Category : Various Text files
Archive   : EARTHOBS.ZIP
Filename : JSC_OBS.TXT
Reprinted from the March 10, 1989, issue of
Space News Roundup,
a publication of NASA's Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center,
Houston, Texas
Seeing the whole world without ever leaving their desks
By James Hartsfield
The men and women of the JSC Space Shuttle Earth
Observations Office (SSEOO) have seen the whole world thousands
of times--without ever leaving their desks.
The Earth Observations Office trains Shuttle crews in
photographing the world and then catalogs, analyzes and conducts
scientific investigations of the result.
"You can't work on this project without getting a global
view of what the Earth is and how it is changing," SSEOO Manager
Chuck Wood said. The office chronicles the Earth's ever-changing
face, charting the differences, whether the changes are wrought
by mankind or Mother Nature--and whether they are for better or
for worse.
"One of the most remarkable things about this work is that,
long after we are all gone, these photographs will remain," Wood
said. "They will always tell how the Earth looked in 1988, in
1989 and so on. They're historical, and the future will look back
at them."
Although the views they work with are taken from space,
terrestrial disciplines dominate the office--employees specialize
in meteorology, geology, biology, oceanography and environmental
studies. They are observers of the air, land, sea and life on a
uniquely global scale.
But they can't often stand back and look at the planet as a
whole, they're too busy zeroing in on targets of particular
interest. Somewhere on Earth, something always is happening.
Tropical rain forests are being cleared and burned, sometimes
leaving barren ground in their place. A 2#ffice chronicles the
Earth's ever-changing face, charting the differences, whether the
changes are wrought by mankind or Mother Nature--and whether they
are for better or for worse.
"One of the most remarkable things about this work is that,
long after we are all gone, these photographs will remain," Wood
said. "They will always tell how the Earth looked in 1988, in
1989 and so on. They're historical, and the future will look back
at them."
Although the views they work with are taken from space,
terrestrial disciplines dominate the office--employees specialize
in meteorology, geology, biology, oceanography and environmental
studies. They are observers of the air, land, sea and life on a
uniquely global scale.
But they can't often stand back and look at the planet as a
whole, they're too busy zeroing in on targets of particular
interest. Somewhere on Earth, something always is happening.
Tropical rain forests are being cleared and burned, sometimes
leaving barren ground in their place. A 20-year drought is
ending. A hurricane is brewing. A river is clogging with silt
from unusual erosion. A volcano is stirring.
Events such as these are plotted by the office, and narrowed
to specific targets of interest for space photography. Prior to
each Space Shuttle mission, a special computer program, the
Automated Mission Planning System (AMPS), takes the planned
inclination and altitude and prints out a map detailing the
orbits that will occur. Nighttime orbits and orbits that fall
during high-activity work times for the crew are deleted, leaving
a map of possible Earth observation opportunities.
Normally, about 25-30 specific target areas are outlined for
a Shuttle mission. But those targeted areas are only part of the
hoped-for results from each mission. The rest depend on training
the eyes of the crew, Wood said.
After a crew is assigned to a specific mission, one of the
crew members is given the lead Earth Observations responsibility
by the commander. Two members of the SSEOO staff--Justin Wilkinson
and Bill Daley--begin preparing briefings for the crew and work
with the crew lead. A lead responsibility for each mission also
is assigned to one of several specialist scientists on the SSEOO
staff. Wilkinson and Daley prepare a full-color Earth
Observations Preflight Manual for each mission, a book that
details each photography target, complete with maps, histories
and past satellite or Shuttle photos. A manual is given to each
crew member.
Crews receive about 12 hours of mission-specific briefings
from SSEOO personnel. The training covers scientific views of the
Earth, oceans and atmosphere.
"We find that every crew we talk to is more enthusiastic
than the last," Wood said. "Everybody who works on this project
really likes it."
"For me, who likes to travel," added Daley, "I get to travel
and see the whole Earth without ever leaving the ground."
The global aspects of their work are apparent in every
member of the SSEOO staff--they have become geographers equaled by
few. From a glance at a random photo of virtually any place on
Earth, they often can tell you immediately the country, the area,
the geology, the meteorology and the history of the region--and
they may throw in a very educated estimate of the longitude and
latitude of the photo's center point, tell you when it was taken,
by whom and why and what other photos of it exist.
Several specialists in SSEOO are on the staff. Three others
work with the office as outside science investigators. The five
staff specialists include Wood, whose passion is the study of
volcanoes; Mike Helfert, an expert on deforestation and its
environmental effects; Kam Lulla, also an environmental expert;
Dave Amsbury, a geologist with a passion for studying the origin
of landscapes and landforms; and Vic Whitehead, a meteorologist.
SSEOO's goal is to pass on as much of this expertise as they
can to each Shuttle crew. "We try to give them as much detailed
information as possible," Wood said. "We tell them what they're
going to see. It's a whole lot different from some of the
technical things they do, and it's beautiful. Many astronauts
will get hooked on Earth Observations after their first flight."
Using equipment installed prior to Discovery's return to
flight in 1988, the office can consistently monitor images of
almost any spot on Earth taken by any of three geosynchronous and
two polar-orbital satellites. In the office's Meteorological
Interactive Data Display System (MIDDS) workstation, current
images of the Earth fill a host of screens.
Although also used in preparation for a flight, the MIDDS
station goes into high gear after launch. It is manned 16 hours a
day, searching for opportune events for space photography.
Updates on conditions at selected sites plus any new photography
requests are sent to the crew each flight day by SSEOO.
Before the MIDDS workstation was installed in the office in
February 1988, an update on global conditions was available to
the staff only once a day. Now they can see any part of the world
in almost a matter of minutes.
Following a mission, the Earth Observations film is
developed overnight, available for study the day after landing.
The first glance at a mission's photography is always
breathtaking, said Helfert. "Every flight, we get the best
picture we've ever had of something--or a photo of something we've
never seen before," he said.
The photographs are cataloged by SSEOO personnel Ray Nelson
and Wes Palmer. Nelson and Palmer use a plethora of maps and
mission information to plot the longitude and latitude of each
photo. They have cataloged every Earth photograph taken from a
Space Shuttle--about 35,000.
"Without this work, the photos would be worthless. You
wouldn't know where it's from or when it was taken," Nelson said.
"We provide a database." The Shuttle photographs are added to the
65,000 photos of Earth taken by astronauts before the Shuttle
program. From Mercury through Apollo, every photograph ever taken
of Earth by an astronaut is stored in SSEOO.
Shuttle photography is an excellent complement to satellite
imagery of the Earth, but it also has an unmatched advantage.
Astronauts have the uniquely human ability to spot interesting
phenomena and photograph it immediately.
"Astronauts take photos of things we didn't know were
happening," Wood said. Shuttle photography has been responsible
for discovering several previously unreported volcanic eruptions;
for discovering internal waves deep within the oceans, able to be
seen from space but from nowhere else; for discovering very
ancient impact craters; and for many other firsts.
Erosion that can fill rivers and lakes with silt doesn't
show up on most weather satellite imagery. But in Shuttle photos
sediments in streams or pluming into the oceans are clearly
visible. Also, various soil colors, colors that sometimes can
provide details on the makeup of an area, are visible in Shuttle
photos.
When astronauts use a 250-millimeter lens, Shuttle
photography approaches the resolution of Landsat imagery. But
having a astronaut holding the camera provides unmatched
flexibility.
"All an astronaut has to do is unscrew the 250-millimeter
lens and put on a wider angle and we will get a totally different
view," Wood explained. "And the Shuttle provides photos of an
area at different times of day, with different sun angles that
can highlight features unseen at other angles."
Shuttle photos can be taken using infrared film, or they can
show the Earth as it really appears. "Our photos are most often
taken on normal film, and the colors we see are how the Earth
really looks," Wood said.
SSEOO was organized in 1983, and the office has been
involved with every Shuttle mission since STS-4. The future is
bright. Plans are under way to digitize Shuttle photos, making
them more valuable by allowing computer enhancement and study.
Also, the possibility of using Shuttle photos to make topographic
maps is being investigated.
Every photo taken by astronauts from space is in the public
domain, and any photograph from the Shuttle is available to the
public for only the cost of reproduction, Wood said.
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