequate 

evidence of a potential problem to justify further research.

 Senator Clinton Anderson (Democrat, NM), Chair of the Senate Committee on Aeronautical 

and Space Sciences, believed NASA, the agency he oversaw, had the best expertise to conduct a 

research program. He wrote to James Fletcher, the NASA administrator at that time, and urged him 

to take the initiative.5

 Whatever Fletcher may have thought, NASA was unable to get strongly involved. The 

congressional debate over SST came to a head in 1971 and Congress terminated the program, 

much to the dismay of the Nixon administration. All that could be salvaged, as far as DOT was 

concerned, was a four-year research effort called the Climate Impact Assessment Program (CIAP). 

It is noteworthy that the program’s tasks included looking at SST’s impact on climate and the

ozone layer.

 NASA was largely a bystander to these significant policy events. It worked with DOT 

on aeronautical research. As discussion of the SST issue increasingly turned to questions of 

environmental impact, NASA was drawn into these discussions to provide input on the research 

aspect. However, DOT was still the agency in charge.6
 
5

STAGE 2—TRIGGER

 As far as NASA was concerned, the catalyst for policy action involved internal and external 

matters. Indeed, it could be said that there were two triggers. The first was the approval by 

President Nixon of the development of a Space Shuttle in 1972. Given the demise of SST the year 

before, NASA leadership understood that potential opposition to the Space Shuttle could result 

in the Agency being charged with depleting the ozone layer or affecting climate via the Shuttle. 

A report commissioned by NASA in 1973 found that the Space Shuttle would release chlorine, a 

highly reactive element theorized to destroy ozone in the stratosphere.7

 The report alarmed NASA 

management, and Johnson Space Center’s (Johnson) initial response was to suppress the information. 

However, NASA Headquarters overruled Johnson. As soon as this stance was reversed, the report 

was published, and an office was established to study the Shuttle’s environmental effects. 

 In 1974, NASA also sponsored a workshop that explored the pollution issues further. Fletcher 

decided that NASA could not rely on DOT’s CIAP—which was going to end in the near term. It 

had to involve itself in stratospheric research in a much more serious, proactive way. These matters 

were related directly to NASA’s central mission and its dominant program, the Space Shuttle. They 

required much greater study than they had previously received, and Fletcher ordered officials in the 

Agency to direct their attention accordingly.8

 The other trigger had nothing to do with the SST, much less the Space Shuttle. In mid-1974, 

Mario Molina and F. Sherwood Rowland published a paper in Nature magazine in which they 

suggested that a common family of industrially produced compounds known as chlorofluorocarbons 

(CFCs) could lead to stratospheric ozone depletion.9

 These were ubiquitous, a clear and present 

danger, rather than a futuristic threat. They were found in everyday items such as spray cans, air 

conditioners, refrigerators, and the like. If the ozone layer were to be depleted, the Sun’s ultraviolet 

rays would seep through this protective shield and cause enhanced rates of skin cancer in humans.

 The media and environmentalists seized on the theory and called for action. The political 

conflict, which had cooled since SST’s cancellation, reheated rapidly. Congress debated what to 

do. The options included creating a long-term research program focused on the stratosphere and/or 

regulating CFCs.10

The Case of Ozone Depletion
 
7

STAGE 3—ESTABLISHING A NEW PROGRAM

 It was much easier to reach a bipartisan political consensus on a new research program than 

on new regulation. But who should be in charge? From the standpoint of existing missions, the 

stratosphere was a no-man’s land. It was not, technically, “space.” Nor was it an area where the 

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) typically operated. DOT was a 

potential candidate, thus extending CIAP, and the National Science Foundation (NSF) was also 

a possible lead agency. Another option was to coordinate an interagency program through the 

sub-cabinet-level Interagency Committee on Atmospheric Sciences (ICAS), a body of the Federal 

Council on Science and Technology (FCST), headed by the White House Science Adviser.

 President Ford’s Science Advisor, H. Guyford Stever, wanted a thorough airing of the issues 

through the interagency FCST before reaching a final conclusion. However, forces in Congress were 

anxious to move faster. It was obvious that an important new research mission was coming into 

being. Agencies saw bureaucratic interests at stake.

 In late 1974, the “lead agency” question was discussed by John Naugle, Deputy Associate 

Administrator, NASA, and Ed Todd, Deputy Assistant Director for Research, NSF. In a memo 

written for the record by Naugle, Todd noted that

DOT, as a result of the CIAP, probably had the most experience in handling a problem of 

this nature. However, because DOT regarded their job as fulfilled, they did not feel that there 

would be the interest in DOT to make them a good [lead] agency. AEC [the Atomic Energy 

Commission, the predecessor of the Department of Energy]. . . was eager to undertake the 

job, but did not have any particular agency motivation other than the aircraft and balloon 

capability to make measurements.11

 In this same memo, it was stated (probably by Naugle) that 

NASA obviously has a considerable interest and motivation because of the Shuttle chlorine 

problem and is already working in the area. Todd [had] indicated to Stever that if there is a 

need for a crash effort, he felt NASA was best suited to do the job [but] NOAA is interested 

in being the lead agency.12

 Todd went on to say that NOAA had done some lobbying. NOAA had given Stever a copy of 

a letter it sent Congress, which stated NOAA’s willingness to take “responsibility to act as lead 

agency.” Todd did not believe his agency, NSF, was appropriate to serve as the lead. Rather, he stated 

his view that it was NASA or NOAA that should be the lead. Naugle made it clear that NASA “was 

definitely interested in being the lead agency.” However, NASA did not want to run a program 

like CIAP—one limited in scope and duration. NASA wanted “an ongoing stratospheric research 

program.” Todd indicated he would “pass this word along to Stever.”13

 Fletcher had redistributed existing funds to set up an office. Fletcher and Deputy Administrator 

George Low now forcefully pursued the agency leadership position, using the office Fletcher 

established as what one study called a “lever.” It was a way of showing that NASA was already 

organized to conduct an activity. To the extent there was competition between NASA and NOAA 

The Case of Ozone Depletion
8 NASA and the Environment 

for this new program, NASA had the clear advantage in congressional support and in the freedom 

to maneuver as an independent agency (versus NOAA’s subordinate location in the Department of 

Commerce).

 NASA’s oversight committee, the Senate Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences, held 

hearings in December 1974. As the chair, Senator Moss (Democrat, Utah) said the hearings 

highlighted certain facts: 1) theoretical projections that the world had a real problem, but there was 

little experimental evidence to back up the theory; 2) there were surprisingly few scientists working 

in the field of upper atmospheric chemistry, perhaps no “more than a hundred in the entire world”; 

and 3) “efforts to understand what happens in the upper atmosphere have been piecemeal and 

fragmented.” Everyone agreed, Moss said, on the need for a major research program that would 

focus on this problem. NASA, in his view, was the right agency to lead this effort, given its “unique 

capabilities.”14 The decision to ban certain ozone-depleting substances would depend on what this 

research showed.

 Congress went along with Moss’s view and in June 1975 passed legislation directing NASA

“to conduct a comprehensive program of research, technology and monitoring of the phenomena of 

the upper atmosphere.”15 This language, embodied in the fiscal year (FY) 1976 authorization bill 

for NASA, gave the Agency a clear mandate to perform research concerned with depletion of the 

ozone layer.
The Case of Ozone Depletion 9

STAGE 4—EARLY IMPLEMENTATION

 Congress gave the Agency $7.5 million as a specific line-item appropriation for research in NASA’s 

FY 1976 budget. An Upper Atmosphere Research Office (UARO) was set up within NASA’s Office 

of Space Science and Applications (OSSA) to handle these funds. Congress also appropriated an 

additional $115.5 million for satellite development. 

 The first director of UARO was James King. He established working relationships with groups 

at various NASA Centers: Langley Research Center (Langley), Goddard Space Flight Center 

(Goddard), Ames Research Center (Ames), Johnson, and the California Institute of Technology’s 

Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). He set as UARO’s short-term goal the evaluation of the potential 

effects of the Space Shuttle, fluorocarbons, stratospheric aircraft, and other chemical emissions on 

the stratosphere. Initially, NASA utilized staff members of various research projects at the various 

Centers. Over time, the program grew and became more directed to specific issues related to ozone 

depletion and ozone science.16

 The program got under way in a highly contentious political environment. Environmentalists 

wished to regulate early, before the research results were in, on the basis of “the precautionary 

principle.” The $8 billion CFC industry, led by its dominant company, Dupont, wanted to wait to 

see what the research said, since the economic implications were great. The official position of the 

Ford administration was to conduct research before promulgating regulations, and Fletcher publicly 

supported that view.

 NASA’s UARO budget grew to $11.6 million by FY 1977 and would continue to rise for the 

next several years. In 1978, NASA launched Nimbus 7, a satellite specially equipped with five 

instruments to study the upper atmosphere. Although the research and satellite efforts were still 

relatively new, the politics of ozone were forcing early action.17

BANNING CFCS IN SPRAY CANS

 In 1975, a federal task force recommended banning the chemicals used in most aerosol 

propellants for hair sprays, shaving creams, and deodorants unless subsequent scientific evidence 

exonerated them. In 1977, a National Research Council report indicated that they were a subject 

of legitimate concern.18 There was little connection between NASA’s stratospheric R&D program 

and this policy. Science and regulation were subject to differing forces, timetables, and decisionmaking processes. However, Congress seemed to want more policy-program integration. In 1977, it 

passed legislation (Clean Air Act Amendments), which required NASA to issue biennial reports to 

Congress on the status of ozone science and what was known.19 In 1978, Congress banned CFC use 

in aerosol propellants—the strongest regulation that could be accomplished at that time. Decisions 

on other CFC sources, particularly refrigerants, would have to wait.20 Industry could substitute other 

technologies for the spray cans. Because industry said it would be more complicated to find substitutes 

for other uses, Congress limited the policy to particular applications in the United States. 
10 NASA and the Environment 

BUILDING SCIENCE 

 In the late 1970s, NASA sponsored workshops and published reports on the research and status 

of ozone-layer depletion. It also began plans to launch a new satellite dedicated specifically to ozonelayer depletion, called Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS).21

 The political context in which NASA implemented its program changed dramatically when 

Ronald Reagan replaced Jimmy Carter as President in 1981. The White House opposed regulation 

but supported scientific research, especially of a more basic kind. The Reagan administration saw 

the existing CFC policy as more than adequate. It put proposed Environmental Protection Agency 

(EPA) regulations on hold, and industry, which had been pondering possible substitute technologies, 

now relaxed a bit. Even environmentalists were relatively passive, resting on their laurels from the 

1978 aerosol propellant legislative victory. The experience of NASA satellite researcher Donald 

Heath in 1981 characterized the new political setting. He told EPA that satellite observations 

showed a 1-percent loss of global ozone. EPA said Heath’s views were “mildly suggestive.” Heath 

backed off. “There were many questions, but I still believed it was real,” he said. “There was so much 

opposition to it; I sort of let it die. I thought I’d wait a while.”22

 The Reagan administration did believe it was a governmental responsibility to perform basic 

research, including the study of stratospheric chemistry. The Upper Atmosphere Research Program 

received between $20 and $30 million a year for research (exclusive of satellite development). 

Moreover, NASA began planning a larger effort concerned with the global environment that made 

the upper atmosphere program extremely important as a first step for the Agency as a whole. 

DEVELOPING AN ENVIRONMENTAL MISSION

 Reagan’s appointee, NASA Administrator James Beggs, came with a government and industry 

background. Beggs viewed the Space Shuttle as just about “operational” and NASA as being in dire 

need of one or more new big R&D missions. His priority was a space station, which he called “the 

next logical step” in space exploration. However, in 1981, he knew it would take time to “sell” such 

a giant program to the Reagan administration. As it turned out, he could not get the President to 

go ahead with the Space Station until 1984.

 Meanwhile, Beggs encouraged other large initiatives. The head of OSSA, Burt Edelson, who 

was an engineer, was interested in the applications side of OSSA. He saw the ozone depletion 

research as a harbinger of missions to come and envisioned NASA with a major Earth science role. 

Such a mission, he believed, would require large platforms in space with multiple sensors looking 

comprehensively at air, land, and sea changes on Earth.

 Beggs liked what he heard from Edelson and in 1982 proclaimed before the UN Conference on 

the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space that NASA was going to launch Project Habitat. NASA, he said, 

would lead “an international cooperative project to use space technology to address natural and 

manmade changes affecting the habitability of Earth.”23 The reaction was quite underwhelming, 

and in fact, negative. Other agencies and nations asked what NASA was up to—they felt blindsided 

and viewed NASA as engaging in bureaucratic empire-building. NASA had failed to properly brief 

many of the parties whose support it would have needed to get Project Habitat off the ground.
The Case of Ozone Depletion 11

 Beggs told Edelson to go back, plan a program, and build a constituency before moving forward 

in any visible way. Edelson appointed an Earth System Sciences Committee to explore options and 

included other agencies, particularly NSF and NOAA, in the deliberations. Meanwhile, outside 

NASA, the scientific community independently began contemplating a huge international effort, 

which came to be called “global change.” At issue here were subjects such as desertification, ocean 

pollution, climate change, and others. These problems involved more than space but certainly 

needed the view from space.24 The Upper Atmosphere Research Program, thus under way, was seen 

inside and outside NASA as critical to global change plans. 

 In 1984, NASA got Reagan administration approval to develop the Upper Atmosphere Research 

Satellite, for which NASA had been planning since 1978. UARS was seen as the principal driver in 

NASA’s ozone depletion research and development program. It was a major technical advance over 

what existed and would cost hundreds of millions of dollars to develop. Since it would be some 

time before UARS could be deployed via a Shuttle, the NASA approach was to conduct research 

“along the way.” The pace of R&D was governed by the development of UARS, scientific questions, 

the need to build a scientific cadre, and bureaucratic requirements. Science teams worked out a 

strategy for using UARS data when they became available, so as to accelerate the application of this 

knowledge as soon as possible.25

ROBERT WATSON AS A POLICY ENTREPRENEUR

 The man in charge of NASA’s Upper Atmosphere Research Program—the nonsatellite 

activity—was Robert Watson, a young atmospheric chemist who had been born and educated 

in Great Britain. After receiving his Ph.D., Watson did postdoctoral work at the University of 

Maryland and then the University of California at Berkeley, under Harold Johnston. He then went 

to work at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, managed by the California Institute of Technology 

(Caltech). He became involved in the Upper Atmosphere Research Program while at JPL, and in 

1980 NASA moved him to Washington, DC, to manage the upper atmosphere program. He was

then 32.

 Watson started out as “purely academic” in his orientation, but his doctoral work focused 

specifically on chlorine chemistry as it related to the CFC–ozone loss issue. His postdoctoral work 

and JPL experience drew him increasingly to believe that stratospheric ozone loss was a real threat. 

He was familiar with the theories of Molina and Rowland and gave them credence. He wanted 

NASA to work on a problem he believed was potentially quite serious.26

 Watson’s administrative base was solid. NASA had a legislative mandate for a program and a 

steady budget for ozone depletion research. It controlled approximately 70 percent of the federal 

government’s ozone-related research dollars. Watson ran a program that subsequently matured and 

had a growing constituency of researchers interested in the problem. Watson also had a legislative 

mandate to provide policy-makers with an assessment of the science every two years. This assessment 

aspect, legislated during the Carter administration and then carried out later by NASA, might have 

been seen more as a symbol than reality, but Watson saw it as an opportunity to greatly expand the 

usefulness of his program.

 Watson developed a certain strategy that would become his research and assessment trademark. 

This was a “participative strategy.” Because of the mandate and the relatively large resources 
12 NASA and the Environment 

available, NASA had the potential to play a considerable role as the lead agency, and Watson desired 

to do so. He wanted others aboard and used the assessment responsibility to build alliances among 

scientists in different agencies, and eventually nations. Watson became a proactive coordinator of 

scientific ozone research and assessment efforts that grew increasingly complex and far flung in 

scale. Jack Kaye, a NASA official concerned with ozone research, recalled Watson’s skill as akin 

to “herding cats.”27 Watson had a rare capacity to get scientists to work together. A writer who 

studied the ozone-depletion issue called Watson “a master at blending the roles of bureaucrat and 

scientist.”28 This blending was shown most vividly in how he dealt with the assessment function.

 Watson found that NASA’s assessment was one of several, and that fragmentation weakened its 

impact on policy-makers. When he took leadership of the program, he recalled thinking that 

Before 1980, there were several assessments being done periodically in different countries. 

This just meant that the policymakers spent more time looking at the differences between 

them rather than at the similarities, even when they said basically the same thing. With one 

document, even if there was a range of views in it, then the international policy community 

had a constant base.29

 In 1982, Watson convinced the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and NOAA to 

cosponsor the NASA assessment. He also internationalized it by enlisting the World Meteorological 

Organization (WMO) as a cosponsor. Subsequently, the NASA assessment was often called the 

NASA/WMO assessment, or even WMO/NASA assessment.30 Watson, unlike many Washington 

administrators, saw “sharing credit” as a way to enhance influence.

 Early on, he struck an alliance with Mostafa Tolba, head of the United Nations Environmental 

Program (UNEP). Tolba, like Watson, believed that ozone depletion was a serious problem and 

that it was important for scientists and policy-makers to come together and determine what to do.31

UNEP was a relatively weak entity by UN standards, but Tolba seized the ozone-depletion issue as 

his and began sponsoring international meetings that kept the issue on the agenda of scientists and 

policy-makers. Watson found that UNEP meetings helped him to keep scientists focused on the 

issue as well.

 The UNEP meetings during the early Reagan years gradually became more substantive, with 

an eye to negotiating an international policy agreement. The United States participated officially 

(via the State Department), in part because it had banned CFCs in aerosol cans and wanted other 

nations to follow suit.

 Watson helped UNEP by sponsoring a series of 30 workshops whose findings were fed not 

only into the NASA assessments, but also into those international meetings. Watson involved 150 

scientists from 11 countries in workshops over the 1983–84 period. He used the workshops to push 

for agreement on facts.32

 In preparation for the 1986 NASA assessment, Watson expanded co-sponsorship even further, 

adding more agencies in the United States, more international bodies, and a West German 

government agency. Litfin writes that Watson’s motives were more political than scientific.
The Case of Ozone Depletion 13

The reasons for including broad representation were more political than scientific. Watson 

and the other scientists who saw the need for a strong international report “wanted to break 

down the false skepticism that wasn’t based on fact, but rather on things like, ‘This is only 

American research . . . ’ ” . . . He attracted scientists to the workshops by emphasizing their 

professional value, stating that “the world’s best atmospheric scientists would be there” and 

that “a document would come out of them that we could all be proud of.” Some scientists from 

certain countries were invited to the workshops even if they had little to contribute, in the 

hope that they might stimulate interest at home. Overall, the rationale for the assessment was 

inherently political—to mitigate nationalistic biases.33

 Watson felt an increasing sense of urgency, but aside from a few others (like Tolba), this feeling 

was largely missing from most scientific and policy discussions in the 1981–84 period. Moreover, 

Watson himself was conscious of the limits of scientific knowledge about ozone depletion. He 

sided with industry in 1984 in calling for a delay in further CFC bans pending further research 

and satellite observations. In early 1985, he and his superior at OSSA, Shelby Tilford, considered 

whether a Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) 

unit on Nimbus satellites and high-flying aircraft (ER2s) would be the best equipment to use or some other 

method might be better. Events that year made them speed 

up research and decide on equipment, as circumstances 

changed dramatically.

 In January, EPA got a new leader, Lee Thomas, who was 

handpicked to help the agency recover from a period in 

which the first Reagan appointee had not only weakened 

EPA, but also embarrassed the Reagan administration 

publicly. Thomas soon decided that ozone depletion was an 

issue on which EPA had to take a stand. His agency relied 

on NASA for stratospheric research. However, it also studied 

the cancer risks of exposure to excessive ultraviolet rays, and 

Thomas viewed these risks in “black-and-white” terms.34

That is, he believed any exposure was bad, and, therefore, 

EPA had to push for a maximum possible ban on CFCs.

 Another change in circumstances affecting the ozonedepletion issue came in March 1985 when international 

negotiators adopted a “framework” convention. There 

was agreement among several nations, the United States 

included, that ozone depletion was indeed a problem and 

that the world should address it. This agreement, the 1985 

Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer 

(known as the Vienna accord), did not have any controls 

and carefully recognized the sovereignty of individual states 

to do as they pleased. But at least there was now official 

international recognition of the problem.35

The Nimbus 7 satellite. (Source: Folder 6187, NASA 

Historical Reference Collection, NASA History

Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC.)
14 NASA and the Environment 

THE OZONE HOLE

 Then came the event that jarred everyone concerned with ozone science and policy—the 

publication of a paper that asserted the existence of an ozone hole above Antarctica. The genesis 

of this paper went back to 1982. A team from the British Antarctic Survey, led by Joseph Farman, 

found ozone losses above 20 percent in an area of Antarctica (Halley Bay) they were studying. 

Existing models of ozone depletion had predicted a gradual loss—nothing as big or dramatic as 

reported by the British team. Trusting those earlier models, NASA scientists had questioned the 

reliability of satellite observations that were similarly anomalous, suspecting that they were an 

artifact of the instrumentation. Farman himself distrusted his data at first.

 Over the next two years Farman conducted more research, as he came to believe the ozone loss 

was extensive. He wrote to NASA scientists at the Agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center, who 

were responsible for the TOMS data, about his results and asked them whether they were seeing 

what he was seeing. He did not get a reply. Through his own research, he discovered that ozone 

loss varied with the season, a fact suggesting meteorology rather than chemistry might explain the 

loss. However, in his paper Farman specifically pointed to CFCs as the cause, while proposing that 

the meteorological conditions were a contributing factor. Farman also calculated that from 1957 to 

1984 the surface area of the ozone layer blanketing Antarctica had shrunk by 30 percent. Farman 

did not sound the alarm via the media but instead went through normal scientific procedures. 

He finished his paper, had it peer-reviewed, and eventually published it in the May 1985 issue of 

Southern Hemisphere ozone cover 1985-88, as mapped by Nimbus 7: TOMS. (NASA Image No. 89-HC-10)
The Case of Ozone Depletion 15

Nature magazine.36 There were NASA scientists, meanwhile, who were becoming belated believers 

in the “anomalous” satellite readings. They also prepared a paper supporting the view that CFCs 

were responsible for significant ozone depletion and planned to present the paper at a scientific 

conference. However, Farman’s paper came out first.37

 After a brief time, in which scientists, the media, and policy-makers digested the implications 

of the Farman paper, the ozone issue exploded into a huge national and international debate. 

Watson wanted to know why NASA scientists had not spotted the problem earlier. The scientists 

at Goddard told him they had assumed that all the anomalies in the TOMS data were in error, 

but it turned out all the anomalies occurred over Antarctica in the austral spring. Initially, 

NASA was chagrined that a relatively obscure British research group had achieved scientific 

superiority and that its satellites appeared not to have yet identified—or at least researchers 

using satellite data had not spotted—the hole. However, NASA then transmitted satellite 

images of Antarctica, and what those pictures revealed literally brought the ozone issue home

to the general public and its political representatives.

 The satellites showed the scale of the hole—the size of the continental United States. Moreover, as 

NASA official Jack Kaye remarked, “You could watch it grow, evolve like a living organism.”38 Those 

color images appeared on television, shown repeatedly on evening newscasts. The publicity was intense. 

Scientists and policy-makers wanted to know what was happening at the South Pole and whether this 

might be an early warning of a global phenomenon. What bothered everyone was the suddenness of 

the discovery, the knowledge that scientific models had assumed a gradual loss, and the staggering size 

of the depleted area. The possible implications for policy were clear to EPA Administrator Thomas, the 

environmental community, and many scientists (including Watson). There was less time to act than 

previously assumed. The NASA program had to become more targeted. 

 Fortunately, Watson had invested heavily in three scientific researchers, whose work, he 

believed, was of sufficient quality as to allow real progress in testing atmospheric-chemistry 

models. These were James Anderson at Harvard University, Crofton Farmer at JPL-Caltech, and 

Art Schmeltekopf at the NOAA Aeronomy Laboratory. The key now was to get them and others 

marching in the same direction.
 
17

STAGE 5—EVALUATION/REORIENTATION

 The key scientific questions were 1) whether the hole was due to chemistry (i.e., CFCs) or nature 

(i.e., meteorology) and 2) whether what was happening in Antarctica was also happening globally. 

Watson seized the moment to try to get answers to these questions. The process began in January 

1986, with the NASA assessment. 

 This report, Present State of Knowledge of the Upper Atmosphere: An Assessment Report, summarized 

what was known, saying little about the hole since investigations were only just unfolding. However, 

the report did state that existing models predicted a global ozone loss of between 5 and 8 percent 

by the end of the 21st century. It also predicted a loss of as much as 14 percent at the polar regions, 

which did have unusual meteorology. Alluding to Antarctica, the report concluded, “What was 

once mainly based on theoretical predictions is now being confirmed by observations.” It also asked 

whether the ozone hole could be “an early warning of future changes in global ozone.”39

 The lead author of this report was Watson, joined by various NASA colleagues. In his preface, 

Watson said that 150 scientists in different countries contributed to the report. The lead reviewer was 

Dan Albritton, director of NOAA’s Aeronomy Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado. One of Watson’s 

most fruitful moves was to establish a personal and institutional alliance with Albritton.

 When the leadership of Upper Atmosphere Research Program was being considered by Congress, 

NOAA had put in a claim to be the lead agency but had lost to NASA. Watson might have ignored 

NOAA, a potential rival. Instead, he made it a partner, and the Watson-Albritton alliance proved 

important not only in responding to the ozone hole crisis, but also in communicating its threat 

to policy-makers. Albritton, like Watson, had an unusual skill. According to Kaye, Albritton was 

exceptionally competent in communicating technical information to policy-makers. It was not just 

his verbal capacity, however, 

but his ability to use handdrawn viewgraphs that helped 

to demonstrate his points in 

a clear, understandable, and 

easily remembered way.40

 Albritton did not have 

much discretionary money to 

contribute to what became a 

crash effort in ozone research 

and assessment, but he had his 

own abilities and those of the 

talented people in his lab. In 

1986, Watson moved from a 

research manager to a research 

mobilizer and science advisor 

to policy-makers. Albritton was Robert Watson of NASA examines TOMS ozone data. (NASA Image No. 87-HC-223)

The Case of Ozone Depletion
18 NASA and the Environment 

his chief partner in all these roles. NASA gave Watson remarkable autonomy and enough resources. 

NASA’s overall planning made the study of ozone depletion the vanguard of what it came to call 

publicly its “Mission to Planet Earth (MTPE).”41 MTPE emerged gradually, becoming a formal 

office in 1988.

THE ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION 

 In March, Watson, Albritton, and others met in Boulder and decided to conduct a field expedition 

to Antarctica as soon as possible. With Albritton’s help, Watson hurriedly dispatched a 13-member 

team of scientists to Antarctica during the August–September period when the depletion seemed to 

be most pronounced. He placed Susan Solomon, a NOAA scientist from Albritton’s lab, in charge. 

Known as NOZE (National Ozone Expedition), the expedition’s purpose was to explain the ozone 

hole and determine which of the various theories accounted for it. Funding came mainly from 

NASA, but NOAA, NSF, and the Chemical Manufacturers Association also contributed. The team 

took balloon and ground-based measurements and also had the benefit of satellite data.42

 At the end of NOZE, Solomon held a press conference from Antarctica. Although there still was 

much work to do analyzing the data, the NOZE team felt that public alarm about the ozone hole 

required them to say something (rather than waiting, as had Farman, until their work had cleared 

the lengthy peer-review, publication process). Solomon declared, “We suspect a chemical process is 

fundamentally responsible for the formation of the hole.”43

 There were caveats, and by no means did Solomon say the data were conclusive. But Solomon’s 

statement about causation received a negative reaction from many scientists who favored a 

meteorological explanation and from industry, which thought the statement much too premature. 

In November 1986, critics of NOZE aired their views in a special edition of Geophysical Research 

Letters. Many of those who published opinions in the journal wanted a higher standard of proof 

than existed at the time.44

 Watson decided that there would have to be a second expedition to settle the scientific questions 

regarding the cause of ozone depletion. Meanwhile, the national and international policy debate 

resumed with an urgency that matched the fervent scientific search for an explanation. Indeed, the 

regulatory policy process, galvanized by the ozone–hole issue, was now moving faster than that of 

the science. 

POLICY DEBATE 

 In December 1986, international negotiations on a possible ozone treaty resumed in Geneva, 

Switzerland. There had been a 17-month hiatus since the 1985 Vienna accord. In the wake of the 

ozone-hole discovery and the publicity it engendered, more nations now stood ready to negotiate a 

treaty with some controls.

 Within the Reagan Administration there was considerable debate. One side wanted no regulation 

until the scientific uncertainties were more fully resolved—a view Reagan’s science adviser, William 

Graham, espoused. The other side, championed by EPA Administrator Thomas, argued for 

maximum precautionary controls with a ban on 95 percent of the CFCs that were being produced, 

thus forcing industry to come up with substitutes sooner than later.45
The Case of Ozone Depletion 19

 In May 1987, Interior Secretary Donald Hodel caused an uproar when he was quoted as saying 

that if ozone depletion made ultraviolet radiation increase, people could simply wear sunglasses 

and hats and use suntan lotion. “People who don’t stand out in the sun—it doesn’t affect them,” 

he declared. Hodel’s remarks brought widespread criticism, ridicule, and scorn. The media had a 

field day. Environmentalists appeared at press conferences wearing sunscreen, hats, and sunglasses. 

Congress held hearings, putting more pressure on the administration to “do something.” Secretary of 

State George Shultz distanced himself from the antiregulatory opposition and said the international 

negotiations would continue. President Reagan became involved and gave his assent to finding a 

resolution for the issue. The administration worked out a policy compromise that asked for a 50-

percent reduction in CFC production by 2000.46 The United States sought to make this position a 

global policy.

A SECOND ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION

 Watson and Albritton were asked to serve as principal science advisers to the U.S. delegation 

to the international negotiations. Watson saw two challenges. First, he had to organize another 

antarctic expedition to settle the chemistry-versus-meteorology argument. Second, he had to deal 

with an internal problem at NASA. Donald Heath, from the NASA satellite program, had testified 

before Congress that his evidence showed an ozone loss of 4 percent over the entire planet within 

a seven–year period. Watson had testified that the evidence did not support such a statement.47

Watson believed he was correct and that the scientific community’s credibility depended on stating 

not only what scientists knew, but also what they did not know. Moreover, he also adhered to the 

view that scientists had to present a united front when advising policy-makers if they wished to have 

influence. He wondered how he could build a consensus among different countries, when he could 

not effect a unified voice at NASA. Hence, in addition to the antarctic expedition, he sponsored 

a large, international scientific panel, which he called the Ozone Trends Panel, to assess existing 

data on the global impact of ozone depletion. The panel’s mission was to dig into the data in some 

detail and look at the resulting trends to determine whether they were real or might be due to 

uncertainties, inaccuracies, or a degradation of the observing systems—an important point if the 

aim was to reveal a subtle trend within a data set that was highly variable.48

 First, there was Antarctica. With Albritton’s help, Watson organized what was called the 

Airborne Antarctic Ozone Experiment (AAOE). Watson wanted results and to get them he decided 

to “throw everything” into this project.49 Not only would there be a larger number of scientists 

deployed, but the research team would have more and better equipment. This antarctic expedition 

cost $10 million, with NASA paying the most, and with cosponsorship from NOAA, NSF, and the 

Chemical Manufacturers Association (industry’s representative on the research team). A total of 150 

scientists and associated support personnel were involved, representing 19 different organizations 

and four countries. Among others, the United Kingdom Meteorological Office played an important 

role providing for its own expenses.50

 Watson believed it was critical to get measurements in the stratosphere, where ozone had begun 

to disappear. The first expedition obtained satellite and ground data. The data were suggestive but 

inconclusive. He needed an airplane that could fly 13 miles above Earth. There was only one type 

of plane at NASA that could fly at that altitude, a converted spy plane called the ER-2. NOAA’s 

Schmeltekopf had suggested the need for such a plane as early as the March 1986 meeting in 
20 NASA and the Environment 

Boulder that proposed NOZE. Acting upon this suggestion was possible because Watson and Tilford, 

Watson’s superior at NASA, had directed funds for research using in situ instruments on the ER-2 to 

investigate ice cloud formation at temperatures very similar to those in the antarctic vortex. This work 

demonstrated the potential value of the ER-2 to the study of ozone depletion. Getting the airplane and 

using it in Antarctica was not easy, however.51 In order to acquire the plane, Watson had to bargain 

with another division of NASA. Meeting some resistance, he declared, “Look, this isn’t just a science 

problem. It’s a problem that has important policy implications that a lot of people care about.”52

 Watson got his plane. In gearing up rapidly for the expedition, he was helped by his previous 

NASA experience. NASA’s larger organizational needs at this time also aided his efforts. In 1986, 

NASA had suffered a blow from the Challenger disaster that took the lives of seven astronauts, 

including the first teacher in space. In 1987, James Fletcher returned to NASA as administrator 

to help the Agency recover. Fletcher had been in charge when the Upper Atmosphere Research 

Program had begun. Sally Ride, the first U.S. woman in space, did a study for Fletcher to identify 

post-Challenger NASA priorities, and the Mission to Planet Earth got equal billing in her report 

with the missions from Earth.53 Counting satellite expenditures during this period, Watson 

estimated total NASA spending on ozone R&D at $100 million in 1987.54

 Once he had his ER-2, Watson needed to have instruments installed. He contacted James 

Anderson, a Harvard University atmospheric scientist, to whom he had directed funding for some 

time and who had built a balloon-borne instrument. He asked Anderson to adapt the instrument for 

the ER-2. Watson also requested that he develop an instrument to measure ozone-depleting chemical 

reactions 13 miles above Earth. Anderson said he needed $400,000 for the task, now seen as urgent.55

Watson provided the money. 

 In August 1987, the Airborne Antarctic Ozone Experiment began. The project manager was 

Estelle Condon of NASA’s Ames Center, the site from which the ER-2 was obtained. As in the case 

of NOZE, Watson selected a NOAA employee as the principal scientist—A.F. Tuck of the NOAA 

Aeronomy Lab. Along with the ER-2, the expedition employed balloons, satellites, a DC-8 flying 

laboratory, and other equipment.56 The expedition was a major logistical feat, one that was both 

helped and hindered by the NASA culture. NASA’s experience with large missions, often under tight 

deadlines, operating in a harsh environment was advantageous.57 In contrast, the resistance by some 

NASA officials to Watson’s granting so much authority to a NOAA scientist was a hindrance. Also, 

Watson took risks by hand-picking his team, funding certain research without peer review, and using 

funds that he had saved for an emergency.58

 As the project proceeded, Watson and Albritton spent much of the time on airplanes. They worked 

together and separately, dividing labor as necessary. They were research managers and also science 

advisers to the international negotiations. These negotiations were now moving on a schedule that 

would not wait for the antarctic expedition or Ozone Trends Panel to reach final judgments.

THE MONTREAL PROTOCOL

 The ozone hole was very much on the minds of negotiators.59 The delegates saw the hole over 

Antarctica as a warning, even though conclusive scientific findings were unavailable. Watson and 

Albritton told the delegates what they knew, and what they did not know. However, there were 

many nonscience issues that still had to be addressed.
The Case of Ozone Depletion 21

 The United States, led by the State Department and EPA, had considerable leverage in the 

international meetings that resulted ultimately in the Montreal Protocol on Substances That 

Deplete the Ozone Layer. The United States was the dominant nation in CFC production. It 

wanted a global solution for a global problem. Advocates of the Protocol perceived industry as 

being capable of coming up with substitutes. Developing nations would need technical assistance 

in converting to CFC substitutes and would require financial help.60

 In September 1987, Watson and Albritton flew up to Montreal during the final negotiations to 

present the participants with the preliminary results of the expedition. However, before the final 

scientific facts were in from Antarctica, the Montreal Protocol had concluded. It called for a 50-

percent cut in worldwide CFC production by 2000. A total of 43 nations initially signed the accord. 

Aware that more scientific information would soon be available, the delegates agreed to amend the 

protocol if the new scientific evidence warranted changes.61

Southern Hemisphere ozone cover in 1987, as mapped by Nimbus 7: TOMS. (NASA Image No. 89-HC-574)
22 NASA and the Environment 

CONCLUSIVE RESULTS

 In October, leaders of the second antarctic expedition studied their results. The evidence was now 

much stronger, because it showed that ozone decreased in the stratosphere as CFCs increased. The 

observations backed the theory. They announced that almost half the ozone over Antarctica had 

disappeared in August and September and that CFCs, rather than natural weather conditions, were 

strongly implicated as the cause. The weather at the South Pole merely exacerbated the problem. 

This second expedition also provided the “smoking gun” for which participating scientists had been 

looking—a very clear “anti-correlation” between chlorine monoxide (the chemically active form of 

chlorine in the stratosphere) and ozone. That is, the more chlorine, the less ozone! Critical to this 

finding were two instruments on the ER-2—the chlorine monoxide instrument from Anderson’s 

group at Harvard, and an ozone instrument from the NOAA Aeronomy Lab.62

 The following month, the Ozone Trends Panel met—100 scientists from different nations. 

Watson had wanted the panel to settle his dispute with NASA colleague Donald Heath, but the 

participants instead decided to postpone discussing that issue and review the antarctic findings. 

The Ozone Trends Panel backed the second expedition’s results, agreeing that the data showed 

that CFCs were most likely at fault for ozone loss.63 Science thus legitimatized the policy decision

of Montreal.

 In February 1988, the AAOE science team convened in Estes Park, Colorado. Upon reviewing the 

second antarctic expedition’s findings, the team realized that there were similar conditions in the Arctic 

that could contribute to ozone loss there as well.64 Meanwhile, in March, the U.S. Senate ratified the 

Montreal Protocol. That same month, Watson reconvened the Ozone Trends Panel to deal with the 

global impacts of ozone depletion question. The panel concluded that the satellite instruments on 

which Heath had relied for his evidence had suffered degradation, and thus his findings were suspect. 

However, ground-based stations in the Northern Hemisphere did indicate Heath was on the right 

track in certain regional measurements. There were indications of a 1.7- to 3-percent loss in the 

Northern Hemisphere, perhaps as far south as New Hampshire. 65

 These findings, along with the Estes Park discussions in February, startled many observers, 

because the Northern Hemisphere was much more densely populated than Antarctica. Dupont, 

the world’s largest CFC manufacturer, announced it would cease production as soon as substitutes

became available. On 5 April, President Reagan signed the Montreal Protocol, saying it created 

incentives for new technology. In August, EPA ordered domestic CFC reductions in line with the 

international agreement.66

 Thus, the Montreal Protocol served as an end to one decision-making process involving science 

and policy and the beginning of another. New scientific findings triggered further policy action, 

and the momentum for change continued. The Montreal Protocol included measures for subsequent 

review and amendment based on further scientific research. The policy-makers understood that 

they were making policy and setting rules to contain CFCs under conditions of uncertainty. 

The delegates virtually invited the scientific community to reduce uncertainties in order to

guide policy. 

 The existing agreement, ratified by the U.S. Senate in 1988, called for a 50-percent reduction in 

CFCs by 2000. Should that standard be tightened to 85 percent or 95 percent? Policy-makers wanted 
The Case of Ozone Depletion 23

to know the final standard—and so did industry, which was hard at work on substitutes and feeling 

not only the pressure of regulation, but also competition within the private sector as to who could 

come up with substitutes first. There was a definite sense of political momentum in the wake of the 

Montreal Protocol. Science was responding to policy pressures and also creating pressures of its own.

LOOKING NORTH

 In October 1988, NASA began serious planning for an arctic expedition. The intent, once again, 

was to employ an array of equipment—satellites, high-flying airplanes, balloons, and ground stations. 

As before, NASA would take the lead but would work closely with NOAA, as well as with NSF, 

industry, and others. Of particular interest were polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs), which scientists 

hypothesized were contributing to ozone depletion. Richard Stolarski, a NASA scientist at Goddard, 

said, “Our work in the Arctic . . . will focus on the polar stratospheric cloud, if and when it develops. 

We want to know what chemicals go into the cloud, how they are processed inside the cloud, and what 

comes out.”67
 
25

STAGE 6—AMPLIFICATION

 As plans to expand the ozone-research activity were made, they moved into the context of NASA’s 

ambition for even greater participation in environmental studies. For example, from the time the 

ozone program was young, NASA had conceived of developing a satellite with instruments more 

advanced than TOMS-Nimbus or the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite. This device was in the 

works by the late 1980s, just as ozone and other environmental issues were becoming top priorities 

for the nation and NASA. 

 NASA scientists had been thinking of creating a comprehensive satellite system for some time, 

but the ozone-research work made them think bigger, sooner, and in ways that linked various 

environmental issues. Also, in the wake of the Challenger disaster, NASA had found its role in 

ozone research and policy therapeutic. In her 1987 report for the Administrator, Sally Ride spoke 

of NASA’s mission on the home planet as being equally important to those missions of planetary 

science and even human spaceflight. NASA scientists planned to launch an Earth Observing 

System, a series of pairs of huge platforms with multiple space sensors that could look at land, air, 

and sea simultaneously (and their interactions). In the years ahead EOS would constitute the heart 

of the Agency’s Mission to Planet Earth. It would include ozone measurements, but it also would 

examine climate change and other environmental problems. Buoyed by the excitement and interest 

generated by its work in ozone research, NASA decided to accelerate ongoing plans for EOS. It 

asked Congress for $20 million in its FY 1989 budget to enhance R&D, with plans to launch EOS 

perhaps as early as 1995. 

 The year 1988 turned out to be the point at which climate change moved onto the White House 

agenda. The summer was extremely hot and NASA scientist James Hansen testified about climate 

change threats before the U.S. Senate. He gained considerable attention when he said that he 

was very confident that the “signal” of climate change had been detected and, furthermore, that 

human activities were almost certainly the major cause.68 Hansen spoke for himself, not NASA, 

but NASA received both credit and blame for publicizing the threat. Drought in the summer of 

1988 caused considerable economic hardship in many parts of the country. The UN established 

an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), modeled on the Ozone Trends Panel, as 

a way to prompt scientists from different countries to reach consensus, sooner rather than later, on 

global climate threats.

 Nineteen eighty-eight was also the year in which President Reagan’s science advisor named a new 

interagency committee called the Committee on Earth Sciences (CES). With NSF, NOAA, and 

NASA leading the way, CES produced a report calling for the set up of the U.S. Global Change 

Research Program (USGCRP).

 Global environmental issues became part of the 1988 presidential campaign. Vice President 

Bush captured the issue from his democratic rival, Michael Dukakis. In speeches, Bush said he 

would be the “environmental president” and would use the “White House effect” to counter the 

“Greenhouse effect.” Never before had global environmental issues received so much attention in a 

U.S. presidential campaign. Ozone depletion was part of the rhetoric and call for action. 

The Case of Ozone Depletion
26 NASA and the Environment 

EXPANDING GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH

 In January 1989, George H.W. Bush became president. Soon after, he appointed Richard Truly 

NASA Administrator. He also appointed D. Allan Bromley to be his science advisor. In a meeting 

with Bromley, Bush told him to select a few particularly significant areas of science that he could 

back with presidential leverage. Back in 1988, NASA, NSF, and NOAA had formulated their 

interagency endeavor, the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP). This interagency 

effort incorporated the research of Mission to Planet Earth, now an office, and EOS, the key project 

of MTPE. A report on USGCRP was already sitting on Bromley’s desk awaiting his attention when 

he became the White House science advisor. Bromley decided to make global environmental change 

Bush’s first presidential priority in science and technology. The significance of this presidential 

initiative to NASA’s interest became increasingly apparent.

 In July 1989, in marking the 20th anniversary of the Moon landing, the President publicly 

endorsed NASA’s Mission to Planet Earth. However, Bush made a return to the Moon and traveling 

on to Mars his first space priority. Senator Al Gore, then the chairman of Senate Subcommittee on 

Science, Technology, and Space, said that the Mission to Planet Earth was America’s true priority in 

space. All this discussion provided a context in which NASA’s ozone-research endeavor, the leading 

edge of NASA’s expanded Mission to Planet Earth, operated. The Upper Atmosphere Research 

Program was subsumed under MTPE. Subsequent events provided an extra imperative for NASA to 

move ahead with its ozone-research program.

ARCTIC EXPEDITION

 In January and February of 1989, NASA, along with its allies, began its arctic research with the 

Airborne Arctic Stratospheric Expedition (AASE). The expedition reported that the region had 

the same kind of disturbed atmospheric chemistry that already had destroyed part of the ozone 

layer over Antarctica. Watson said “the incredible perturbation” found in the chemistry of the 

arctic stratosphere “is a strong message to the policy makers.” The mission lasted six weeks. Led by 

NASA, the project’s participants included NOAA, NSF, the Chemical Manufacturers Association, 

and others. NASA’s Estelle Condon, the project manager mainly responsible for making most of the 

arrangements allowing NASA airplanes and scientists to work in the field, called the expedition a 

“resounding success.” Although the expedition found a chemical threat to ozone, it did not find clear 

evidence that ozone-loss had already occurred over the north polar region, and the scientists could 

not predict with certainty that a substantial loss of ozone would occur.69 Tracking ozone depletion 

in the Arctic was difficult because the arctic stratosphere was warmer than the stratosphere above 

Antarctica; hence, fewer polar stratospheric clouds formed to accelerate the depletion reaction. 

Further, the arctic polar vortex, an air mass in the upper atmosphere held together by cold polar 

winds, was less stable, preventing the formation of large depleted regions. It was also, thus, less 

predictable than the antarctic polar vortex. The scientists knew that there were differences in 

atmospheric conditions at the two poles and hoped to continue research to learn more about the 

ozone dynamics at the North Pole.70

POLICY CONCERN

 As the arctic scientific expedition ended, the 12 countries of the European Community decided 

to go beyond the existing international agreements and phase out the production of ozone-depleting 
The Case of Ozone Depletion 27

chemicals by the end of the century. President Bush quickly endorsed the idea of phasing out the 

chemicals by the century’s end if alternatives could be found. In early March 1989, Britain hosted 

an international conference involving 123 nations. Although some countries wanted to wait, 20 

additional countries said they would join the Montreal Protocol.71

ACCELERATING OZONE SATELLITE DEVELOPMENT

 As worldwide concerns about ozone depletion grew, new data from an old spacecraft spurred 

policy action. This policy activity, in turn, pointed out the need for additional research. In October, 

NASA reported that its TOMS instrument on the Nimbus-7 satellite had confirmed that the

ozone hole over Antarctica observed in 1989 equaled the record-setting hole observed two years 

before, in 1987. 

 Given the importance of the Nimbus-TOMS data, NASA was worried about the age of the 

satellite—11 years. NASA decided to arrange for a succession of polar-orbiting ozone mappers to fly 

on board new spacecraft, starting with one to be launched by the Soviets in 1991. The instrument, 

to be flown on a Soviet Meteor 3 satellite, would provide data at least until mid-1993.

 The next device would be launched as a satellite payload on board a U.S. Scout-class booster. In 

addition, the Japanese accepted a TOMS for their Advanced Earth Observing Satellite (ADEOS) 

that they planned to launch in 1995.72

Nimbus 7 TOMS data of Southern Hemisphere ozone cover, 1979-92. (Source: Folder 6187, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Division, 

NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC.)
28 NASA and the Environment 

1990—CONTINUED MTPE EXPANSION

 In 1990, Mission to Planet Earth, with a presidential imprimatur behind it, took off. Funding 

went up 5.1 percent for Earth observations, from $610 million to $642 million. Part of this money 

was allocated to NASA’s new satellite dedicated to ozone research, the Upper Atmosphere Research 

Satellite, which had been in development for some time and was nearing readiness for launch. In 

addition, NASA stepped up its work on the long-term centerpiece of the Mission to Planet Earth 

office, the EOS. It had become clear that while EOS would include ozone research, its prime focus 

would be climate change.

 The goals of EOS were popular in Congress, but the projected cost—$17 billion over the 

1990s—shocked some legislators. It remained to be seen whether NASA could secure that much 

money. However, the fact that NASA was thinking in such large terms reflected how far the Earth 

observation effort had come. EOS was a huge expansion of the ozone-research work.

 Meanwhile, scientists confirmed that significant ozone depletion had occurred over the North 

Pole during the winter of 1989. “We’re starting to see all the things going on in the northern 

hemisphere that go on in the southern hemisphere,” said Mark Schoeberl of NASA’s Goddard Space 

Flight Center.73

Southern Hemisphere ozone cover 1987-91, as mapped by Nimbus 7: TOMS. Notice the similarity between ozone levels in 1987 and 1991. (Source: Folder 

9794, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC.)
The Case of Ozone Depletion 29

 On 25 July, NASA signed an agreement with Russia to fly NASA’s TOMS on the Russian Meteor-3 

spacecraft scheduled for launch in 1991. The presence of a TOMS instrument on the Meteor-3 flight 

would enable it to gather critical environmental data about the yearly variability of the ozone hole 

over Antarctica. Meanwhile, the existing TOMS Nimbus-7 instrument revealed in October 1990 

that a hole again had opened over Antarctica, and the depletion of ozone there seemed to be nearly 

as severe as it had been in 1987 and 1989 (the worst years).74

UARS: VANGUARD OF THE MISSION TO PLANET EARTH 

 On 12 September 1991 the Space Shuttle Discovery launched the $750-million Upper Atmosphere 

Research Satellite (UARS). NASA hailed it as the first new element in its Mission to Planet 

Earth. With 10 different instruments, the 7-ton spacecraft was the largest, most complex and 

expensive environmental satellite ever built. It was designed to provide detailed information on the 

chemical processes taking place in the upper atmosphere, including details on how man affected

the atmosphere. Its primary aim was to gather extensive data on the planet’s threatened ozone 

layer. “Data from the spacecraft should provide the ammunition people will need to make more

informed environmental policy decisions,” commented Carl Reber, a Goddard project scientist for 

the UARS mission.

 The UARS mission development had begun prior to the formal establishment of MTPE, but 

NASA managers incorporated it into MTPE when President Bush authorized MTPE. Shelby Tilford, 

director of the Earth Sciences Division of OSSA at NASA Headquarters, called UARS a precursor 

to EOS.75 Len Fisk, associate administrator for OSSA, also heralded the broader significance of 

UARS. He declared, “A 

turning point in global 

history has just occurred. 

We can now affect the 

global environment and 

that is something that’s 

not going to change. We 

will need to monitor and 

understand this for years 

to come.” In addition 

to direct measurements 

of the atmosphere, the 

UARS findings would be 

used by 10 international 

teams to improve 

theoretical models and 

predict changes in the 

upper atmosphere.76

 NASA timed the launch of UARS to coincide with the breakup of the ozone hole in 1991 and 

observe a full cycle in the following year. UARS provided a novel and intense view of what was 

taking place. “The satellite meant that at the same time we get three-dimensional pictures of the 

ozone hole, we’ll get three-dimensional pictures of the [chemicals] that are forming it,” said Joe 

Artist’s rendition of the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS). (Source: NASA Fact Sheet HQL-207, Folder 

8653, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC.)
30 NASA and the Environment 

McNeal, a UARS program scientist. “Having the winds coupled with the chemistry is extremely 

revolutionary,” stated Tilford.77

 On 8 October 1991 NASA announced that in 1991 severe ozone depletion had developed over 

Antarctica for the third consecutive year. The next day, NASA reported that ozone levels in the 

antarctic region had fallen to the lowest values ever observed during its 13 years of satellite monitoring. 

Additional reports surfaced two weeks later, based on data analyzed by the Ozone Trends Panel. The 

panel indicated a thinning of the ozone layer over the United States had occurred for the first time.

 Such findings galvanized international diplomacy, industry’s choice to develop CFC substitutes, 

and NASA’s decision to launch another Northern Hemisphere expedition.

NASA SOUNDS AN ALARM

 In October 1991, the second Airborne Arctic Stratospheric Expedition got under way. Earlier 

NASA, NOAA, and others had debated whether the Arctic or Antarctica would have priority. The 

prevailing view was that an arctic expedition made more sense, as there was greater variability in the 

arctic region and thus a greater need for detailed characterization.78 Organized and largely funded 

by NASA, the expedition involved 100 scientists from NASA, NOAA, NSF-National Center for 

Atmospheric Research (NCAR), many universities, and an industry group. The project manager of 

the arctic expedition was NASA’s Michael Kurylo, who assumed command of NASA’s atmospheric 

research program as Watson moved to a higher position within NASA. The chief scientist for the 

project was Harvard chemist James Anderson. The team used the high-flying ER-2, the commercialairliner-like DC-8 aircraft, as well as satellites and instrument–equipped balloons.

 The initial flights originated in Fairbanks, Alaska, in October. However, because of ice on the 

runways, the ER-2 could not operate in Alaska during the winter. In early 1992, the flights began 

going out from Bangor, Maine. On 11 January satellite data indicated high levels of chlorine in the 

northern latitudes, including regions above such cities as London, Moscow, and Amsterdam. On 20 

January, a converted ER-2 took off from Bangor and made an unprecedented flight into the center 

of a polar vortex. The ER-2 made in situ measurements with instruments that could sample the 

air outside the aircraft in real time, and it also gathered air samples that could be analyzed on the

ground later.79

 When the scientists looked at the data measured on the aircraft, they were surprised. The air 

samples showed the highest levels of chlorine monoxide ever measured in the arctic region. NASA’s 

most sophisticated and latest ozone-measuring tool, UARS, seemed to confirm the findings: chlorine 

monoxide molecules, thought to be derived primarily from CFCs, were building up in the vortex.80

 This information verified what the scientists had hypothesized based on data collected by the 1989 

arctic expedition—that active chlorine was being liberated from the less active forms of chlorine 

formed from the breakdown of CFCs in the stratosphere, and just as in the antarctic region the 

amount of this active chlorine was increasing inside the arctic polar vortex. Also, as was the case 

with Antarctica, this build-up could well destroy other parts of the atmosphere’s ozone layer, with a 

potentially negative impact on human health and agriculture.
The Case of Ozone Depletion 31

 At the beginning of February 1992, expedition leaders debated whether to wait two months 

until the expedition’s end, to make sure their fears were valid. But by then—if those concerns were 

correct—an ozone hole over the Arctic would have caused damage to an unsuspecting public. There 

was risk in speaking up and risk in saying nothing. Some of the researchers urged caution. There was 

still uncertainty. Others wanted to act. In 1989, after the Airborne Antarctic Ozone Experiment, the 

public-testimony rule by which the participants agreed to abide was, “If we are arguing about it, it 

doesn’t belong in a press release or congressional testimony.” In 1992, that rule was not applied, and 

NASA decided to issue a warning.81

 On 3 February, the leaders of the expedition, Kurylo and Anderson, appeared at a news conference 

at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC. They conveyed the message that an ozone hole over the 

Northern Hemisphere “was increasingly likely” and had to be taken seriously. “We’re not concerned 

with just remote regions now,” said Kurylo. “What we’re dealing with extends to very populated 

regions.” With ozone loss increasing, a 30-percent loss by March was possible. “Everyone should be 

alarmed about this,” warned Kurylo. Anderson went beyond science to public policy by saying, “We 

must work in a concerted way to speed up controls.”82

MEDIA AND ENVIRONMENTALISTS REACT

 The reaction from environmentalists was immediate and strong: “It’s frightening,” said Liz Cook 

of Friends of the Earth. “If the phenomenon ever occurs on a broader scale, it could be the final 

curtain call for life on the planet,” said Karen Lohr of Greenpeace.83 The media were no less alarmed, 

and influential media called on President Bush to accelerate the phaseout of ozone-depleting 

chemicals. A New York Times editorial entitled “The Ozone Hole Over Mr. Bush’s Head” termed 

ozone depletion an issue of global importance and noted that, “[t]he life-protecting ozone layer may 

now be thinning above President Bush’s summer home in Kennebunkport, Maine.” In an editorial 

called “The Vanishing Ozone Layer,” the Washington Post declared, “Once again, it turns out that 

the protective ozone layer in the sky is being destroyed faster than even the pessimists had expected.” 

Time magazine’s cover headline was “Vanishing Ozone: The Danger Moves Closer to Home.”84

REACTION BY PRESIDENT GEORGE H. W. BUSH

Spurred by the NASA news conference, Bush’s science adviser, Allan Bromley, met with various 

officials in the Bush administration to discuss what action, if any, was required. Bill Reilly, EPA’s 

administrator, was active in promoting an accelerated phaseout. John Sununu, Bush’s former chief 

of staff and an opponent of such a move, was no longer in government. Sununu’s absence aided 

Reilly. Bush signaled a willingness to consider a faster timetable. Reilly then told the media that 

the president would act to speed the phaseout of ozone-depleting CFCs by three or four years. The 

Washington Post predicted Bush would announce his move at an April meeting where the signatories 

of the Montreal Protocol would convene. An industry spokesman said that the leading firms could 

find substitutes faster if necessary.85

SENATOR GORE PUSHES FOR LEGISLATION

 Senator Al Gore, chairman of NASA’s oversight committee, an environmentalist and an aspiring 

presidential candidate, saw a political opportunity. In November 1991 his legislation promoting 

an accelerated phaseout timetable for the Bush White House, operating through Republican 
32 NASA and the Environment 

lawmakers, was defeated. Now, he said, Bush had a “wake-up call” thanks to the “ozone hole. . . 

pointed to and predicted above Kennebunkport.” It was about time for President Bush “to think 

seriously about doing something,” Gore charged.86

 Gore took the floor of the U. S. Senate to introduce a bill to halt CFC production by 1995. He 

termed the information in the NASA news conference “an immediate, acute, emergency threat.” 

Following the debate, the U.S. Senate called for a halt as soon as possible, not specifying a date, but 

voting 96-0 in favor of speed-up.

PRESIDENTIAL ACTION

On 11 February 1992, Bush announced that he was ordering American manufacturers to end, by 

31 December 1995, virtually all production of chemicals that destroyed ozone.87 Under a provision 

of the Clean Air Act, Bush had the power to direct a change from the previously established year 

2000 Montreal Protocol deadline, when circumstances merited such a move. Gore’s response was, 

“better late than never.” He again referred to the “ozone hole over Kennebunkport” as the reason 

for Bush’s change of heart.

MEDIA DRUMBEAT

 The President’s decision and Gore’s continuing volley fanned the flames of media attention. The 

ozone hole was now big news, a crisis, and one announcement after another of dire consequences 

was made. On 8 February, the Washington Post reported that a new UN study had linked increased 

UV rays from the Sun to researchers’ “projections” of “300,000 new cases of skin cancer per year by 

the turn of the century,” as well as “an increase of infectious diseases, including AIDS.”88

 On 17 February 1992 when Time magazine capped the media barrage with a cover headline 

entitled “Vanishing Ozone: The Danger Moves Closer to Home,” its lead article pointed to 

“overwhelming” evidence that the stratospheric ozone layer “is being eaten away by manmade 

chemicals far faster than any scientist had predicted.” The situation was dire; Time warned, “This 

unprecedented assault on the planet’s life support system could have more horrendous long-term 

effects on human health, animal life, the plants that support the food chain, and just about every 

other strand that makes up the delicate web of nature.”89

AN EMBARRASSED NASA

 But in early March, the dreaded ozone hole over the Northern Hemisphere failed to materialize as 

predicted. Data from UARS showed that the concentrations of ozone-destroying chlorine monoxide 

within and around the polar vortex had declined significantly since the peak in January, according 

to NASA’s JPL scientist Joe Waters. In January, UARS detected concentrations of chlorine monoxide 

at 2 parts per billion (ppb) within the atmospheric vortex that swirled around the North Pole. In 

February, when the satellite’s orbit allowed it to look at the vortex again, chlorine monoxide levels 

had dropped to below 1 ppb and continued to fall. 

 Arlin Krueger, the NASA scientist in charge of tracking data from the Total Ozone Mapping 

Spectrometer, acknowledged that TOMS had found absolutely no indication of an ozone hole 

opening over the Northern Hemisphere.90 He declared, “I can tell you categorically there is no 
The Case of Ozone Depletion 33

ozone hole over Kennebunkport. There never has been an ozone hole over Kennebunkport, and 

I don’t really expect one.”91 NASA had never forecast an ozone hole over Kennebunkport—the 

Kennebunkport reference came from Gore and others. However, due to the intense media coverage, 

many people blamed NASA for being the source of the reference.

COMPLAINTS FROM NOAA SCIENTISTS

 The flap over the arctic ozone hole brought to the surface tensions in the organizational alliance 

that NASA had carefully constructed. NASA was the de facto lead agency, and others did not 

necessarily appreciate how they were being led, especially those at NOAA. Melvyn Shapiro, a 

meteorological research scientist in NOAA’s Environmental Technology Laboratory in Boulder, took 

the occasion of a media visit to express his opinions. He harshly criticized those who downplayed 

natural ozone variations in favor of the CFC explanation. Implying that the arctic ozone affair was 

a case of “Chicken Little research,” he castigated those who exploited “a doomsday scenario” to “get 

a lot of money.” He charged, “Research organizations are in great competition with each other to 

get the politicians’ ears and obtain the necessary resources.” He did not mention NASA by name, 

but it was clear to which organization he was referring.

 David Hofmann, senior scientist in the Ozone and Aerosols Group of NOAA’s Climate 

Monitoring and Diagnostics Laboratory, did name NASA and complained that the Agency had 

given too much attention at its news conference to a CFC explanation of arctic ozone depletion. 

“I couldn’t understand why NASA didn’t come out and say that this could be a very unusual year 

because of the volcanic eruptions,” he said, further commenting that “maybe what we’re seeing is 

something we’ll never see again. Instead, they [NASA] seemed to imply, you know, that this is the 

start of something really big. That really wasn’t very wise. If there’s major ozone depletion seen this 

year, it’s quite likely that it is related to the volcano.”92

 Shapiro was more blunt, complaining that “this [ozone issue] is about money. If there were no 

dollars attached to this game, you’d see it played in a very different way. It would be played on 

intellect and integrity. When you say the ozone threat is a scam, you’re not only attacking people’s 

scientific integrity, you’re going after their pocketbook as well. It’s money, purely money.”

 NASA had gotten a good deal of favorable media attention for its visible antarctic ozone role. 

Now it took the heat for its arctic experience. Writer Micah Morrison noted strains in NASA’s 

relationship with NOAA and NSF-NCAR because of the arctic false alarm. He noted that NOAA 

and NCAR were “the junior partners” in the program. “NASA is the 800-pound gorilla in the ring,” 

said another scientist involved in the expedition, who insisted on anonymity. “You either go along 

with the gorilla or you stay out of its way.” 

 “According to several scientists,” said Morrison, “there was opposition within the arctic research 

group to releasing the preliminary findings in early February.” Some project members were not even 

told of the upcoming NASA news conference; others were instructed to keep quiet to reporters. 

Dissenters felt “muzzled,” Morrison reported, by the project’s leadership. 

 While there was certainly the appearance of a NASA-NOAA split, the reality was more 

complicated. The Watson-Albritton alliance remained intact as to the objectives. In fact, NOAA 

scientists involved in the NASA-NOAA relationship felt their integrity had been impugned and 
34 NASA and the Environment 

demanded (and received) an apology from Shapiro. What the media did not make clear was that 

NOAA was chiefly represented by its Aeronomy Lab in its dealing with NASA on the ozone issue 

and that the critics within NOAA came from other labs. Also, there were professional disputes. 

Meteorologists in NOAA and NASA felt their dissenting views had been ignored by the dominant 

atmospheric chemists at the time the arctic ozone warning was given.93

 When the arctic ozone-warning issue exploded in the media and became a factor in presidential 

politics, there were those on the arctic team who urged NASA to issue an interim report based on 

more up-to-date findings. NASA, however, decided not to do so. A NASA spokesman said, “We 

aren’t going to put out [another] press release until we have a complete story to tell.” The earlier press 

release was justified, he said, by the high chlorine monoxide levels detected.94

NASA WITHDRAWS ITS WARNING

 On 30 April 1992, the NASA arctic ozone team officially concluded the arctic project and 

announced its findings based upon the seven months of data collected. Team leaders declared 

that despite their earlier fears, an ozone hole had not formed over the Arctic during the previous 

winter. Nevertheless, they said the threat of an ozone hole would exist each year because of manmade pollutants in the upper atmosphere. They pointed out the record levels of chlorine and other 

ozone-depleting chemicals in the atmosphere over parts of Europe, Russia, Canada, and the United 

States. Unusually warm winter air had prevented significant problems. Although there had been a 

real ozone loss, said Harvard chemist James Anderson, it did not constitute an ozone hole.95

 The admission of error engendered criticism of NASA, particularly in conservative circles. On the 

editorial page, the Washington Times published a column entitled “NASA Cries Wolf on Ozone.” 

It specifically singled out Michael Kurylo, manager of the Upper Atmosphere Research Program at 

NASA, for criticism. The editor described Kurylo as having “breathlessly” sounded an alarm. The 

paper accused NASA of not performing “objective” science and commented, “This is the cry of 

the apocalyptic, laying the groundwork for a decidedly non-scientific end: public policy.” If public 

policy was its true purpose, the paper said, the strategy had “worked,” but it warned NASA against 

crying “wolf” again.96 The Wall Street Journal also took NASA to task, saying, “The turnaround 

is another blow to the credibility of the space agency.”97 Having earlier received praise for linking 

science to policy in the case of Antarctica, NASA now garnered ridicule for wrongly predicting 

significant depletion of the ozone layer over the Arctic.
The Case of Ozone Depletion 35

STAGE 7—LATER IMPLEMENTATION

 The arctic ozone dispute marked the end of a period in which the ozone issue itself received 

enormous publicity. Subsequently, the program’s implementation moved forward, but in a lesser 

spotlight. Also, while these events involving ozone were taking place, NASA was undergoing a 

profound change at the top. In 1989, President Bush appointed Richard Truly NASA Administrator. 

Because of ongoing disputes between Truly and the White House, President Bush decided in 1992 

to remove Truly and appoint Dan Goldin in his place. Prior to his appointment, Goldin had been 

an executive with TRW (a government contracting firm) and had worked primarily on classified 

programs with the Department of Defense. Goldin took office on 1 April 1992 with a mandate for 

change from the White House. In very short order, Goldin made it clear that he would be a very 

aggressive leader and would align NASA with the new post–Cold War environment that promised 

flat budgets for the 1990s. 

THE GOLDIN TOUCH

 Goldin preached that NASA had to operate its programs “faster, better, cheaper.” Initially, 

the emphasis was on using smaller satellites. UARS was an example of the “old NASA,” which 

built billion-dollar satellites. But UARS had already been launched. Hence, Goldin had more 

impact on the coming programs, represented chiefly by the Earth Observing System. EOS was a 

comprehensive, advanced monitoring system that would cover all key elements of Earth’s system 

(atmosphere, ocean, biosphere, polar regions) and in the process would also take over the ozoneresearch work from other NASA satellites. 

 When he arrived in 1992, Goldin did not like EOS at all. In fact, prior to becoming NASA 

Administrator and while still at TRW, he had criticized EOS and had drawn the ire of OSSA’s 

leadership. In his view, OSSA leaders had threatened him with loss of possible NASA work unless 

he refrained from criticism. Now he was the NASA Administrator and in a position to force his 

agenda on OSSA.98

 After six months, during which time he used more participatory approaches to induce change, 

Goldin decided he had waited long enough. In September 1992, he announced a reorganization 

that removed the highly regarded Associate Administrator of OSSA, Len Fisk, and divided OSSA 

into three parts.99 One division would deal with space science, another with life and microgravity 

science, and the third—with space applications. The applications component was the office called 

Mission to Planet Earth. Fisk’s deputy, Shelby Tilford, was put in charge temporarily, and he, too, 

eventually left NASA. Goldin took control of Fisk’s former domain and began reshaping it into a 

faster, better, cheaper mode.

REORGANIZING—BUT MAINTAINING OZONE OBSERVATION

 EOS was restructured with an eye toward saving money and performing the science through a 

series of specialized satellites rather than a few, very large satellites. This restructuring had begun 

prior to Goldin’s tenure, propelled by the White House and Congress. But Goldin gave it an even 
36 NASA and the Environment 

greater push from the Administrator’s office. This push meant cutting the program’s funding over 

the remainder of the decade, from $11 billion to less than $8 billion. Cutting the budget inevitably 

meant the EOS scientists would have to pare down the program’s scientific work. As NASA 

managers and scientists restructured the program, they had to decide which research goals EOS 

would feature. UARS was in orbit and other existing satellites were capable of being used for ozone 

research. NASA decided eventually to delay the development of an EOS ozone-related satellite. 

Satellites emphasizing land or ocean monitoring would come first. 

 However, NASA made a second decision to maintain ozone observations in the period between 

UARS and the development of the EOS ozone satellite. The Agency’s assumption was the nation 

and the world needed to know if the Montreal Protocol and its amendments were producing the 

intended results in mitigating ozone depletion. Also, the nations who had signed the Montreal 

Protocol needed to know if the substitutes the chemical industry deployed would help stabilize the 

ozone layer or create a problem themselves. How long would UARS last? When would NASA have 

the money to launch the EOS ozone satellite? No one could be sure of the answers as the program 

reviews and restructuring commenced under Goldin’s faster, better, cheaper directive. NASA broke 

up and stretched the EOS program. Its science advisors concluded there had to be an interim 

system to maintain continuous observations. UARS was not expected to last, in optimal operating 

conditions, much beyond 1998. The EOS ozone satellite—what would eventually be called Aura—

was unlikely to be available until the early 21st century. Monitoring was not as glamorous a form of 

science as discovery, but for the global environment, it was deemed essential.100

THE CLINTON YEARS 

 In January 1993, Bill Clinton became President and Al Gore his Vice-President. After some 

hesitancy, Clinton decided to retain Goldin. Those who were interested in environmental issues, 

including the ozone-depletion issue, saw Gore’s arrival as highly positive. He had recently authored 

a book, Earth in the Balance, that showed a deep concern for the same kind of global environmental 

perspective NASA emphasized. Hence, NASA could be sure its Mission to Planet Earth would 

survive and possibly be favored by the White House. On the other hand, Clinton constrained 

the overall NASA budget. The signals from the White House were mixed. Meanwhile, in April, 

Goldin made another change to the ozone-research program. For some time, Watson had been 

pushing unsuccessfully for using remotely piloted vehicles, or drones, to keep track of ozone loss in 

the stratosphere—as complements to satellites. Goldin, with his faster, better, cheaper philosophy, 

could see how these drones could be useful to NASA’s MTPE and also to aeronautics. The 

aeronautics division of NASA was interested in research to produce such aircraft. Goldin approved 

a five-year plan to develop research-relevant drones that were capable of lingering in the upper 

atmosphere longer than other aircraft.101 This plan was, in effect, a joint venture between MTPE 

and aeronautics. Unfortunately, it produced no useable vehicles.102

 The Space Shuttle was also used in connection with the ozone research effort within the same 

timeframe. On 8 April 1993, the Shuttle Discovery blasted into orbit. Its purpose was to gather 

as much data as possible about the Sun and the Earth’s atmosphere. Discovery carried a small, 

retrievable satellite and seven instruments making up the Atmospheric Laboratory for Applications 

and Science (ATLAS). The mission’s aim was to determine how the Sun affected chemical 

processes in earth’s atmosphere, and assess the conditions of the ozone layer over the Northern 
The Case of Ozone Depletion 37

Hemisphere, an issue about which there had been much concern and which had caused NASA 

embarrassment in 1992.103

 Based upon data from UARS, NASA reported that ozone-destroying chlorine existed longer in 

the 1992–93 winter than in the previous one. However, scientists reached a consensus that after the 

year 2000, the outlook for the ozone layer looked better. Even environmentalists were breathing 

more easily. “The current and projected levels of ozone depletion do not appear to represent a 

catastrophe,” said Michael Oppenheimer of the Environmental Defense Fund.104

 In August 1993, the New York Times editorialized, “Good News, for Once, on Ozone.” Citing 

a recent Nature article, it declared that scientists had found contamination of the ozone layer by 

CFCs to be slowing. The New York Times article attributed this fact to the Montreal Protocol and 

its amendments in 1990 and 1992. The deadline to end CFC production was now 1995, and the 

policy appeared to be working. If the trend were to continue, scientists could expect the buildup of 

ozone-destroying chemicals to stop by the year 2000, and subsequently to recede. The atmosphere 

would then recover. According to the New York Times, it seemed as though “science, industry, and 

government” had agreed on the causes of a problem and then worked to solve it, thus leading the 

Times to proclaim, “there’s reason to celebrate.”105

 The apparent success in resolving the problem brought praise for those scientists associated with 

it, including NASA’s Watson and NOAA’s Albritton. Both men received awards from the American 

Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).106 Moreover, Vice-President Gore elevated 

Watson in October 1993 from NASA to a new position, Associate Director for Environment of the 

White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP).

 Watson had played a unique role in the ozone saga. He may well have been the right man in 

the right place at the right time. He accelerated the research, and also played a key role in linking 

science to policy. His actions, especially those taking place in the international arena, left many of 

his NASA colleagues wondering how he had the money and stamina for all the international travel 

involved. Possibly the timing, and NASA’s own ambition to develop an environmental mission, 

created the perfect opportunity for Watson. 

OZONE AND CLIMATE CHANGE

 Watson’s role decreased in importance when the national priority for ozone depletion diminished. 

His successor, Mike Kurylo, had a very different stage upon which to perform. The spotlight 

was moving from ozone depletion to climate change in national and international policy. NASA 

still had to monitor the ozone problem and required, for the long haul, an EOS satellite, but the 

widespread perception on the part of scientists, the administration, Congress, and the international 

community was that the main scientific issues of ozone depletion had been resolved. These parties 

also viewed the related policy issues as having been addressed. The emphasis, in terms of both 

science and policy, transferred to climate change.

 In 1992, President Bush had gone to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where leaders of the world’s nations 

gathered to discuss issues of environment and development. The conference did not produce a 

firm climate-change agreement, at least not one with deadlines and emissions targets. The Bush 
38 NASA and the Environment 

administration argued that more research was needed to determine the parameters of the problem—

if it was really a problem.

 Although climate change would become an issue that would keep NASA in the environmental 

field, it also would move the ozone problem down on the priority list. Ozone monitoring became a 

more routine, though still important, matter for NASA. 

 NOAA, a long-term ozone-research partner of NASA, also continued to be involved. While 

many scientists saw the ozone problem as fading, Susan Solomon of NOAA disagreed. (Solomon led 

the first ozone expedition to Antarctica in 1986.) Instead of an end, she saw a beginning. “Ozone 

has begun to enter the climate debate,” she said, continuing, “Ozone is a player in the greenhouse 

effect.” Also, she declared that CFC substitutes would have to be monitored by those responsible for 

enforcing the Protocol. Finally, while the rate of increase was dropping, she believed there would be 

an increase for some years to come. “The problem is not close to getting over,” she emphasized.107

 Ernest Hilsenrath, a scientist at NASA in charge of an ozone monitor aboard the Space Shuttle 

Atlantis, had a different view. He indicated that monitoring the ozone layer required meticulous 

attention to subtle details of instrument calibration if long-term trends were to be accurately measured. 

“There aren’t any real discoveries,” he said. “We haven’t found anything new about the Antarctic ozone 

hole. What we’re doing now is providing a baseline for measurements for the future,” he continued. “I 

call it a legacy for environmental investigations in the next century.” In the future scientists would be 

able to use the baseline data (historical data) for comparison to determine the changes.108

 On 19 December 1994, UARS confirmed with the most conclusive evidence to date that manmade chlorine in the stratosphere, and not some other hypothetical factor, caused the Antarctic 

ozone hole. Mark Schoeberl, a UARS project scientist, said that UARS data collected for over three 

years eliminated sea spray, volcanic gases, and other possible natural sources of ozone depletion.109

While NASA and its allies had held this view for some time, the multiyear UARS global data now 

made it virtually impossible for anyone to argue that the majority of chlorine in the stratosphere was 

not from industrially-produced compounds.110

IN THE MIDST OF POLITICAL CONFLICT

 In 1995, a scientific and political reaction to environmental regulation took place owing, in part, 

to a Republican majority in both houses of Congress for the first time in decades. The “Republican 

revolution,” as it was called, had as one of its planks the rolling back of unneeded environmental 

constraints on industry.

 Most of the political backlash against regulatory environmentalism was aimed at EPA. However, 

the negative reaction also affected certain science agencies, NASA included, because of their role in 

the ozone issue and because of Clinton-Gore support for a tougher stand on climate change. The 

U.S. Global Change Research Program provided the major thrust for climate-change science, but 

NASA, with its Mission to Planet Earth, was the largest component of USGCRP. Robert Walker 

(Republican, PA), chairman of the House Committee on Science, questioned the validity of MTPE 

science and whether it was being used to justify pre-existing political views. He was targeting EOS, 

primarily, but his attack (which included the threat of a major budget cut) was indicative of the 

conservative backlash against ozone regulation.
The Case of Ozone Depletion 39

 The Washington Times conducted a steady drumbeat of criticism of both the Montreal Protocol 

and the domestic regulation that came from it. The paper indicted NASA regularly for its “political” 

science. Another conservative publication, 21st Century, took issue with NASA’s December 1994 

statement that UARS data had proved conclusively that man-made chlorine and not natural causes, 

such as volcanoes, was responsible for the Antarctic Ozone hole. It accused NASA of trying to close 

scientific debate prematurely. NASA officials regarded such comments as distortions of the scientific 

issues and debate, especially with respect to NASA’s role. Nevertheless, these critical comments 

caused difficulties in the Agency’s political relationships.111

 In July 1995, NASA announced that the ozone problem had reached a different stage: that 

levels of ozone-depleting chemicals were falling. Dr. Robert Harris, head of MTPE’s science 

division, declared, “We’ve already seen slowing increases in chlorofluorocarbon and other 

ozone-depleting chemicals. Now, for the first time, we’ve actually measured a decrease in one of

these chemicals.”112

 In September 1995, in an effort to roll back ozone regulation, conservative Republicans in 

Congress moved to postpone the phasing out of certain ozone-destroying chemicals. Representative 

John Doolittle (Republican, CA) introduced a bill to delay the CFC ban from 1996 to 2000.

 The House held hearings on the bill and Watson, now employed by the White House OSTP, 

testified in opposition. He said harmful ultraviolet radiation reaching Earth’s surface “will, not 

may” have adverse consequences for human health and ecological systems. He also said there was 

“absolutely no doubt” that the problem was caused by human activities, not natural processes. His 

testimony, he remarked, represented the views of “the very, very large majority” of scientists working 

on the problem.113

 However, Sallie Baliunas, a biophysicist representing the George C. Marshall Institute (a 

Washington-based research organization) and Fred Singer, professor emeritus of environmental 

sciences at the University of Virginia, challenged Watson’s view on the basis of their research.114

 The legislation did not become law. Moreover, legislative efforts to cut back NASA research also 

largely failed, and the following year, a congressionally requested review by the National Research 

Council strongly endorsed EOS. Countering criticism that EOS was politically driven, the NRC 

said science drove the program and the program should be supported in the future. 

 As these external debates were taking place, internally NASA had to cope with extremely 

constrained funding—the Clinton Administration continued to cut the Agency’s budget year 

after year. NASA and its science advisors held to their view that continuous monitoring of ozone 

depletion was essential. Worried that the EOS ozone satellite’s launch was being pushed farther into 

the future by Administration and congressional budget cuts, and that UARS was aging, NASA had 

decided to mount an interim sequence of ozone monitoring equipment that could be justified in 

faster, better, cheaper terms and prevent a data-collection gap between UARS’s demise and the EOS 

ozone satellite launch. This system involved small satellites and, in some cases, meant putting U.S. 

sensors on foreign satellites.115
 
41

STAGE 8—INSTITUTIONALIZATION

 In June 1996, NASA produced an ozone–depletion report that showed concentrations of ozonedepleting chemicals were beginning to level off. The policy was working, and nations and industry 

were following the agreements. The need for continuous monitoring gave NASA a potentially longterm mission in ozone observation. It also gave NASA a long-term problem: How was an agency 

with an R&D mission supposed to incorporate and fund relatively routine monitoring?

TOMS EARTH PROBE

 In addition to UARS (the most comprehensive existing ozone-related spacecraft), other spacecraft 

began to be deployed—ones that NASA had authorized for the interval between UARS and the 

EOS satellite launch. In July 1996, NASA launched the TOMS Earth Probe. In September 1996, 

the Japanese launched the Advanced Earth Observing Satellite, which used a TOMS instrument 

to map ozone depletion daily. These activities extended the series of TOMS observations that had 

begun with Nimbus in 1978. 

 In May 1997, an enhanced NASA ER-2 conducted its first operational mission. Kurylo, 

manager of the Upper Atmosphere Research Program, said the high-flying airplane was critical—it 

enabled NASA to reach the intermediate region between where aerosol-particle-driven processes 

are measured by standard aircraft-based sensors and where gas-phase processes are monitored by 

orbiting satellites.116

Southern Hemisphere ozone hole, 1998. (Source: http://grin.hq.nasa.gov/ABSTRACT/GPN-2002-000117)

The Case of Ozone Depletion
42 NASA and the Environment 

 In early August, the Space Shuttle Discovery rocketed into orbit and released a German satellite 

to study Earth’s ozone layer. Discovery returned later in the month bringing the satellite and its 

data home. The primary goal of this 86th Shuttle mission was to launch and retrieve the satellite 

after it had made nine days of independent atmospheric observations. The satellite’s measurements 

supported UARS findings.

 The Japanese ADEOS ended its life late in 1997. In December, NASA boosted its Total Ozone 

Mapping System (TOMS) Earth Probe satellite into a higher orbit, a position from which it could 

widen its coverage. During 1998, scientists from NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and 

the Center for Climate Systems Research at Columbia University warned that the depletion of the 

ozone layer would get worse, not better, in the future due to the impact of carbon dioxide and 

other greenhouse gases. In the wake of the global controls on ozone-destroying compounds, many 

observers had expected the annual Antarctic ozone hole to diminish in size, along with the more 

modest Arctic ozone losses. In April, the NASA-Columbia team predicted that during the next few 

decades greenhouse gases would trigger a springtime ozone hole over the Arctic, much like the ones 

seen over Antarctica.

 Although there was scientific debate over this prediction, Richard Kerr, writing in Science 

magazine, said that the NASA-Columbia model “enhanced” the awareness of two great human 

alterations of the atmosphere—greenhouse warming and ozone depletion—which were indeed 

interdependent.”117 Between mid-August and early October 1998, NASA and NOAA found that 

the antarctic ozone hole was setting a new record for size. The NASA-Columbia prediction and the 

NASA-NOAA findings pointed out the need for constant surveillance of the ozone problem.118

THREAT OF DATA INTERRUPTION

 Toward the end of 1998 and into 1999, a number of scientists became worried about NASA’s 

ability to have a sufficient flow of ozone data. UARS was still functioning but was widely viewed 

as not having much of useful lifetime left. The NASA TOMS Earth Probe suffered a three-week 

malfunction near year’s end. It resumed collecting data in January 1999, but the satellite was past 

its designed two-year life span and was operating on a back-up transmitter, the primary one having 

failed the previous April.

 The worry of scientists increased when NASA lost the host satellite for its next TOMS instrument. 

The sensor was supposed to fly aboard a Russian meteorological satellite that was to be launched 

in 2000 via a Soyuz rocket. The Russians informed NASA that the satellite’s launch had been 

postponed indefinitely due to Russia’s financial problems.

 In November 1999, NASA scientists joined researchers from Europe, Russia, Canada, and 

Japan in the largest field-measurement project in history to assess ozone amounts and changes in 

the wintertime arctic upper atmosphere. The project was designed to run from November 1999 

through March 2000. It used satellites, airplanes, heavy-lift and small balloons, and ground-based 

instruments. The U.S. cost was $20 million. Other nations contributed a total of $10 million. 

 The project required a tremendous concentration of science instruments to be placed in one of 

the coldest regions of the arctic stratosphere. The satellites involved included NASA’s TOMS Earth
The Case of Ozone Depletion 43

Probe, UARS, and the Earth Radiation Budget Satellite; the U.S. Air Force’s Midcourse Space 

Experiment; the European Space Agency’s Earth Remote Sensing Satellite; and France’s Satellite 

Pour l’Observation de la Terre (SPOT 4).

 This project was designed to shed light on whether a new ozone hole was forming above 

the Arctic. More than 150 scientists and technicians traveled northward to participate in the 

international effort.119 In April 2000, scientists working on the arctic project reported that the 

ozone layer was not recovering as fast as they had hoped. Again, some proposed that global 

warming was offsetting gains in ozone-layer recovery. The new research showed that the ozone 

layer had thinned to record levels over the Arctic and that the thinning would probably worsen 

over the next decade. Ozone-layer thinning over the Arctic was much more dangerous to 

Americans, because the weakening might migrate south in the spring. Such a weakening would 

mean northern U.S. cities could be in danger.

THE UARS CONTROVERSY

 In August 2000, scientists learned that NASA had decided to exclude UARS from its FY 2002 

budget in order to help make funds available for new programs, especially Aura, (the advanced 

EOS atmospheric satellite that would take the place of UARS and the Agency’s other ozone-related 

satellites). NASA’s role, one could argue, was to innovate new satellite technology, not operate old 

satellites indefinitely. With tight budgets, the old equipment had to make room for the new. Hence, 

NASA did not foresee needing funds for future UARS operations.

 In September, however, NASA announced that it had detected an antarctic ozone hole three 

times larger than the entire U.S. landmass—the largest hole ever observed. Kurylo declared, “These 

observations reinforce concerns about the frailty of Earth’s ozone layer. Although production of 

ozone-destroying gases has been curtailed under international agreements, concentrations of the 

gases in the stratosphere are only now reaching their peak. Due to their long persistence in the 

atmosphere, it will be many decades before the ozone hole is no longer an annual occurrence.”120

 The continuing ozone problem, apparently complicated by greenhouse warming, made 

NASA’s decision to phase out UARS increasingly controversial among scientists in academia and

within NASA.

THE GEORGE W. BUSH ADMINISTRATION

 In January 2001, the George W. Bush administration came to power. It adjusted the NASA 

budget it had inherited and shifted money among various programs. The spending for Earth 

Sciences Enterprise, formerly called Mission to Planet Earth until 1998, went down 13.9 percent in 

spending.121 This budget cut strengthened the view within NASA that UARS should not be kept in 

space any longer than necessary. 

 NASA scheduled UARS to cease operating on 30 September 2001. The Agency said it cost

$10 million annually to maintain the Earth-orbiting satellite. “We don’t have the funding to 

continue the work of the satellite, so we are going to decommission it,” David Steitz, a NASA 

spokesman, declared.
44 NASA and the Environment 

 A number of scientists who worked on the ozone-depletion problem were not happy. “How can 

NASA turn off a satellite?” they asked. “We have planned the decommissioning of this for years,” 

Steitz responded. Originally, UARS had been projected to last three years. Instead, it had lasted 

10. Aura would replace it, in any event, the Agency said. Unfortunately, Aura was not moving 

very quickly toward deployment and many scientists feared there would be a gap in the kind of 

comprehensive data UARS had provided.

 In the spring of 2001, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center had submitted a proposal to NASA 

Headquarters in a last-ditch effort to save UARS. It was to no avail. “It’s a $1 billion asset we’re 

throwing down the drain because we can’t come up with a couple of million to keep it running,” 

charged Mark Schoeberl, the mission’s former project scientist at Goddard. “Sorry guys,” said 

Steitz, “but it’s over. We can’t afford to continue to feed it and we have other priorities with

new technologies.”122

 NASA officials in Washington, DC, argued that there was no danger of an immediate loss of the 

Agency’s ozone-monitoring capability, because the TOMS Earth Probe satellite was still on orbit 

and in reasonably good health. Critics pointed out that this spacecraft’s ozone-mapping instrument 

was already three years past its planned lifetime and was not as strong as it once was.

 NASA launched a supplementary satellite in September 2001, the $35-million Total Ozone 

Mapping Spectrometer (dubbed QuikTOMS). This satellite, however, was destroyed in a launch 

failure. Richard McPeters, NASA’s project manager for QuikTOMS, said the loss “is really throwing 

ozone monitoring programs into disarray.”

 Following the loss of QuikTOMS, Ghassem Asrar, associate administrator for the Earth Science 

Enterprise, formed a team to deal with various aspects of the data gap-UARS controversy. He said that 

keeping UARS as a backup to the TOMS Earth Probe was possible. Postponing UARS’ retirement 

would be an “insurance policy” in case the TOMS Earth Probe failed before Aura was launched.123

 NASA scrambled and found the money to keep UARS going. In March 2002, the European 

Space Agency launched Envisat, with three ozone-measuring instruments. This satellite provided 

an extra measure of security for continuous ozone monitoring. Aura, now scheduled for launch in 

2004, would be the ultimate salvation.

LOOKING AHEAD

 In September 2002, UNEP/WMO’s Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion found that 

“restraints on production of ozone-destroying chemicals such as CFCs are having the intended effect.” 

Paul Newman, a NASA atmospheric physicist and the assessment’s coauthor, said that “by 2010, we 

could see five to six years when the hole looks consistently smaller than during the past five years.”

 Shortly afterward, NASA and NOAA reported that the ozone hole was the smallest it had been 

since 1988. Newman attributed the decrease of ozone loss to unusual stratospheric weather patterns, 

specifically warmer-than-normal temperatures of Antarctica’s polar vortex. European scientists 

disagreed, attributing the decrease to CFC reduction measures taken in the 1980s.124

 In August 2003, a team of researchers from NASA, the University of Alabama at Huntsville 

(UAH), Georgia Institute of Technology, the University of Wisconsin, and Hampton University 
The Case of Ozone Depletion 45

reported that the rate of ozone depletion was again decreasing. Moreover, the rate of increase of 

upper-stratospheric chlorine, which destroys ozone, was also slowing. This evidence provided the 

clearest indication yet that the Montreal Protocol and subsequent restrictions were having the 

intended effect.

 “This is the beginning of recovery of the ozone layer,” declared Michael Newchurch, an 

atmospheric chemist at UAH and the lead researcher on the ozone-trend-analysis team. The group 

used data from three NASA satellites and three international ground stations. It found ozone 

depletion had definitely slowed since 1997. To be sure, the problem of ozone depletion continued 

and the Newchurch data were not unanimously accepted.125 Nevertheless, Newchurch predicted 

there would be improvement in the coming years. “We had a monumental problem of global scale 

that we have started to solve,” he stated.”126
 
47

CONCLUSION

The ozone-depletion case is almost universally seen as a success story in the link between science 

and policy. In the environmental field, such success stories are few. Hence, it is worth considering 

why science and policy worked together in this instance. The focus of the preceding narrative has 

been on NASA’s role in the overall link. There are probably 1,000 heroes in any successful publicpolicy case, and that, no doubt, is true in this one. NOAA, NSF, environmentalists, and even 

industry can share in the credit. Nevertheless, a key factor in the ozone-depletion issue was that 

there had to be someone in charge from the science side of the science-policy equation. There was 

a de facto “lead” agency—NASA. 

 There is much interest on the part of policy-makers in mechanisms for constructive scientific 

action in environmental policy problems that also cross agency and international boundaries. 

Hence, this particular case study can teach important lessons about the role of a lead agency. Below 

is a list of significant factors and events:

 1. NASA had legislative authority. NASA obtained lead agency status by virtue of legislation 

passed in 1975 and 1977. This legislative authority gave NASA influence in asserting its claims in 

interagency relations. NASA had the legitimacy to pursue research and to make assessments of what 

this research meant for policy.

 2. NASA’s role evolved with changes in public policy. That is, NASA adapted its ozone-depletion 

program as policy needs changed. It was responsive to its environment, and this, in turn, helped it 

influence policy.

 3. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, NASA built a “science base” of knowledge. At key points 

in time (in the mid and latter 1980s and early 1990s), it mobilized science resources, organized 

expeditions that accelerated policy-relevant scientific research, and helped find the “smoking gun” 

linking CFCs to ozone depletion. NASA also speeded the assessment of scientific findings for 

policy-makers through mechanisms that enabled scientists to build consensus about what the data 

indicated in terms of trends.

 4. NASA was highly “ecumenical”127 in its strategies by enlisting other agencies (especially 

NOAA) and industry groups. This participative strategy to reach scientists outside the United States 

helped to bring entities with different interests into agreement.

 5. NASA’s role in the ozone-depletion debate illuminates one very complex issue: the timing of 

scientific communication to policy-makers. Science usually moves at a pace quite different from 

policy. Political forces drive policy. The search for truth helps drive science, and that requires a 

careful checking of facts, peer review, and publication in scientific literature. But the policy debate 

may require science to speak up early in order to take advantage of policy-making opportunities. 

When scientists speak out and issue assessments, these opinions can take the shape of warnings and 

such warnings can influence policy. Scientists are also, thereby, participating in the politics that 

shape policy. When policy outcomes are widely seen as positive, as with the Montreal Protocol, 

such warnings are, in hindsight, regarded as useful. But when policy outcomes are contested 

The Case of Ozone Depletion
48 NASA and the Environment 

or later events show the warnings to have been premature (as was the situation with the NASA 

warning of dangerous arctic-ozone depletion in 1992), the lead agency gets burned. Lead-agency 

status in linking science and policy has its dangers as well as its advantages and must be exercised

with care. 

 6. The ozone-depletion case highlights the long-term nature of the lead agency role vis-à-vis 

science/policy relations. Since the Montreal Protocol, the primary policy role of science has been to 

monitor the degree to which the Protocol and its amendments have been effective. This monitoring 

role is long-term and not particularly glamorous. When budgets are tight, there is a temptation 

to cut monitoring, especially in an R&D agency geared to the future. Nevertheless, monitoring is 

critical and complicated by the inevitable need to replace aging technology. NASA made a major 

decision in the mid-1990s to maintain monitoring in spite of extreme turbulence within the Agency 

and relentless budget pressure from the outside.

 7. One of the reasons NASA was successful as a lead agency was that it not only had legislative 

authority, but it also had the requisite financial resources and administrative and political support 

to play that role. It also had competent personnel, including a very skillful leader (Robert Watson), 

at a pivotal point in history. Watson was an able alliance-builder, manager, and science adviser; but 

he would not have succeeded without the support of his top management and an urgent political 

setting. Edward Parson, a Harvard policy researcher who has written on the ozone issue, has called 

Watson’s strategy “the authoritative monopoly strategy. . . . It entails conducting an assessment 

by assembling an international near-monopoly of relevant expertise to present an authoritative 

statement of present knowledge.”128

 8. Finally, the ozone-depletion case reveals how an agency’s mission evolves over time. NASA has 

become an increasingly important science agency in global environmental affairs, including climate 

change. This process of mission innovation began with ozone depletion. NASA built on the ozonedepletion issue in the “amplification” stage of policy development. It used this issue to help reinvent 

itself, promote the Earth Observing System, and propel itself onto the stage of climate change.
The Case of Ozone Depletion 49

ENDNOTES

1

The author thanks NASA for support under which this research was performed. The NASA 

contract was W-92701. The author also thanks NSF (grant number SES-0114689) for general 

support on the change process at NASA. The author acknowledges the research assistance of Anne 

Hardenbergh of the Maxwell School’s graduate program in International Relations, Larry Epstein 

of Maxwell’s Public Administration graduate program, and Lisa Van Arsdale of Maxwell’s Public 

Administration graduate program. The author also thanks various reviewers, some named in the 

notes, others anonymous, who provided detailed information on the sequence of events. Finally, 

thanks also go to Cathy Wilson, Paula Kephart, Steve Bradley, Jeffrey McLean, and Henry Spencer 

of the NASA Headquarters Printing and Design Office for their expert help, as well as to Stephen 

Garber of the NASA History Division for his knowledgeable assistance.

2

Richard Benedick, Ozone Diplomacy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 1991); Stephen Andersen and 

K. M. Sarma, Protecting the Ozone Layer: the United Nations History (London: UNEP, Earthscan, 

2002); Maureen Christie, The Ozone Layer: A Philosophy of Science Perspective (Cambridge, England: 

Cambridge University Press, 2000); Edward Parson, Protecting the Ozone Layer: Science and Strategy

(New York: Oxford, 2003).

3

Study of Critical Environmental Problems (SCEP) and William H. Matthews, eds., Man’s Impact 

on the Global Environment: Report of the Study of Critical Environmental Problems (Cambridge, MA: 

MIT, 1970). Cited in Erik Conway, “High Speed Dreams,” draft report to NASA History Division 

(1 July 2002): 295. 

4

Conway, pp. 296–300. See also Harold Johnston, “Reduction of Stratospheric Ozone by Nitrogen 

Oxide Catalysts from Supersonic Transport Exhaust,” Science (6 August 1971): 517–522.

5

Senator Clinton Anderson to James Fletcher, 10 June 1971, Washington National Records 

Center, Suitland, MD. Acc#255-77-0677, Box 52, file “NASA’s Advanced SST Program, Catalytic 

Destruction of Ozone.” Cited in Conway, p. 300.

6

Conway, pp. 300–302.

7

R. J. Cicerone et al., “Assessment of Possible Environmental Effects of Space Shuttle Operations,” 

NASA CR-129003 (3 June 1973).

8

Conway, pp. 303–304. There was at least one other report, by Lockheed, with similar views. 

Information provided by personal communication from Richard Stolarski of NASA Goddard, 16 

December 2003. Also, even though SST was killed in 1971, Langley Research Center continued a 

Supersonic Cruise Aircraft Research Program until 1981.

9

M. J. Molina and F. S. Rowland, “Stratospheric Sink for Chlorofluoromethanes: Chlorine Atom 

Catalyzed Destruction of Ozone,” Nature 249 (28 June 1974): 810–812.
50 NASA and the Environment 

10Conway, pp. 303–304.

11Conversation between John Naugle and Ed Todd, memo for record, 10 December 1974, Ozone 

file, NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC.

12Ibid.

13Ibid.

14S.851. Cited in Congressional Record-Senate (26 February 1975), S2641.

15Ibid.

16Stolarski, 16 December 2003.

17“NASA’s Chief Urges Delay on Aerosol Ban,” Washington Post (16 September 1975): A3. Conway, 

p. 305.

18National Research Council, Response to the Ozone Protection Section of the Clean Air Act Amendment 

of 1977: An Interim Report. (Washington, DC: National Academies of Sciences, 1977). 

19The Clean Air Act as amended August 1977 and July 1980 (Washington, DC: Government 

Printing Office, 1980), 96th Cong. 2d Sess. There were numerous scientific reports by various 

bodies in the 1970s. The decade ended with one by the National Academy of Sciences. See National 

Academy of Sciences, National Research Council, Protection Against Depletion of Stratospheric Ozone 

by Chlorofluorocarbons (Washington, DC: National Academy of Sciences, 1979).

20A useful study of ozone politics is by Sharon Roan, Ozone Crisis (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 

Inc., 1989). National Research Council, Response to Ozone Protection. 

21One early report was R. D. Hudson and E. I. Reed (eds.), The Stratosphere: Present and Future

(National Aeronautics and Space Administration, RP-1049, 1979). NASA had hoped to launch 

UARS in 1984. Stolarski, 16 December 2003.

22Sharon Roan, Ozone Crisis (New York: John Wiley, 1989), p. 98. 

23W. Henry Lambright, “Administrative Entrepreneurship and Space Technology: The Ups and 

Downs of ‘Mission to Planet Earth’,” Public Administration Review Vol. 54, no. 2 (March/April 

1994): 99.

24Ibid.

25Personal communication from Jack Kaye, 16 December 2003.

26Nick Sundt, “Robert T. Watson: Bridging Science and Policy,” Global Change (Electronic Edition) 

(May 1996).
The Case of Ozone Depletion 51

27Interview with Jack Kaye, 18 October 2002.

28Roan, p. 159.

29Karen Litfin, Ozone Discourses (New York: Columbia, 1994), p. 82.

30Ibid.

31Ibid., p. 112.

32Ibid., p. 82.

33Ibid., p. 83.

34Ibid., p. 73.

35Ibid., pp. 75–77.

36J.C. Farman, et al., “Large Losses of Total Ozone in Antarctica Reveal C10x/NOx Interaction,” 

Nature 315 (16 May 1985): 207–210.

37Stolarski, 16 December 2003.

38Interview with Jack Kaye, 18 October 2002.

39Litfin, p. 83. Roan, p. 142. W. Henry Lambright, “NASA, Ozone, and Policy-Relevant Science,” 

Research Policy 24 (1995): 752.

40Interview with Jack Kaye, 18 October 2002.

41Lambright, “Entrepreneurship and Space Technology,” p. 99.

42Lambright, “NASA, Ozone, and Policy-Relevant Science,” p. 753.

43Ibid. Roan, p. 172. The data pointed to changes in partitioning of chlorine and nitrogen 

compounds, and large concentrations of “acute” forms of chlorine in the lower atmosphere where 

models and previous observations suggested that chlorine would be present in less chemically active 

forms. Personal communication from Jack Kaye, 16 December 2003.

44Anonymous reviewer comment. (All anonymous reviewer comments came from NASA review of 

this manuscript. The comments are on the original manuscript but remain private due to anonymity 

of the peer review process.) See also M. R. Schoeberl and A. J. Krueger (guest eds.)“Overview of the 

Antarctic Ozone Depletion” Geophysical Research Letters 13, no. 12 (November Supplement 1986): 

1191–1362.

45Litfin, p. 104. 
52 NASA and the Environment 

46Ibid., pp. 105–106. “Through Rose-Colored Sunglasses,” New York Times (31 May 1987): 28. 

47Lambright, “NASA, Ozone, and Policy-Relevant Science,” p. 753.

48Personal communication from Jack Kaye, 16 December 2003.

49Lambright, “NASA, Ozone, and Policy-Relevant Science,” p. 753. Interview with Robert Watson, 

22 June 1993.

50Anonymous reviewer comment.

51Anonymous reviewer comment.

52Roan, p. 183. This was not the first large airborne campaign to study stratospheric chemistry. 

There had been two previous ones in the 1980s. This experience helped NASA in the present 

instance. Personal communication from Jack Kaye, 16 December 2003.

53Sally Ride, Leadership and America’s Future in Space (Washington, DC: NASA, 1987).

54Litfin, p. 85.

55Personal communication from Jack Kaye, 16 December 2003.

56Lambright, “NASA, Ozone, and Policy-Relevant Science,” p. 754.

57Personal communication from Jack Kaye, 16 December 2003. See also: “The Airborne Antarctic 

Ozone Expedition (AAOE), Part 1,” Journal of Geophysical Research 94, no. D9 (30 August 1989): 

11179–11737, especially A. F. Tuck et al., ‘The Planning and Execution of ER-2 and DC-8 Aircraft 

Flights Over Antarctica, August and September 1987,’ pp. 11181–11222, and “The Airborne 

Antarctic Ozone Expedition (AAOE), Part 2,” Journal of Geophysical Research 94, no. D14 (30 

November 1989): 16437–16857. 

58Anonymous reviewer comment.

59Interview with Dan Albritton, 15 June 1993.

60For a comprehensive treatment of the diplomatic story, see R. E. Benedick, Ozone Diplomacy, 

(Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 1991).

61Lambright, “NASA, Ozone, and Policy-Relevant Science,” p. 754.

62Personal communication from Jack Kaye, 16 December 2003.

63Lambright, “NASA, Ozone, and Policy-Relevant Science,” p. 755.

64Anonymous reviewer comment.

65Lambright, “NASA, Ozone, and Policy-Relevant Science,” p. 755.
The Case of Ozone Depletion 53

66Ibid.

67Malcomb Browne, “New Ozone Threat: Scientists Fear Layer is Eroding at North Pole,” New York 

Times (11 October 1988):11. Once scientists proposed that the polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs) 

played an important role in repartitioning the chlorine in the Antarctic stratosphere from inactive 

to active forms, scientists were able to look at more satellite data to understand the distribution of 

the PSCs. In particular, scientists from the NASA Langley Research Center were able to look at 

PSC data from the instruments aboard the Nimbus 7 satellite and characterize the distribution of 

PSCs over the Antarctic and Arctic. This helped provide input to models attempting to simulate 

the PSC-induced chemistry. Also, lab work done several places (most notably at the University of 

Minnesota and the NOAA Aeronomy Lab) helped scientists understand which chemicals were 

likely responsible for forming the PSCs—it was the existence of a broadly-based laboratory program 

that enabled scientists to quickly focus on what might be responsible for PSC formation and their 

impacts on chemistry. Personal communication from Richard Stolarski, 16 December 2003.

68Norman Vig and Michael Kraft, Environmental Policy: New Directions for the 21st Century, 

(Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press, 2003), p. 306. 

69Philip Shabecoff, “Arctic Expedition Finds Chemical Threat to Ozone,” New York Times (18 

February 1989): 1,9.

70Anonymous reviewer comment.

71Craig Whitney, “Ozone Talks End Without Deadline,” New York Times (8 March 1989): A12.

72“Ozone Hole’s Reappearance Linked to Chlorofluorocarbons,” Aviation Week and Space Technology 

(30 October 1989): 28.

73William Booth, “Hole in Ozone Layer Found at North Pole, Too,” Washington Post (16 March 

1990): A10.

74Malcolm Browne, “Ozone Hole Reopens Over Antarctica,” New York Times (12 October 1990): 

A8.

75Douglas Isbell, “UARS Seen as Earth Observing System’s Dress Rehearsal,” Space News (9–15 

September 1991): 24 .

76Liz Hunt, “‘Mission to Planet Earth’ Commences as Shuttle Carries Satellite Into Orbit,” 

Washington Post (13 September 1991): A3.

77Douglas Isbell, “UARS Launches Earth Study,” Space News (16–22 September 1991): 24.

78Personal communication from Jack Kaye, 16 December 2003.

79Micah Morrison, “The Ozone Scare,” Insight, Washington Times (22 March 1992): 15–23.

80Ibid.
54 NASA and the Environment 

81Anonymous reviewer comment.

82Paul Hoversten, “Suspected Northern Ozone Hole ‘Frightening’,” USA Today (4 February 1992): 

A1. Paul Hoversten, “Scientists Sound Ozone Alarm,” USA Today (4 February 1992): A3.

83Ibid.

84Time Vol. 139, no. 7 (17 February 1992): cover page.

85Michael Weisskopf, “U.S. May Seek to Hasten Action to Protect Ozone,” Washington Post (6 

February 1992): A3.

86Philip Hilts, “Senate Backs Faster Protection of Ozone Layer as Bush Relents,” New York Times (7 

February 1992): A1.

87Keith Schneider, “Bush Orders End to Manufacture of Ozone-Harming Agents by ’96,” New York 

Times (13 February 1992): B16.

88Michael Weisskopf, “Ozone Depletion Tied to Infectious Diseases; UN Report Could Prompt Bid 

to Speed Phaseout of Chlorofluorocarbons,” Washington Post (8 February 1992): A-10.

89M. D. Lemonick, “The Ozone Vanishes,” Time Vol. 139, no. 7 (17 February 1992): 60-63. See also 

Micah Morrison, “The Ozone Scare,” Insight, Washington Times (22 March 1992): 15–23.

90Ronald Bailey, “Oops...There Goes That Ozone Hole!,” Washington Times (1 March 1992): 11. 

91Morrison, “The Ozone Scare.” There was an ongoing and intense scientific debate about the 

migration of ozone loss from the vortex to the mid-latitudes at the time of the press conference (3 

February 1992). The factors that influenced this spread, or inhibited it, were better understood later 

when the second Arctic expedition ended. Anonymous reviewer comment. 

92Ibid. The situation in the stratosphere was complicated by a very large volcanic eruption of Mt. 

Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991. The sulfur dioxide injected into the stratosphere by this volcano 

led to formation of significant amounts of stratospheric aerosols. Since the lifetime of these aerosols is 

on the order of one year, it took several years for the amounts to decay. The aerosols had the potential 

to catalyze some of the same kinds of chemical reactions that PSCs did in the Arctic. The best way 

to track the growth and decay of the stratospheric aerosols was seen in NASA’s second Stratospheric 

Aerosol and Gas Experiment (SAGE II) launched in 1984. UARS also had an instrument to help in 

the study of aerosol distribution and properties. Personal communication from Richard Stolarski, 

16 December 2003. An anonymous reviewer noted that “Hoffman’s comment applied to a single, 

unusual event, the presence of volcanic aerosols that year. Aerosols affect the reaction in ways they 

didn’t know, and they could have caused the greater-than-usual chlorine abundance in 1991. But it 

doesn’t impugn the original thesis of the prior years’ experiments . . . UARS data, in fact, disproved 

the volcanic thesis later. . . .” 

93Anonymous reviewer comment.
The Case of Ozone Depletion 55

94Morrison, “The Ozone Scare.”

95Warren Leary, “Scientists Say Warm Winter Prevented Arctic Ozone Hole,” New York Times (1 

May 1992): A12.

96“NASA Cries Wolf on Ozone,” Washington Times (7 May 1992): 62.

97Bob Davis, “Hole in Ozone Didn’t Develop, NASA Reports,” Wall Street Journal (1 May 1992): 

B12.

98Stephanie Roy, “The Origin of the Smaller, Faster, Cheaper Approach to NASA’s Solar System 

Exploration,” Space Policy 14 (1998): 166. 

99At first, there were two parts, space science and applications (called Mission to Planet Earth). The 

third, life and microgravity science, came not long afterward.

100Ghassem Asrar interview, Washington, DC, 16 December 2003.

101Gary Taubes, “NASA Launches a 5-Year Plan to Clone Drones,” Science (16 April 1993): 286.

102Anonymous reviewer comment. 

103William Harwood, “Shuttle Lifts Off on Mission to Study Ozone,” Washington Post (8 April 

1993): A22. This ATLAS flight was the second in a series (the first one was launched 24 March 

1992). This second flight received a fair amount of attention because of what was going on with the 

ozone layer at the time. The Agency was even willing to do a launch at night (which it prefers not to) 

in order to provide the best possible view of the Northern Hemisphere high latitudes during spring. 

ATLAS was supposed to be a series of 10 missions, although it ended up being truncated after 3 

(the last one was in 1994). One of the goals of the ATLAS missions was to help provide calibration 

information for UARS, as there were some comparable instruments aboard ATLAS that could be 

brought back into the lab and tested after flight, so calibrations could be very well established. The 

Shuttle also was used to fly the Shuttle Solar Backscatter Ultraviolet (SSBUV) instrument, which 

provided calibration information for a series of ozone-measuring satellite instruments that flew as 

part of NOAA’s operational meteorological satellite system (these are SSBUV/2 instruments). The 

SSBUV instrument flew eight times over a period of years. The key instrument aboard ATLAS—

the Atmospheric Trace Molecules Spectroscopy Experiment (ATMOS) instrument from the Jet 

Propulsion Laboratory—also flew aboard the Spacelab 3 mission in 1985. Personal communication 

from Richard Stolarski, 16 December 2003.

104Boyce Rensberger, “After 2000, Outlook for the Ozone Layer Looks Good,” Washington Post (15 

April 1993): A1.

105“Good News, for Once, on Ozone,” Editorial, New York Times (30 August 1993): A16.

106NASA, “AAAS to Honor NASA Scientist for Ozone Research,” news release (11 February 1993).

107Carl Posey, “Ozone Forecast: Partly Cloudy,” Air and Space (October/November 1994): 34.
56 NASA and the Environment 

108“Astronauts Again Seeking Clues About Dwindling Ozone Shield,” New York Times (10 

November 1994): PA 32.

109NASA,“NASA’s UARS Confirms CFCs Caused Antarctic Ozone Hole,” news release (19 

December 1994).

110Personal communication from Richard Stolarski, 16 December 2003.

111Anonymous reviewer comment.

112NASA, “NASA Funded Research Sees Fall of Ozone-Depleting Chemicals,” news release (20 

July 1995).

113Committee on Science, Status of the Stratospheric Ozone Layer: Hearing before the Subcommittee 

on Energy and the Environment, US House of Representatives, 104th Congress, 1st Sess., September 

20th, 1995. See also William K. Stevens, “GOP Bills Aim to Delay Ban on Chemicals in Ozone 

Dispute,” New York Times (21 September 1995): A20.

114William K. Stevens, “GOP Bills Aim to Delay Ban on Chemicals in Ozone Dispute,” New York 

Times (21 September 1995): A20.

115Ghassem Asrar interview, Washington, DC, 16 December 2003.

116NASA, “NASA Earth Science Aircraft Soars to New Heights,” news release (13 May 1997).

117Richard Kerr, “Ozone Losses, Greenhouse Gases Linked,” Science 280 (10 April 1998): 39.

118Warren Ferster, “Officials Say Ozone Needs Constant Vigil,” Space News (12–18 October 

1998): 12.

119Brian Berger, “Key Component Left Out of NASA Ozone Research Project,” Space News (6 

December 1999): 8.

120NASA, “Largest-Ever Ozone Hole Observed Over Antarctica,” news release (17 September 

2000).

121The name of the division, Mission to Planet Earth, was changed to Earth Science Enterprise in 

1998.

122Andrew Bridges, “NASA Terminates Mission that Measured Ozone Hole,” Associated Press 

Newswire (23 August 2001). 

123Brian Berger, “QuikTOMS Loss Limits NASA’s Ozone Monitoring Options,” Space News (1 

October 2001):15.

124Pierre Sparaco, “Nations Disagree on Reasons for Shrinking Ozone Hole,” Aviation Week and 

Space Technology (11 November 2002): 44.
The Case of Ozone Depletion 57

125The author thanks an anonymous reviewer for the suggested material.

126D. E. Heath, ed., “Ozone Layer on the Road to Recovery,” Environment (October 2003): 4–5. 

Some scientists had problems with the perception that ozone was increasing. Newchurch’s data did 

not show this, and he tried to be clear that what he saw was a slowing of the decrease—a flattening 

out of the loss rate, which would be a necessary precursor to recovery. Personal communication from 

Jack Kaye, 16 December 2003. 

127This is the word Albritton used in describing Watson’s strategy in the Montreal Protocol era. 

Interview with Albritton, 15 June 1993.

128Parson, pp. 266–267.
 
59

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

W. Henry Lambright is professor of public administration and political science and director at the 

Center for Environmental Policy and Administration, the Maxwell School, Syracuse University. He 

is the author of a number of books and publications on public administration and science policy. His 

works on space policy include Powering Apollo: James E. Webb of NASA (Johns Hopkins University 

Press, 1995), Space Policy in the Twenty-First Century (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003), and 

Transforming Government: Dan Goldin and the Remaking of NASA (PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2001).

The Case of Ozone Depletion

61

NASA MONOGRAPHS IN AEROSPACE HISTORY SERIES

All monographs except the first one are available by sending a self-addressed 9-by-12-inch envelope 

for each monograph with appropriate postage for 15 ounces to the NASA History Division, Room 

CO72, Washington, DC 20546. A complete listing of all NASA History Series publications is 

available at http://history.nasa.gov/series95.html on the World Wide Web. In addition, a number of 

monographs and other History Series publications are available online from the same URL. 

Launius, Roger D., and Aaron K. Gillette, compilers. Toward a History of the Space Shuttle: An 

Annotated Bibliography. Monographs in Aerospace History, No. 1, 1992. Out of print.

Launius, Roger D., and J. D. Hunley, compilers. An Annotated Bibliography of the Apollo Program. 

Monographs in Aerospace History, No. 2, 1994. 

Launius, Roger D. Apollo: A Retrospective Analysis. Monographs in Aerospace History, No. 3, 1994. 

Hansen, James R. Enchanted Rendezvous: John C. Houbolt and the Genesis of the Lunar-Orbit 

Rendezvous Concept. Monographs in Aerospace History, No. 4, 1995. 

Gorn, Michael H. Hugh L. Dryden’s Career in Aviation and Space. Monographs in Aerospace History, 

No. 5, 1996. 

Powers, Sheryll Goecke. Women in Flight Research at NASA Dryden Flight Research Center from 1946 

to 1995. Monographs in Aerospace History, No. 6, 1997. 

Portree, David S. F., and Robert C. Trevino. Walking to Olympus: An EVA Chronology. Monographs 

in Aerospace History, No. 7, 1997. 

Logsdon, John M., moderator. Legislative Origins of the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958: 

Proceedings of an Oral History Workshop. Monographs in Aerospace History, No. 8, 1998. 

Rumerman, Judy A., compiler. U.S. Human Spaceflight, A Record of Achievement 1961–1998. 

Monographs in Aerospace History, No. 9, 1998. 

Portree, David S. F. NASA’s Origins and the Dawn of the Space Age. Monographs in Aerospace 

History, No. 10, 1998. 

Logsdon, John M. Together in Orbit: The Origins of International Cooperation in the Space Station. 

Monographs in Aerospace History, No. 11, 1998. 

Phillips, W. Hewitt. Journey in Aeronautical Research: A Career at NASA Langley Research Center. 

Monographs in Aerospace History, No. 12, 1998. 

Braslow, Albert L. A History of Suction-Type Laminar-Flow Control with Emphasis on Flight Research. 

Monographs in Aerospace History, No. 13, 1999. 
62

Logsdon, John M., moderator. Managing the Moon Program: Lessons Learned From Apollo. Monographs 

in Aerospace History, No. 14, 1999. 

Perminov, V. G. The Difficult Road to Mars: A Brief History of Mars Exploration in the Soviet Union. 

Monographs in Aerospace History, No. 15, 1999. 

Tucker, Tom. Touchdown: The Development of Propulsion Controlled Aircraft at NASA Dryden. 

Monographs in Aerospace History, No. 16, 1999. 

Maisel, Martin, Demo J. Giulanetti, and Daniel C. Dugan, The History of the XV-15 Tilt Rotor 

Research Aircraft: From Concept to Flight. Monographs in Aerospace History, No. 17, 2000 (NASA 

SP-2000-4517). 

Jenkins, Dennis R. Hypersonics Before the Shuttle: A Concise History of the X-15 Research Airplane. 

Monographs in Aerospace History, No. 18, 2000 (NASA SP-2000-4518). 

Chambers, Joseph R. Partners in Freedom: Contributions of the Langley Research Center to U.S. Military 

Aircraft of the 1990s. Monographs in Aerospace History, No. 19, 2000 (NASA SP-2000-4519). 

Waltman, Gene L. Black Magic and Gremlins: Analog Flight Simulations at NASA’s Flight Research 

Center. Monographs in Aerospace History, No. 20, 2000 (NASA SP-2000-4520). 

Portree, David S. F. Humans to Mars: Fifty Years of Mission Planning, 1950–2000. Monographs in 

Aerospace History, No. 21, 2001 (NASA SP-2001-4521). 

Thompson, Milton O., with J. D. Hunley. Flight Research: Problems Encountered and What They 

Should Teach Us. Monographs in Aerospace History, No. 22, 2001 (NASA SP-2001-4522). 

Tucker, Tom. The Eclipse Project. Monographs in Aerospace History, No. 23, 2001 (NASA SP2001-4523). 

Siddiqi, Asif A. Deep Space Chronicle: A Chronology of Deep Space and Planetary Probes, 1958–2000. 

Monographs in Aerospace History, No. 24, 2002 (NASA SP-2002-4524). 

Merlin, Peter W. Mach 3+: NASA/USAF YF-12 Flight Research, 1969–1979. Monographs in 

Aerospace History, No. 25, 2001 (NASA SP-2001-4525). 

Anderson, Seth B. Memoirs of an Aeronautical Engineer: Flight Tests at Ames Research Center: 1940–

1970. Monographs in Aerospace History, No. 26, 2002 (NASA SP-2002-4526). 

Renstrom, Arthur G. Wilbur and Orville Wright: A Bibliography Commemorating the One-Hundredth 

Anniversary of the First Powered Flight on December 17, 1903. Monographs in Aerospace History, No. 

27, 2002 (NASA SP-2002-4527). 

Chambers, Joseph R. Concept to Reality: Contributions of the NASA Langley Research Center to

U.S. Civil Aircraft of the 1990s. Monographs in Aerospace History, No. 29, 2003 (NASA SP2003-4529). 
63

Peebles, Curtis, editor. The Spoken Word: Recollections of Dryden History, The Early Years. Monographs 

in Aerospace History, No. 30, 2003 (NASA SP-2003-4530). 

Jenkins, Dennis R., Tony Landis, and Jay Miller. American X-Vehicles: An Inventory—X-1 to X-50. 

Monographs in Aerospace History, No. 31, 2003 (NASA SP-2003-4531). 

Renstrom, Arthur G. Wilbur and Orville Wright Chronology. Monographs in Aerospace History, No. 

32, 2003 (NASA SP-2003-4532).

Bowles, Mark D., and Robert S. Arrighi. NASA’s Nuclear Frontier: The Plum Brook Reactor Facility, 

1941–2002. Monographs in Aerospace History, No. 33, 2004 (NASA SP-2004-4533).

McCurdy, Howard E. Low-Cost Innovation in Spaceflight. Monographs in Aerospace History, No. 

36, 2005 (NASA SP-2005-4536).

Seamans, Robert C. Project Apollo: The Tough Decisions. Monographs in Aerospace History, No. 37, 

2005 (NASA SP-2005-4537).
 NASA and the Environment 
The Case of Ozone Depletion 65

INDEX

Advanced Earth Observing Satellite (ADEOS), 

27, 41–42

Airborne Antarctic Ozone Experiment 

(AAOE), 19–20, 22, 31; Estes Park, 22

Airborne Arctic Stratospheric Expeditions 

(AASE) First, 23, 26, Second, 30 

Albritton, Dan, 17–18, 19, 20, 21, 33, 37

Ames Research Center, 9

Anderson, Clinton, 3

Anderson, James, 15, 20, 22, 30, 31, 34

Anderson, Stephen, 2

Antarctica, Ozone hole, 14–15, 17–19, 20, 21, 

22, 26, 29, 30, 33, 34, 38, 39, 42, 43

Arctic, Ozone hole, 26, 28, 30–34, 42, 43, 48

Asrar, Ghassem, 44

Association for the Advancement of Science 

(AAAS), 37

Atlantis, 38

Atomic Energy Commission, 7

Atmospheric Laboratory for Applications and 

Science (ATLAS), 36

Aura, 36, 43, 44

Baliunas, Sallie, 39

Beggs, James, 10–11

Benedick, Richard, 2

British Antarctic Survey, 14

Bromley, D. Allan, 26, 31

Bush, George H.W., 25, 26, 27, 29, 31–32, 35, 

37–38

Bush, George W., 43

California Institute of Technology (Caltech) 9, 

11, 15

Carter, Jimmy, 10, 11

Center for Climate Systems Research, 42

Challenger, 20, 25

Chemical Manufacturers Association, 18,

19, 26

Christie, Maureen, 2

Clean Air Act, 32; Amendments, 9

Climate Impact Assessment Program (CIAP), 

3, 5, 7

Clinton, Bill, 36, 38, 39

Columbia University, 42

Committee on Earth Sciences (CES), 25

Condon, Estelle, 20, 26

Congress, 3, 5, 17, 19, 22, 25, 28, 35, 37

 Assigning ozone mandate, 7–9

 House Committee on Science, 38

 Republican revolution, 38, 39; Senate, 42

 Senate Committee on Aeronautical and 

 Space Sciences, 3, 8

 Senate Subcommittee on Science, 

 Technology, and Space, 26

Cook, Liz, 31

DC–8, 20, 30

Department of Commerce, 8

Department of Defense, 35

Department of Energy, 7

Department of Transportation (DOT) 3, 5, 7

Department of State, 12, 19, 21

Discovery 29, 36, 42

Doolittle, John, 39

Dukakis, Michael, 25

Dupont, 9, 22

Earth Day, 1

Earth Defense Fund, 37

Earth in the Balance, 36

Earth Observing System (EOS), 1, 25, 26, 28, 

35–36, 37, 38, 39, 41, 43, 48

Earth Radiation Budget Satellite, 43

Earth System Sciences Committee, 11

Edelson, Burt, 10–11

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 10, 

13, 15, 18, 21, 22, 31, 38

ER–2, 13, 19–20, 22, 30, 41

European Community, 26 

European Space Agency, Earth Remote Sensing 

Satellite, 43, Envisat, 44

Farman, Joseph, 14–15, 18

Farmer, Crofton, 15

Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), 12
66 NASA and the Environment 

McDonald, James, 3

McNeal, Joe, 30

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) 

SST study, 3

McPeters, Richard, 44

Meteor–3 satellite, 27, 29

Mission to Planet Earth, 18, 20, 25, 26, 28, 29, 

35, 36, 38, 39, 43

Molina, Mario, 5, 11

Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete 

the Ozone Layer, 1, 20–21, 22–23, 27, 31, 

32, 36, 37, 38, 39, 44, 47, 48

Morrison, Micah, 33

Moss, Frank, E., 8

National Aeronautics and Space Administration 

(NASA): 

 Airborne Antarctic Ozone Experiment 

 (AAOE), 19–20, 22, 31

 Airborne Arctic Stratospheric Expeditions 

 (AASE) First, 23, 26; Second, 30

 Ames Research Center, 9, 20

 Atmospheric Laboratory for Applications 

 and Science (ATLAS), 36

 Earth Observing System (EOS), 25, 26, 

 28, 35–36, 37, 38, 39, 41, 43

 Earth Sciences Enterprise, 43 

 Earth System Sciences Committee, 11

 Goddard Space Flight Center, 9, 14, 15, 

 23, 28, 29, 44

 Goddard Institute for Space Studies, 42

 Headquarters, 5, 29, 31, 44

 Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 9, 11, 15, 32

 Johnson Space Center, 5, 9

 Langley Research Center, 9

 Mission to Planet Earth, 18, 20, 25, 26, 

 28, 29, 35, 36, 38, 39, 43

 National Ozone Expedition (NOZE), 18, 20

 Office of Space Science and Applications 

 (OSSA), 9, 10, 29, 35

 Space Shuttle, 5, 20, 25, 29, 36, 38, 42

 Space Station, 10

 Upper Atmosphere Research Office 

 (UARO), 9

 Upper Atmosphere Research Program 

 (UARP), 10, 11, 17, 20, 26, 34, 41

Federal Council on Science and Technology 

(FCST), 7

Fisk, Len, 29, 35

Fletcher, James, 3, 5, 9, 20

Ford, Gerald, 7, 9

Friends of the Earth, 31

Geneva, Switzerland, 18

Geophysical Research Letters, 18

George C. Marshall Institute, 39

Georgia Institute of Technology, 44

Goddard Space Flight Center, 9, 14, 15, 23,

28, 29, 44

Goddard Institute for Space Studies, 42

Goldin, Dan, 35–36

Gore, Al, 26, 31–32, 33, 36, 38

Graham, William, 18

Greenpeace, 31

Hampton, University, 44

Hansen, James, 25

Harris, Robert, 39

Harvard University, 15, 20, 22, 30, 34, 48

Heath, Donald, 10, 19, 22

Hilsenrath, Ernest, 38

Hodel, Donald, 19

Hofman, David, 33

Interagency Committee on Atmospheric 

Sciences (ICAS), 7

Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), 9, 11, 15, 32

Johnson Space Center, 5, 9

Johnston, Harold, 3, 11

Kaye, Jack, 12, 15, 17

Kerr, Richard, 42

King, James, 9

Krueger, Arlin, 32

Kurylo, Michael, 30, 31, 34, 37, 41, 43

Landsat, 1

Langley Research Center, 9

Liftin, Karen, 12

Lohr, Karen, 31

Low, George, 7
The Case of Ozone Depletion 67

 Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite 

 (UARS), 10, 11, 25, 28, 29–30, 32, 35, 

 36, 37, 38, 39, 41, 42–44

 U.S. Global Change Research Program, 

 25, 26, 38

National Oceanic and Atmospheric 

Administration (NOAA), 7, 12, 17, 33, 37, 

38, 42, 44

 Airborne Antarctic Ozone Experiment 

 (AAOE), 19–20

 Airborne Arctic Stratospheric Expeditions 

 (AASE) First, 23, 26; Second, 30

 Aeronomy Laboratory, 15, 17, 20, 22, 34

 Climate Monitoring and Diagnostics 

 Laboratory, 33

 Environmental Technology Laboratory, 33

 National Ozone Expedition (NOZE), 18

 U.S. Global Change Research Program, 

 25, 26

National Ozone Expedition (NOZE), 18, 20

National Research Council, 3, 9, 39

National Science Foundation (NSF), 7, 11, 18, 

19, 23, 47

 Airborne Arctic Stratospheric Expeditions 

 (AASE) First, 23, 26, Second, 30

 National Center for Atmospheric Research 

 (NCAR), 30, 33

 U.S. Global Change Research Program, 

 25, 26

Nature, 5, 15, 37

Naugle, John, 7

Newchurch, Michael, 45

Newman, Paul, 44

New York Times, 3, 31, 37

Nimbus 7, 9, 13, 25, 27, 29, 41

Nixon, Richard M., 3, 5

Office of Science and Technology Policy 

(OSTP), 37, 39

Office of Space Science and Applications 

(OSSA), 9, 10, 29, 35

Oppenheimer, Michael, 37

Ozone Trends Panel, 19, 20, 22, 25, 30

Parson, Edward 2, 48

Present State of Knowledge of the Upper 

Atmosphere: An Assessment Report, 12, 17

Project Habitat, 10

Reagan, Ronald, 10, 11, 12, 18, 19, 22, 25

Reber, Carl, 29

Reilly, Bill, 31

Ride, Sally, 20, 25

Roland, F. Sherwood, 5, 11

Sarma, K. M., 2

Satellite Pour l’Observation de la Terre

(SPOT 4), 43

Schmeltekopf, Art, 15, 19

Schoeberl, Mark, 28, 38, 44

Shapiro, Melvyn, 33, 34

Shultz, George, 19

Science 3, 42

Senate Committee on Aeronautical and Space 

Sciences, 3, 8

Senate Subcommittee on Science, Technology, 

and Space, 26

Singer, Fred, 39

Solomon, Susan, 18, 38

Soyuz rocket, 42

Space Shuttle, 5, 20, 25, 29, 36, 38, 42; Space 

Shuttle’s environmental impacts, 5, 7

Space Station, 10

Steitz, David, 43–44

Stever, H. Guyford, 7

Stolarski, Richard, 23

Sununu, John, 31

Supersonic Transport (SST), 3, 5

Thomas, Lee, 13, 15, 18

Tilford, Shelby, 13, 20, 29, 30, 35

Time, 31, 32

Todd, Ed, 7

Tolba, Mostafa, 12

Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS), 

13, 14, 25, 27, 29, 32; Earth Probe, 41–43, 

44; QuikTOMS, 44

Truly, Richard, 26, 35

TRW, 35

Tuck, A.F., 20

United Kingdom Meteorological Office, 19
United Nations, 2, 32

 Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Outer 

 Space, 10

 Environmental Program (UNEP), 12 

 UNEP/WMO Scientific Assessment of 

 Ozone Depletion, 44

 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate 

 Change (IPCC), 25

University of Arizona, 3

University of Alabama at Huntsville, 44, 45

University of California at Berkeley, 3, 11

University of Maryland, 11

University of Virginia, 39

University of Wisconsin, 44

Upper Atmosphere Research Office (UARO), 9

Upper Atmosphere Research Program (UARP), 

10, 11, 17, 20, 26, 34, 41

Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS), 

10, 11, 25, 28, 29–30, 32, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 

41, 42–44

U.S. Air Force Midcourse Space Experiment, 

43

U.S. Global Change Research Program 

(USGCRP), 25, 26, 38

U.S. Scout class booster, 27

Vienna Convention for the Protection of the 

Ozone Layer, 13, 18

Walker, Robert, 38

Wall Street Journal, 34

Waters, Joe 32

Watson, Robert, 15, 30, 36, 48

 Airborne Antarctic Ozone Experiment 

 (AAOE), 19–20

 Albritton alliance, 17, 33, 37

 Arctic expedition, 26

 Background, 11

 Managerial strategy, 11, 19, 48

 Montreal Protocol, 20–21

 National Ozone Expedition, 18

 Office of Science and Technology Policy 

 (OSTP), 37, 39

 Ozone Trends Panel, 19, 22

 Policy entrepreneur, 11–13

 WMO/NASA Assessment, 12, 17

 UNEP, 12

Washington Post, 31, 32

Washington Times, 34, 39

World Meteorological Organization (WMO), 

12, 44

WMO/NASA assessment, 12, 17

68 NASA and the Environment
National Aeronautics and

Space Administration

NASA History Division

Office of External Relations

NASA Headquarters

Washington, DC

NASA SP-2005-4538