Naturally, NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory are two major advocates for the advancement of remote sensing technology. The trend we see is a strong and positive shift towards increased use of both commercial imagery, as well as software tools. There is also some important work now occurring within the government which involves transforming non-public sources of imagery into a releasable format through selected channels. The purpose is to make these data available to government emergency response organizations, such as FEMA, for major environmental events such as hurricanes, fires, floods, earthquakes, etc. We are encouraged by these activities, however, I strongly feel that our National Security is an overriding priority above any other commercial interest, and therefore we must continue to be diligent about protecting our sources and methods against unauthorized disclosure or compromise.
Information security is a continuing area where basic research can contribute.
We see a coupling between advances in technology and the growth of the GIS and remote sensing marketplace. Slide 50 shows the trend away from custom hardware solutions towards enterprise wide software only solutions. Tied to this, as shown in Slide 51, is the evolution of GIS, including remote sensing from the single user through the enterprise and extending to society at large. The Internet will also be the primary distribution channel for future imagery dissemination. It is also essential that the future use of this technology has an extended reach to those less fortunate.