Abstract
The origin of NASA’s interest in the oceans is tracked from the agency’s early years (1960s) to the launch of the first significant ocean satellite, Seasat, in 1978. This chapter shows NASA Administrator James Fletcher’s role in the 1970s and later (1980s), in pointing NASA toward environmental missions. It discusses NASA’s connection with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and weather satellites and difficulties of the “hand-off” of satellites from development to operations when two or more agencies are involved. Seasat lasted only three months before failing but showed the high value of ocean satellites to various potential users, particularly scientists.
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Notes
- 1.
Homer Newell, Beyond the Atmosphere: Early Years of Space Science (Washington, DC: USGPO, 1980), Ch 19.
- 2.
G.C. Ewing, Oceanography from Space. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Proceedings of a Conference held at Woods Hole, 24–26 Aug. 1964. Woods Hole, Mass. (1965).
- 3.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, The Terrestrial Environment: Solid Earth and Ocean Physics, Application of Space and Astronomical Techniques (Cambridge, MA: 1989). See also W. Stanley Wilson et al. “Satellite Oceanography—History and Introductory Concepts,” in Encyclopedia of Ocean Sciences, 3rd Ed, vol. 5, (2019), 347–361. See also Erik Conway, “Drowning in Data: Satellite Oceanography and Information Overload in the Earth Sciences,” Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences, vol. 37, No. 1 (Sept. 2016), 127–151.
- 4.
Roger Launius, “A Western Mormon in Washington, D.C.: James C. Fletcher, NASA, and the Final Frontier” Pacific Historical Review (1995), 236.
- 5.
W. Henry Lambright, NASA and the Environment: The Case of Ozone Depletion (Washington, DC: NASA, 2005), 7–8.
- 6.
W. Stanley Wilson et al. “Satellite Oceanography—History and Introductory Concepts,” in Encyclopedia of Ocean Sciences, 3rd Edition, vol. 5, (2019), 347–361; See also Erik Conway, “Drowning in Data: Satellite Oceanography and Information Overload in the Earth Sciences,” Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences, vol. 37, No. 1 (Sept. 2016), 127–151.
- 7.
Carl Wunsch, “Toward the World Ocean Circulation Experiment and A Bit of Aftermath,” in M. Jochum and R. Murtugudde, Eds., Physical Oceanography: Developments Since 1950 (NY: Springer, 2006), 181–201.
- 8.
Spencer Weart, The Discovery of Global Warming (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 2003), 30.
- 9.
Comptroller General of the U.S., Report to Congress. The Seasat—A Project: Where it Stands Today (Sept. 16, 1977). This office was renamed General Accountability Office in 2004.
- 10.
Erik Conway, “Drowning in Data: Satellite Oceanography and Information Overload in the Earth Sciences,” Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences, vol. 37, No. 1 (Sept. 2016), 127–151.
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Lambright, W.H. (2023). The Coming of Seasat. In: NASA and the Politics of Climate Research. Palgrave Studies in the History of Science and Technology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40363-7_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40363-7_2
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