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NASA To Release Landsat 7 Data On the Web
UAVThumper writes "The US Geological Survey homepage is featuring an article about the upcoming release of select Landsat 7 image data (on June 4) at glovis.usgs.gov or earthexplorer.usgs.gov. This is to be a pilot project for a larger effort called the Landsat Data Continuity Mission, whose end result looks like a version of Google Earth using Landsat data. Seven Landsat satellites were launched over a period of 27 years, the last in 1999. More on Landsat can be found here on Wikipedia or here at the official NASA Page."
Having open, free data is in many ways as important as open, free software. I look forward to interesting uses of this information.
Even U.S. federal government agencies are ceasing use of Landsat,
...) have received virtually no new books.
after using it for years.
For example, in USDA (United States Department of Agriculture),
Landsat images have become essentially unuseable.
The Landsat satellite remaining has been producing alternate good data and striped data.
The data has been very slow (less frequently produced) compared to some Indian data.
The Indian satellite data has been far cheaper until now and more frequent, but must be ordered.
So, eg, data on U.S. geographic sites on specific dates does not exist unless ordered.
This is understandable when you realize how much disk space would be consumed
and that Indian satellites make much more fequent passes than Landsat
For almost half a century, the U.S. had a lead in space,
almost solely from its efforts in the 1960's.
On numerous fronts, this is no longer true.
Indeed, it can no longer be true.
The United States stocks its legislature with lawyers, not engineers.
The President stocks its agencies heads largely with lawyers, not engineers.
For example, the U.S. Federal Highway Administration was first headed in the 1890's by
an engineer, and similarly reputable people until about 1976.
That agency puts a picture of its heads and primary qualification on a wall.
For a few decades now, that agency's heads have been outrages to technology.
One head's picture puts his qualification as "football player".
Then there are the many heads that are lawyers.
Indeed, in the super agency, U.S. Department of Transportation,
a few years ago lawyers came to line management positions,
lawyers who thought so much of themselves that they actually demoted (including less salary)
numerous engineers.
After a few years, this egregious act was reversed,
but that act merely reflects a great deal of what has become the U.S. Federal Government.
For example, a sample of Federal Agencies' libraries reveals that
its libraries (USGS, USDOT, USDA,
Its as if the need for books in Federal Government ceased around 1980.
At USDOT, one researcher sought a book that detailed regulations that it set for vehicles.
That book was in a library, a locked room with no open hours.
The telephone number on that library's door led to no-one with a key.
Finally, someone was found with a key to the library,
but the book, produced by USDOT no longer existed,
and the only hope of a copy now lie in the hands of a contractor.
The U.S. government once provided some good service.
Its vast expenditures guaranteed that, amongst its enormous expenditures, something good
would get produced.
My impression is that the last quarter century has greatly reduced that amount of good
coming out the the U.S. Federal Government.
How can a government spending several trillion dollars a year,
spend but about $25 billion on space technologies,
and then manage to hobble even that?
How can a nation that had engineering marvels,
now produce but about 50,000 engineers a year.
This is about the same number produced by the little country of South Korea.
Japan, with less than half the U.S. population, produces twice as many engineers.
India produces somewhere between 100,000 and 400,000 (according to one Indian entrepreneur)
engineers. China produces several times more engineers than the U.S.
A country does not advance using air-in-its-head; it advances using something more tangible.
The U.S. is massive (in area, population, and resources), but has put itself on a diet.
It's shedding engineers, scientists, and technology like Landsat.