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“We Will Learn More About the Earth by Leaving It than by Remaining on It.” NASA and the Forming of an Earth Science Discipline in the 1960s

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Innovation in Science and Organizational Renewal

Abstract

Some recent historical studies have criticized NASA for failing in the 1960s to recognize and make a part of its core mission “earthly environmentalism,” and thereby failed to foster Earth science as a scientific pursuit. This essay responds by discussing the manner in which NASA in a subtle but transformative way encouraged the collaboration of scientists from many different disciplines focused on Earth to transcend disciplinary boundaries using space technology to treat the Earth as an integrated system. Indeed, from limited cooperative efforts in the 1960s overseen by NASA, emerged the broadly interdisciplinary efforts to understand the interactions of Earth in the last quarter of the twentieth century.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Roger D. Launius, “Imprisoned in a Tesseract: NASA’s Human Spaceflight Effort and the Prestige Trap,” Astropolitics: The International Journal of Space Politics and Policy 10, no. 2 (2012).

  2. 2.

    Paul Forman, “Behind Quantum Electronics: National Security as Basis for Physical Research in the United States, 1940–1960,” Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences 18, no. 1 (1987): 149–229.

  3. 3.

    Kim McQuaid, “Selling the Space Age: NASA and Earth’s Environment, 1958–1990,” Environment and History 12 (2006): 127–28.

  4. 4.

    See Erik M. Conway, Atmospheric Sciences at NASA: A History (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), 64–93.

  5. 5.

    Veronica Boix Mansilla, “Learning to Synthesize: The Development of Interdisciplinary Understanding,” in The Oxford Handbook of Interdisciplinarity, ed. Robert Frodeman et al. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010); Harry Collins, Robert Evans, and Mike Gorman, “Trading Zones and Interactional Expertise,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 38, no. 4 (2007): 657–66.

  6. 6.

    Naotatsu Shikazono, Introduction to Earth and Planetary System Science: New View of Earth, Planets, and Humans (New York: Springer, 2012), 8; Wolfgang Sachs, Planet Dialectics: Explorations in Environment and Development (London, UK: Zed Books, 1999), 101, 120–21, 125.

  7. 7.

    Samuel N. Goward and Darrel L. Williams, “Landsat and Earth Systems Science: Development of Terrestrial Monitoring,” Photogrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing 63 (July 1997): 887–88.

  8. 8.

    Tom D. Crouch, The Eagle Aloft: Two Centuries of the Balloon in America (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1983); L.T.C. Rolt, The Aeronauts: A History of Ballooning—1783–1903 (New York: Walker and Company, 1966); John H. Morrow Jr., The Great War in the Air: Military Aviation from 1909–1921 (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1993); Guilllaume de Syon, Zeppelin! Germany and the Airship, 1900–1939 (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002); Charles C. Bates and John F. Fuller, America’s Weather Warriors, 1814–1985 (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1986).

  9. 9.

    Conway, Atmospheric Science; Helen Gavaghan, Something New Under the Sun: Satellites and the Beginning of the Space Age (New York: Copernicus Books, 1998); Janice Hill, Weather from Above (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991); Frederik Nebeker, Calculating the Weather: Meteorology in the 20th Century (San Diego, CA: Academic Press, 1995); P. Krishna Rao, Evolution of the Weather Satellite Program in the U.S. Department of Commerce: A Brief Outline (Washington, DC: NOAA, 2001); William K. Stevens, The Change in the Weather: People, Weather, and the Science of Climate (New York: Delacorte Press, 1999).

  10. 10.

    L. C. Nkemdirim, “The Global Atmospheric Research Program and the Geographer,” The Professional Geographer 27 (1975): 227–30; R.J. Polavarapu and G.L. Austin, “A Review of the GARP Atlantic Tropical Experiment (GATE),” Atmosphere-Ocean 17, no.1 (1979): 2–13; Y.P. Borisenkov, “Global Atmospheric Research Program (GARP),” Meteorology and Hydrology, no. 12 (1974): 155–62; National Research Council, “National Academy of Sciences Annual Report, Fiscal Year 1968–69,” 1969, 26–27.

  11. 11.

    “National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958,” Public Law#85-568, 72 Stat., 426, signed July 29, 1958, accessed 6/3/2012 11:18 AM, http://history.nasa.gov/spaceact.html.

  12. 12.

    Erik M. Conway, “Earth Science and Planetary Science: A Symbiotic Relationship?,” in NASA’s First 50 Years: Historical Perspectives, ed. Steven J. Dick (Washington, DC: NASA SP-2010-4070, 2010).

  13. 13.

    Heidi Cullen, “Clouded Forecast,” New York Times, May 31, 2012.

  14. 14.

    Douglas Aircraft Company, Inc., “Preliminary Design of an Experimental World-Circling Spaceship,” Report No. SM-11827, May 2, 1946, pp. 11, 13, copy available in NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Office, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.

  15. 15.

    Otto E. Berg, “High-Altitude Portrait of Storm Clouds,” Office of Naval Research Reviews, September 1955, NASA Historical Reference Collection; Merton E. Davies and William R. Harris, RAND’s Role in the Evolution of Balloon and Satellite Observation Systems and Related U.S. Space Technology (Santa Monica, CA: The RAND Corporation, 1988), 22.

  16. 16.

    Harry Wexler, “Observing the Weather from a Satellite Vehicle,” Journal of the Interplanetary Society (September 1954): 269.

  17. 17.

    Harry Wexler, “Satellite Meteorology,” September 10, 1958, attached to Rao, “Evolution of the Weather Satellite Program in the U.S. Department of Commerce,” 20–25.

  18. 18.

    Hugh L. Dryden, for T. Keith Glennan, NASA, and Roy W. Johnson, Department of Defense, Agreement Between the Department of Defense and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Regarding the TIROS Meteorological Satellite Project, April 13, 1959, NASA Historical Reference Collection; Chapman, “Case Study,” 60–64.

  19. 19.

    Richard Witkins, “U.S. Orbits Weather Satellite; It Televises Earth and Clouds; New Era in Meteorology Seen,” New York Times, April 2, 1960, 1.

  20. 20.

    J.D. Hunley, ed., The Birth of NASA: The Diary of T. Keith Glennan (Washington, DC: NASA SP-4105, 1993), 117.

  21. 21.

    US Department of Commerce, Weather Bureau, “National Plan for a Common System of Meteorological Satellites,” Technical Planning Study No. 3, Preliminary Draft, October 1960, NASA Historical Reference Collection.

  22. 22.

    Hunley, The Birth of NASA, 243.

  23. 23.

    Ibid., 277; US National Coordinating Committee for Aviation Meteorology, Panel of Operational Meteorological Satellites, Plan for a National Operational Meteorological Satellite System (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1961).

  24. 24.

    The Weather Bureau had become part of a new organization, the Environmental Science Services Administration (ESSA), established on July 13, 1965, hence the name.

  25. 25.

    Robert M. White, Administrator, Environmental Science Services Administration, National Environmental Satellite Center, Department of Commerce, to Dr. Homer E. Newell, Associate Administrator for Space Science and Applications, NASA, August 15, 1966, NASA Historical Reference Collection; Smith, “The Meteorological Satellite,” 45562; Hill, Weather from Above, 2326, 2935.

  26. 26.

    S. Fred Singer, Meteorological Satellite Activities, Weather Bureau, “Policies and Organization,” June 1, 1962, reproduced in Rao, Evolution of the Weather Satellite Program in the US Department of Commerce, 33–35.

  27. 27.

    To discipline, the system project managers used a sophisticated system of information flow to enable all to keep informed on the status of the program. See John Krige, “Crossing the Interface from R&D to Operational Use,” Technology and Culture 41 (January 2000); Glenn Seaborg, “Science, Technology, and Development: A New World Outlook,” Science 181 (July 1973): 13–19.

  28. 28.

    Angelina Long “Making the Atmospheric Science Global: Satellite Development, ‘Data-Sparse Regions,’ and the World Weather Watch,” unpublished paper delivered at American Society for Environmental History, April 2010, 16–17, copy in possession of author.

  29. 29.

    On the IGY, see Roger D. Launius, James Rodger Fleming and David H. DeVorkin, ed., Globalizing Polar Science: Reconsidering the International Polar and Geophysical Years (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010); Clark Miller and Paul N. Edwards, ed., Changing the Atmosphere: Expert Knowledge and Environmental Governance (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001).

  30. 30.

    See Homer E. Newell, Beyond the Atmosphere: Early Years of Space Science (Washington, DC: NASA SP-4211, 1980), 186–200; John Cloud, “American Cartographic Transformations during the Cold War,” Cartography and Geographic Information Science 29, no. 3 (2002); Significant Achievements in Satellite Geodesy, 1958–1964 (Washington, DC: NASA SP-0094, 1966); Deborah Warner, “From Tallahassee to Timbuktu: Cold War Efforts to Measure Intercontinental Distances,” Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences 30, part 2 (2000); Naomi Oreskes, ed., Plate Tectonics: An Insider’s History of the Modern Theory of the Earth (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2003); Donald MacKenzie, Inventing Accuracy: A Historical Sociology of Nuclear Missile Guidance (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990).

  31. 31.

    Newell, Beyond the Atmosphere, 334.

  32. 32.

    National Academy of Sciences, Space Science Board, Science in Space (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1961), chap. 3, p. 1.

  33. 33.

    National Academy of Sciences, Space Science Board, A Review of Space Research: A Report of the Summer Study Conducted under the Auspices of the Space Science Board of the National Academy of Sciences (Washington, DC: National Academy of Sciences, Publication 1079, 1962), 5–13.

  34. 34.

    Joseph N. Tatarewicz, Space Technology and Planetary Astronomy (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), 103–104; see also Joseph N. Tatarewicz, “Federal Funding and Planetary Astronomy, 1950–1975: A Case Study,” Social Studies of Science 16, no. 1 (1986).

  35. 35.

    F.T. Barath, A.H. Barrett, J. Copeland, D.E. Jones, and A.E. Lilley, “Mariner 2 Microwave Radiometer Experiment Results,” Astronomical Journal 69 (1964): 49–58; D.H. Staelin, A.H. Barrett, and B.R. Kusse, “Observations of Venus, the Sun, Moon and Tau A at 1.18-cm Wavelength,” Astronomical Journal 69 (1964): 69–71; A.H. Barrett and D.H. Staelin, “Radio Observations of Venus and the Interpretations,” Space Science Reviews 3 (1964); D.H. Staelin and A.H. Barrett, “Spectral Observations of Venus Near 1-centimeter Wavelength,” The Astrophysical Journal 144(1) (1966).

  36. 36.

    Glenn Fowler, “Dr. Alan H. Barrett, 64, Physicist and Pioneer in Radio Astronomy,” New York Times, July 4, 1991.

  37. 37.

    Ibid.

  38. 38.

    Staelin published 165 papers between 1964 and 2010, more than two-thirds were on Earth science in one form or another. As examples see D.H. Staelin, “Measurements and Interpretation of the Microwave Spectrum of the Terrestrial Atmosphere near 1-centimeter Wavelength,” Journal of Geophysical Research 71, no. 12 (1966); D.H. Staelin, F.T. Barath, J.C. Blinn III, E.J. Johnston, “Section 7: The Nimbus E Microwave Spectrometer (NEMS) Experiment,” Nimbus-5 Users Guide (1972); D.H. Staelin et al., “Microwave Spectrometer on the Nimbus 5 Satellite: Meteorological and Geophysical Data,” Science 182 (1973): 1339–41; C. Surussavadee and D. H. Staelin, “Global Precipitation Retrievals Using the NOAA/AMSU Millimeter-Wave Channels: Comparisons with Rain Gauges,” Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climate 49 (2010).

  39. 39.

    Conway B. Leovy, “Simple Models of Thermally Driven Mesospheric Circulation,” Journal of Atmospheric Sciences 21 (1964); Varavut Limpasuvan, Conway B. Leovy, and Yvan J. Orsolini, “Observed Temperature Two-day Wave and its Relatives Near the Stratopause,” Journal of Atmospheric Sciences 57 (2000); “Conway B. Leovy: Emeritus Professor of Atmospheric Sciences and Geophysics, July 16, 1933–July 9, 2011,” accessed 6/8/2012 12:02 PM. http://www.atmos.washington.edu/people/leovy.shtml.

  40. 40.

    Hugh R. Anderson and P.D. Hudson, “Non-Uniformity of Solar Protons Over the Polar Caps on March 24, 1966,” Journal of Geophysical Research 74 (1969).

  41. 41.

    Conway Snyder et al., “Interplanetary Space Physics,” in Lunar and Planetary Sciences in Space Exploration (Washington, DC: NASA SP-14, 1962), 164.

  42. 42.

    S.H. Gross, W.E. Mc Govern, and S.I. Rasool, “The Upper Atmosphere of Mars,” NASA-TM-X-57327, 1965; S.H. Gross, W.E. Mc Govern, and S.I. Rasool, “The Atmosphere of Mercury,” NASA-TM-X-57322, 1966; S.H. Gross, W.E. Mc Govern, and S.I. Rasool, “On the Exospheric Temperature of Venus,” NASA-TM-X-61176, 1967; J.S. Hogan, R.W. Stewart, S.I. Rasool, and L.H. Russell, “Results of the Mariner 6 And 7 Mars Occultation Experiments,” NASA Technical Note TN-D-6683, 1972.

  43. 43.

    Among many others see S.I. Rasool, “Evolution of the Earth’s Atmosphere,” NASA-TM-X-61176, 1967; S.I. Rasool, “Predicting Earth’s Dynamic Changes,” Aerospace America 24 (January 1986).

  44. 44.

    S.I. Rasool, “Space Observations for Global Change,” Physical Measurements and Signatures in Remote Sensing, 2 (1991): 805.

  45. 45.

    S.I. Rasool and S.H. Schneider, “Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide and Aerosols: Effects of Large Increases on Global Climate,” Science 173 (July 9, 1971).

  46. 46.

    Victor Cohn, “U.S. Scientist Sees New Ice Age Coming,” Washington Post, July 9, 1971, p. A4.

  47. 47.

    George Monbiot, “A Hard Rain’s A-gonna Fall,” The Guardian, May 14, 2004. The book by talk show host Art Bell and Whitley Strieber, The Coming Global Superstorm (New York: Pocket Books, 1999), served as the immediate basis for the film.

  48. 48.

    Carl Sagan’s accomplishments are too numerous to mention. Key books about him include Keay Davidson, Carl Sagan: A Life (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1999); Tom Head, ed., Conversations with Carl Sagan (Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 2005); William Poundstone, Carl Sagan: A Life in the Cosmos (New York: Henry Holt & Company, 1999). He especially applied his knowledge of planetary atmospheres, in this case studies of Venus, to Earth coming up with the “nuclear winter” scenario for climate change in the aftermath of a nuclear exchange between the USA and the Soviet Union. See R. P. Turco et al., “Nuclear Winter: Global Consequences of Multiple Nuclear Explosions,” Science (December 23, 1983); also Paul R. Ehrlich, Carl Sagan, Donald Kennedy, and Walter Orr Roberts, The Cold and the Dark: The World after Nuclear War (New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 1984), 83–85; Lawrence Badash, “Nuclear Winter: Scientists in the Political Arena,” Physics in Perspective (2001).

  49. 49.

    Eric Nagourney, “Robert Sharp Dies at 92; Linked Study of Planets,” New York Times, June 14, 2004.

  50. 50.

    At the time, Newell was Superintendent of the Atmosphere and Astrophysics Division, Naval Research Laboratory (NRL). NRL was the organization in charge of the Vanguard Program. Newell and Silverstein had been discussing the transfer of NRL scientists for sometime before NASA opened its doors.

  51. 51.

    NASA, Policy on Space Flight Experiments (Washington, DC: NASA, December 12, 1958); Hunley, The Birth of NASA, 6–15.

  52. 52.

    Robert L. Rosholt, An Administrative History of NASA, 1958–1963 (Washington, DC: NASA SP-4101, 1966), 217–26.

  53. 53.

    W. Henry Lambright, Governing Science and Technology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976), 196.

  54. 54.

    Conway, “Earth Science and Planetary Science,” 563–86.

  55. 55.

    Pamela E. Mack, Viewing the Earth: The Social Construction of the Landsat Satellite System (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990).

  56. 56.

    The Ozone War was the title of the first popular history of the campaign against CFC use. See Lydia Dotto and Harold Schiff, The Ozone War (NY: Doubleday, 1978).

  57. 57.

    James C. Fletcher to Robert Frosch, “Problems and Opportunities at NASA,” 9 May 1977, James C. Fletcher Chronological Files, 1977, NASA Historical Reference Collection.

  58. 58.

    This has remained the case thereafter. The US government spent $1.86 billion dollars on climate science in fiscal year 2005; NASA’s share of this was a whopping $1.24 billion. The split over technology and science for Earth investigations also remained. NASA spent $519 million on climate-related research, and $722 million on developing and procuring new climate-related space-based observation technologies. The next largest funder of climate science, the National Science Foundation, spent $198 million that year. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration spent only $120 million. See Funding for the Climate Change Science Program, accessed 8/20/2012, 10:26 AM, http://www.usgcrp.gov/usgcrp/Library/ocp2007/default.htm.

  59. 59.

    Goward and Williams, “Landsat and Earth Systems Science: Development of Terrestrial Monitoring,” 896.

  60. 60.

    Sally Ride, et al., NASA Leadership and America’s Future in Space: A Report to the Administrator (Washington, DC: NASA, 1987), accessed 11/16/2014 11:54 AM, http://history.nasa.gov/riderep/main.PDF.

  61. 61.

    Diane E. Wickland, “Mission to Planet Earth: The Ecological Perspective,” Ecology 72 (December 1991): 1923–33; U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, The Future of Remote Sensing From Space: Civilian Satellite Systems and Applications (Washington, DC: OTA-ISC-558, July 1993), 65–72.

  62. 62.

    Committee on the Assessment of NASA’s Earth Science Program, Space Studies Board, Earth Science and Applications from Space: A Midterm Assessment of NASA’s Implementation of the Decadal Survey (Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2012), 1–14; NASA, “Earth System Science,” 2006, accessed 11/16/2014 12:10 PM, http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/55396main_13%20ESS.pdf.

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Acknowledgments

The author wishes to thank Jonathan Cohen, Brian Jirout, Amanda Peacock, and Megan Porter for research assistance on this essay, as well as Erik Conway and Monique Laney who commented on drafts.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, USA

    Roger D. Launius

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  1. Roger D. Launius
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Correspondence to Roger D. Launius .

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  1. Interdisciplinary Center for Science and Technology Studies (IZWT) University of Wuppertal, Wuppertal, Germany

    Thomas Heinze

  2. University of Bamberg, Bamberg, Germany

    Richard Münch

Photographs

Photographs

Photograph 8.1
figure 1

Homer E. Newell (L), NASA Associate Administrator for space science, in 1962. Newell was responsible for initiating and developing the science program at the new space agency (NASA Photo, public domain)

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Photograph 8.2
figure 2

A photo map of the contiguous 48 states of the USA was the first ever assembled from satellite images. It was completed in 1974 for NASA by the US Department of Agriculture Soil Conservation Service Cartographic Division, measured 10 by 16 ft, and is composed of 595 cloud-free black-and-white images returned from NASA’s first Earth Resources Technology Satellite (ERTS-1) (Credit: NASA, public domain, available on-line at http://grin.hq.nasa.gov/ABSTRACTS/GPN-2003-00031.html)

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Photograph 8.3
figure 3

From the past to the present: global view of Earth produced using imagery acquired in 2001 (Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Image by Reto Stöckli (land surface, shallow water, clouds). Enhancements by Robert Simmon (ocean color, compositing, 3D globes, animation) Public domain (Available on-line at http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view.php?id=57723))

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Launius, R.D. (2016). “We Will Learn More About the Earth by Leaving It than by Remaining on It.” NASA and the Forming of an Earth Science Discipline in the 1960s. In: Heinze, T., Münch, R. (eds) Innovation in Science and Organizational Renewal. Palgrave Studies in the History of Science and Technology. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59420-4_8

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