[House Hearing, 114 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
EXPLORING COMMERCIAL OPPORTUNITIES TO
MAXIMIZE EARTH SCIENCE INVESTMENTS
=======================================================================
JOINT HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON SPACE AND
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
November 17, 2015
__________
Serial No. 114-49
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov
______
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COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
HON. LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas, Chair
FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., ZOE LOFGREN, California
Wisconsin DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois
DANA ROHRABACHER, California DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland
RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas ERIC SWALWELL, California
MO BROOKS, Alabama ALAN GRAYSON, Florida
RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois AMI BERA, California
BILL POSEY, Florida ELIZABETH H. ESTY, Connecticut
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky MARC A. VEASEY, Texas
JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma KATHERINE M. CLARK, Massachusetts
RANDY K. WEBER, Texas DONALD S. BEYER, JR., Virginia
BILL JOHNSON, Ohio ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado
JOHN R. MOOLENAAR, Michigan PAUL TONKO, New York
STEPHEN KNIGHT, California MARK TAKANO, California
BRIAN BABIN, Texas BILL FOSTER, Illinois
BRUCE WESTERMAN, Arkansas
BARBARA COMSTOCK, Virginia
GARY PALMER, Alabama
BARRY LOUDERMILK, Georgia
RALPH LEE ABRAHAM, Louisiana
DRAIN LAHOOD, Illinois
------
Subcommittee on Space
HON. BRIAN BABIN, Texas, Chair
DANA ROHRABACHER, California DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland
FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma AMI BERA, California
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas ZOE LOFGREN, California
MO BROOKS, Alabama, ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado
BILL POSEY, Florida MARC A. VEASEY, Texas
JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma DONALD S. BEYER, JR., Virginia
BILL JOHNSON, Ohio EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
STEVE KNIGHT, California
Brian Babin, Texas
LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas
------
Subcommittee on Environment
HON. JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma, Chair
F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon
Wisconsin DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland
RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas ALAN GRAYSON, Florida
RANDY WEBER, Texas AMI BERA, California
JOHN MOOLENAAR, Michigan MARK TAKANO, California
BRIAN BABIN, Texas BILL FOSTER, Illinois
BRUCE WESTERMAN, Arkansas EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
GARY PALMER, Alabama
RALPH LEE ABRAHAM, Louisiana
LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas
C O N T E N T S
November 17, 2015
Page
Witness List..................................................... 2
Hearing Charter.................................................. 3
Opening Statements
Statement by Representative Brian Babin, Chairman, Subcommittee
on Space, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S.
House of Representatives....................................... 14
Written Statement............................................ 16
Statement by Representative Donna F. Edwards, Ranking Minority
Member, Subcommittee on Space, Committee on Science, Space, and
Technology, U.S. House of Representatives...................... 17
Written Statement............................................ 19
Statement by Representative Jim Bridenstine, Chairman,
Subcommittee on Environment, Committee on Science, Space, and
Technology, U.S. House of Representatives...................... 20
Written Statement............................................ 21
Statement by Representative Suzanne Bonamici, Ranking Minority
Member, Subcommittee on Enviorment, Committee on Science,
Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives........... 22
Written Statement............................................ 23
Statement by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, Ranking
Member, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House
of Representatives............................................. 24
Written Statement............................................ 25
Witnesses:
Dr. Scott Pace, Director of the Space Policy Institute, George
Washington University
Oral Statement............................................... 27
Written Statement............................................ 30
Dr. Walter Scott, Founder and Chief Technical Officer,
DigitalGlobe
Oral Statement............................................... 41
Written Statement............................................ 43
Mr. Robbie Schingler, Co-Founder and President, PlanetLabs
Oral Statement............................................... 50
Written Statement............................................ 52
Dr. Samuel Goward, Emeritus Professor of Geography, University of
Maryland at College Park
Oral Statement............................................... 63
Written Statement............................................ 65
Dr. Antonio Busalacchi, Professor and Director of the Earth
System Science Interdisciplinary Center, University of Maryland
Oral Statement............................................... 71
Written Statement............................................ 73
Discussion....................................................... 88
Appendix I: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Dr. Scott Pace, Director of the Space Policy Institute, George
WashingtonUniversity........................................... 106
Dr. Walter Scott, Founder and Chief Technical Officer,
DigitalGlobe................................................... 118
Mr. Robbie Schingler, Co-Founder and President, PlanetLabs....... 127
Dr. Samuel Goward, Emeritus Professor of Geography, University of
Marylandat College Park........................................ 135
Dr. Antonio Busalacchi, Professor and Director of the Earth
System ScienceInterdisciplinary Center, University of Maryland. 141
EXPLORING COMMERCIAL OPPORTUNITIES
TO MAXIMIZE EARTH SCIENCE INVESTMENTS
----------
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2015
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Space &
Subcommittee on Environment
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
Washington, D.C.
The Subcommittees met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 a.m., in
Room 2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Brian
Babin [Chairman of the Subcommittee on Space] presiding.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Babin. The Subcommittees on Space and Environment
will come to order.
Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare
recesses of the Subcommittee at any time.
And welcome to today's hearing titled ``Exploring
Commercial Opportunities to Maximize Earth Science
Investments.'' I recognize myself for five minutes for an
opening statement.
Good morning. I would like to welcome everyone to our
hearing today, and I want to thank our witnesses for taking
time to appear before our Committee. Today's hearing will
explore opportunities for NASA to acquire Earth observation
data through public-private partnerships, including commercial
capabilities.
NASA's Earth Science is the largest and fastest growing of
all Science Mission Directorate programs. In the last eight
years, the Earth Science Division funding has increased by more
than 63 percent. One reason for these budgetary increases is
that NASA's Earth science portfolio has expanded to include new
responsibilities for the continuation of measurements that were
formerly assigned to other agencies, including data continuity
and application-focused satellite observation programs. For
example, the President's fiscal year 2016 budget request
redefines NASA and NOAA Earth-observing satellite
responsibilities. Under the new framework, NOAA is responsible
only for satellite missions that contribute directly to NOAA's
ability to issue weather and space weather forecasts while NASA
is responsible for all other nondefense Earth-observing
satellite missions.
The near-term impact of this revised framework includes the
transfer of responsibility for TSIS-1, the Total and Spectral
Solar Irradiance Sensor, Ozone Mapping & Profile Suite (OMPS),
and JPSS-2 Radiation Budget Instrument, or RBI, and future
ocean altimetry missions to NASA.
Another example of increased NASA responsibilities is the
Sustainable Land Imaging, or SLI program. In the past both USGS
and NOAA have been responsible for development and operation of
Landsat satellites. But now, NASA is responsible for three
mission and development activities, including initiation of
Landsat 9, along with a fourth activity to design and build a
full-capability Landsat 10 satellite.
Given our constrained budget environment and NASA's new
responsibilities, public-private partnerships may offer an
opportunity to lower costs and improve Earth observation data
while fulfilling science community requirements, including data
continuity.
Over the past decade, the United States private space-based
remote sensing sector has made significant improvements in
technology, products, and services. Leveraging commercial off-
the-shelf technology, borrowing ideas from the information
technology community, and developing innovative low-cost
solutions with high performance outcomes, the private sector is
demonstrating new capabilities that could be used to address
many of NASA's earth observation data needs.
In the past, Earth observations were associated almost
exclusively with government-managed or government-sponsored
projects. Today, commercial sources of Earth information are
rapidly increasing in availability and scope. Commercial
satellite systems are now reliable sources of high-resolution
Earth imagery, and commercial remote-sensing companies have
greatly expanded their offerings.
Technology is also rapidly changing. For certain types of
missions, solutions can be built that are much smaller in size,
much lower in weight, require much less power, and offer even
greater data collection capabilities at costs much, much lower
than the current systems.
U.S. law and national policy directs NASA to advance the
commercial space sector. Pursuant to the National Aeronautics
and Space Act, NASA shall ``seek and encourage, to the maximum
extent possible, the fullest commercial use of space.'' NASA is
also directed ``to the extent possible and while satisfying the
scientific or educational requirements of the Administration,
and where appropriate, of other federal agencies and scientific
researchers, acquire, where cost-effective, space based and
airborne Earth remote sensing data, services, distribution, and
applications from a commercial provider.''
A principle of the Administration's United States National
Space Policy is that ``the United States is committed to
encouraging and facilitating the growth of a U.S. commercial
space sector that supports U.S. needs, is globally competitive,
and advances U.S. leadership in the generation of new markets
and innovation-driven entrepreneurship.'' Both the 2014
National Plan for Civil Earth Observations and the 2015
National Space Weather Action Plan, as proposed by the
Administration, direct federal agencies to identify and pursue
commercial solutions.
Given the great potential for public-private partnerships,
NASA is unfortunately doing very little. NASA's Earth
observation program is the largest U.S. government civil remote
sensing effort and perhaps the largest civil remote sensing
effort in the world. NASA currently operates 26 Earth
observation satellites, with 12 under development. However,
none of NASA's Earth observation satellites, either in
operation or under development, are public-private
partnerships. NASA does have a program in place to procure
commercial satellite Earth observation data under the 1998
Science Data Buy Program. But, the program has not been used by
NASA for over a decade.
It is time for NASA to initiate constructive dialogue with
the private sector to assess the viability of public-private
partnerships for the provision of space-based Earth observation
data to meet NASA program requirements. Our Nation cannot
afford to simply ignore the great potential of public-private
partnerships to lower costs and improve the quality of earth
observation data.
There are many important issues to be discussed at today's
hearing, and I look forward to hearing the testimony of our
distinguished witnesses.
[The prepared statement of Chairman Babin follows:]
Prepared Statement of Subcommittee on Space
Chairman Brian Babin
Good morning. I would like to welcome everyone to our hearing today
and I want to thank our witnesses for taking time to appear before the
Committee.
Today's hearing will explore opportunities for NASA to acquire
Earth observation data through public-private partnerships, including
commercial capabilities.
NASA's Earth Science is the largest and fastest growing of all
Science Mission Directorate programs. In the last eight years, the
Earth Science Division funding has increased by more than 63 percent.
One reason for these budgetary increases is that NASA's Earth
science portfolio has expanded to include new responsibilities for the
continuation of measurements that were formerly assigned to other
agencies, including data continuity and application focused satellite
observation programs.
For example, the President's FY16 Budget Request redefines NASA and
NOAA Earth-observing satellite responsibilities. Under the new
framework, NOAA is responsible only for satellite missions that
contribute directly to NOAA's ability to issue weather and space
weather forecasts while NASA is responsible for all other nondefense
Earth-observing satellite missions. The near term impact of this
revised framework includes the transfer of responsibility for TSIS-1
[pronounced Tee-SiS] (Total and Spectral Solar Irradiance Sensor),
Ozone Mapping & Profile Suite (OMPS), JPSS-2 Radiation Budget
Instrument (RBI), and future ocean altimetry missions to NASA.
Another example of increased NASA responsibilities is the
Sustainable Land Imaging (SLI) program. In the past both USGS and NOAA
have been responsible for development and operation of Landsat
satellites. But now, NASA is responsible for three mission and
development activities, including initiation of Landsat 9, along with a
fourth activity to design and build a full-capability Landsat 10
satellite.
Given our constrained budget environment and NASA's new
responsibilities, public-private partnerships may offer an opportunity
to lower costs and improve Earth observation data while fulfilling
science community requirements, including data continuity.
Over the past decade, the United States private space-based remote
sensing sector has made significant improvements in technology,
products, and services. Leveraging commercial off-the-shelf technology,
borrowing ideas from the information technology community, and
developing innovative low-cost solutions with high performance
outcomes, the private sector is demonstrating new capabilities that
could be used to address many of NASA's earth observation data needs.
In the past, Earth observations were associated almost exclusively
with government-managed or government-sponsored projects. Today,
commercial sources of Earth information are rapidly increasing in
availability and scope. Commercial satellite systems are now reliable
sources of high-resolution Earth imagery, and commercial remote-sensing
companies have greatly expanded their offerings.
Technology is also changing rapidly. For certain types of missions,
solutions can be built that are much smaller in size, much lower in
weight, require much less power, and offer even greater data collection
capabilities--at costs much, much lower than the current systems.
U.S. law and national policy directs NASA to advance the commercial
space sector. Pursuant to the National Aeronautics and Space Act, NASA
shall ``seek and encourage, to the maximum extent possible, the fullest
commercial use of space.'' NASA is also directed ``to the extent
possible and while satisfying the scientific or educational
requirements of the Administration, and where appropriate, of other
Federal agencies and scientific researchers, acquire, where cost-
effective, space based and airborne Earth remote sensing data,
services, distribution, and applications from a commercial provider.''
A principle of the Administration's United States National Space
Policy is that ``the United States is committed to encouraging and
facilitating the growth of a U.S. commercial space sector that supports
U.S. needs, is globally competitive, and advances U.S. leadership in
the generation of new markets and innovation-driven entrepreneurship.''
Both the 2014 National Plan for Civil Earth Observations and the 2015
National Space Weather Action Plan, as proposed by the Administration,
direct federal agencies to identify and pursue commercial solutions.
Given the great potential for public-private partnerships, NASA is
unfortunately doing very little. NASA's Earth observation program is
the largest U.S. government civil remote sensing effort and perhaps the
largest civil remote sensing effort in the world. NASA currently
operates 26 Earth observation satellites, with 12 under development.
However, none of NASA's Earth observation satellites, either in
operation or under development, are public-private partnerships.
NASA does have a program in place to procure commercial satellite
Earth observation data under the 1998 Science Data Buy Program. But,
the program has not been used by NASA for over a decade.
It is time for NASA to initiate constructive dialogue with the
private sector to assess the viability of public-private partnerships
for the provision of space-based Earth observation data to meet NASA
program requirements. Our nation cannot afford to simply ignore the
great potential of public-private partnerships to lower costs and
improve the quality of earth observation data.
There are many important issues to be discussed at today's hearing.
I look forward to hearing the testimony of our [distinguished]
witnesses.
Chairman Babin. I now recognize the Ranking Member, the
gentlewoman from Maryland, for an opening statement.
Ms. Edwards. Thank you very much, and good morning and
welcome to our distinguished panel of experts.
I want to start by thanking the Chairmen Babin and
Bridenstine for calling this hearing on ``Exploring Commercial
Opportunities to Maximize Earth Science Investments.'' I also
want to thank in advance our Ranking Member on the Environment
Subcommittee, Ms. Bonamici, for sitting in the chair when I
slip away in just a few minutes, so I appreciate that.
Earth observations support a myriad of applications to meet
critical national needs, whether they be related to national
security, weather forecasting, agricultural production, land
use management, energy production, or protecting human health.
Earth observations also support the scientific research and
modeling that we hope can someday provide us with a
comprehensive understanding of the Earth and its response to
natural and human-induced changes.
The collection of Earth observations data has been enabled
by sustained federal investments, investments that I hope we
will continue to sustain even in the midst of budgetary
constraints. Those investments have enabled the development of
a robust, value-added industry dedicated to turning Earth
observations data into usable information that can benefit
broad sectors of our economy. Then too, federal investments in
the underlying Earth observations technologies and systems have
resulted in capabilities that have enabled a growing commercial
remote sensing industry to emerge.
So it makes sense to continuously look for new ways in
which we can improve our ability to carry out Earth
observations and maximize our Earth Science investments.
Today, we will explore the extent to which NASA might be
able to leverage potential public-private partnerships to carry
out its Earth Science research and support the applied uses of
that research.
Truth be told, NASA has always had prior experience in
purchasing commercial Earth observation data, and indeed, makes
great use of the private sector. That was my personal
experience, having started out at Goddard Space Flight Center
working on Landsat but not working for NASA but working for one
of its contractors, Lockheed. And so we've made great use of
the private sector and its innovation and creativity over many
years. This is nothing new. In fact, in the late 1990s and
early 2000s, NASA initiated public-private partnerships for
Earth science research including one for collecting ocean color
data, called SeaWiFS. The results from those early projects
demonstrated potential opportunities as well as challenges
associated with such partnerships.
The complexities associated with such arrangements were
noted in a number of studies by the National Academies of
Sciences. For example, at least one of those studies noted that
the intersection of scientific and commercial interests in
public-private partnerships can pose significant challenges in
attempting to meet the disparate requirements of stakeholders.
This is because scientists value the free and open exchange of
scientific data; the precise calibration, validation, and
verification of satellite data to ensure accuracy; and long-
term stewardship of data for future use and future research.
However, that may not always be consistent with a company's
business goals and models.
In addition, it's clear that intellectual property issues
related to licensing will need to be addressed, as well as
issues related to data management, data continuity, and
calibration if effective partnerships are to be sustained.
So today, I am looking forward to hearing whether, in light
of the potential new commercial capabilities in Earth
observation, there are productive ways that commercial systems
can complement NASA's Earth observation data collection through
the use of public-private partnerships, and if so, what
mechanisms should NASA use to determine the circumstances under
which public-private partnerships can effectively support the
agency's Earth science research and applications, and how
should those partnerships be evaluated? How can Congress ensure
that potential public-private partnerships do not inadvertently
restrict and constrain research in an effort to generate
revenue for the companies? And, are enacted policies and
authorities that enabled the advent of commercial remote
sensing adequate to address the future needs of both the
federal government and the growing commercial remote sensing
industry?
Well, it's clear that there are many issues that need to be
addressed, and we certainly are not going to be able to do any
more than begin our examination on this important topic today.
This can be a productive area for future hearings of the
Committee, and I hope we will continue oversight of this area.
I would also note that the National Academies' upcoming
Decadal Survey for Earth Science and Applications is also
likely to address a number of these same issues, and I look
forward to hearing the results of that survey when it's done.
Finally, I would be remiss if I didn't note that we have
long had existing productive public-private partnerships in
Earth observations, and so for the many contractors and
suppliers who have built a formidable array of both civilian
and national security Earth observations spacecraft and ground
systems for NASA, NOAA, and other parts of the government, you
are testimony to the long-standing commitment our government
has had to making use of the skills and capabilities of the
private sector, and they are many. I have every confidence that
these type partnerships will continue to be productive both
today in the years to come.
And with that, I want to thank our witnesses today and I
especially want to thank our two home witnesses, Dr. Samuel
Goward, who's the Emeritus Professor of Geography at the
University of Maryland at College Park, and Dr. Antonio
Busalacchi, Professor and Director of the Earth Systems Science
Interdisciplinary Center, University of Maryland as well, and I
am proud to say, you're great Marylanders and you come from
great Maryland institutions, and welcome to today's panel.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Edwards follows:]
Prepared Statement of Subcommittee on Space
Ranking Member Donna F. Edwards
Good morning, and welcome to our distinguished panel of experts.
I want to start by thanking the Chairmen Babin and Bridenstine for
calling this hearing on ``Exploring Commercial Opportunities to
Maximize Earth Science Investments.''
Earth observations support a myriad of applications to meet
critical national needs, whether they be related to national security,
weather forecasting, agricultural production, land use management,
energy production, or protecting human health. Earth observations also
support the scientific research and modeling that we hope can someday
provide us with a comprehensive understanding of the Earth and its
response to natural and human-induced changes.
The collection of Earth observations data has been enabled by
sustained Federal investments-investments that I hope we will continue
to sustain even in the midst of budgetary constraints.
Those investments have enabled the development of a robust ``value-
added'' industry dedicated to turning Earth observations data into
usable information that can benefit broad sectors of our economy. Then
too, federal investments in the underlying Earth observations
technologies and systems have resulted in capabilities that have
enabled a growing commercial remote sensing industry to emerge.
So it makes sense to continuously look for new ways in which we can
improve our ability to carry out Earth observations and maximize our
Earth Science investments.Today, we will explore the extent to which
NASA might be able to leverage potential public-private partnerships to
carry out its Earth Science research and support the applied uses of
that research.
Truth be told, NASA has had prior experience in purchasing
commercial Earth observation data. In the late 1990s and early 2000s,
NASA initiated public-private partnerships for Earth science research
including one for collecting ocean color data, called SeaWiFS. The
results from those early projects demonstrated potential opportunities
as well as challenges associated with such partnerships.
The complexities associated with such arrangements were noted in a
number of studies by the National Academies of Sciences. For example,
at least one of those studies noted that the intersection of scientific
and commercial interests in public-private partnerships can pose
significant challenges in attempting to meet the disparate requirements
of stakeholders.
This is because scientists value the free and open exchange of
scientific data; the precise calibration, validation, and verification
of satellite data to ensure accuracy; and long-term stewardship of data
for future research. However, that may not always be consistent with
companies' business models.
In addition, it is clear that intellectual property issues related
to licensing will need to be addressed, as will issues related to data
management, data continuity, and calibration if effective partnerships
are to be sustained.
So today, I am looking forward to hearing whether, in light of
potential new commercial capabilities in Earth observation, there are
productive ways that commercial systems can complement NASA's Earth
observation data collection through the use of public-private
partnerships.
And if so, what mechanisms should NASA use to determine the
circumstances under which public-private partnerships can effectively
support the agency's Earth science research and applications, and how
should those partnerships be evaluated?
How can Congress ensure that potential public-private partnerships
do not inadvertently restrict and constrain research in an effort to
generate revenue for the companies?And, are enacted policies and
authorities that enabled the advent of commercial remote sensing
adequate to address the future needs of both the Federal government and
the growing commercial remote sensing industry?
Well, it is clear that there are many issues that need to be
addressed, and we certainly are not going to be able to do any more
than begin our examination of this important topic today. This can be a
productive area for future hearings of the Committee, and I hope we
will do continued oversight of this area.
I would also note that the National Academies upcoming Decadal
Survey for Earth Science and Applications is also likely to address a
number of these same issues, and I look forward to hearing the results
of the Survey when it is done.
Finally, I would be remiss if I didn't note that we have long had
an existing productive public-private partnership in Earth
observations.
The many contractors and suppliers who have built a formidable
array of both civilian and national security Earth observations
spacecraft and ground systems for NASA, NOAA, and other parts of the
government are testimony to the long-standing commitment our government
has had to making use of the skills and capabilities of the private
sector. I have every confidence that that partnership will continue to
be a productive one in the years to come.
With that, I again want to thank our witnesses for being here
today, and I look forward to your testimony.
Chairman Babin. Thank you, Ms. Edwards.
I now recognize the Chair of the Environment Subcommittee,
the gentleman from Oklahoma, Mr. Bridenstine, for an opening
statement.
Mr. Bridenstine. Well, thank you, Chairman Babin, and thank
you for hosting this hearing today. I'm very excited about the
panel that's here. I'm very excited about the prospects before
our country.
In so many cases, what's happening in space, it is
outpacing--the commercial sector is outpacing what the
government has been able to do, and that's very exciting for us
to figure out how do we take advantage of what commercial
industry is doing.
I sit on the Armed Services Committee as well. We've been
dealing a lot with the space-based communication architecture.
Commercial industry has been providing massive amounts of
capacity for our war fighters all over the world, and of
course, they've been doing it because we had a need and
commercial industry was there to meet that need. They didn't
launch satellites because the government asked them to; they
launched satellites to make a profit and provide a return for
their shareholders. At the end of the day, the Department of
Defense said we need that capability, and what's happening now,
because of commercial industry, we're getting higher throughput
and more capacity than we've ever seen before for our space-
based communication architecture, a lot of it provided by
commercial that we as a government can take advantage of. So
that's an important, I think, analogy to what we're going to
talk about today.
I would also say that on the NOAA side, we have private
companies that are preparing to launch satellites that can do
things like GPS radio occultation and hyperspectral sensing,
and of course, Dr. Pace, I read your testimony, and you talked
about how these technologies, we've been considering
commercializing these technologies for a very long time going
back to the 1990s, which I did not know before reading your
testimony, but now commercial industry is at a point where we
as a government can take advantage of these technologies in
ways where we haven't before and improve our ability to predict
and forecast weather, which of course is very important to my
district. I come from the 1st District of Oklahoma. This year
I've already lost one constituent to a tornado. I've lost
constituents in previous years, and I will lose constituents
again next year. So taking advantage of these capabilities that
have been advanced by the private sector in many ways is
critically important to us as a government.
I read your testimony, Mr. Schingler, about some of the
ways that NASA is already partnering with the private sector.
You talked about settlements as a service, and you talked about
venture-class launch services through the Launch Services
program, ways that we can get things into space more
effectively and more cost-effective so that we can take
advantage of the great things that are happening in commercial
industry today.
And of course, remote sensing, when you talk about the
National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, they're taking
advantage of the capabilities of the people that are sitting on
this panel right now, and they're doing it because they know
that the direction you are going, you're going much more
rapidly than they can go themselves, and to understand that,
the idea that we can get higher-resolution imagery that can
provided mensurated coordinates, the idea that we can have more
rapid revisit times, and even motion pictures, these are
capabilities now that the commercial sector is providing that
we as a government absolutely must figure out how to take
advantage of. Your capabilities are impressive. We need to
learn what you're able to do. We need to figure out as a
country as we go forward, you know, there is a lot of talk
about what is a global public good, what is a public good.
There's a lot of talk about if it is a public good, how do you
as a private company protect your proprietary data that you
rely on to actually provide a return on investment. These are
challenging issues that this panel and other panels are going
to have to work through.
I want to be really clear. When it comes to the Earth
Sciences Division at NASA, the Science Mission directorate,
this is an agency that has been very effective in doing
important work on behalf of my constituents. They are teaching
us more about the Earth so that we can protect our constituents
from weather, and of course, the things that they have done
have done just that.
So Chairman Babin, thank you for having this hearing, and
to our panelists, thank you for being here. I'm very much
looking forward to this testimony.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Bridenstine follows:]
Prepared Statement of Subcommittee on Environment
Chairman Jim Bridenstine
Chairman Bridenstine: Good morning. I thank the gentleman from
Texas, Dr. Babin, for holding this hearing. Today we are discussing an
issue that has been the subject of a number of hearings before the
Environment Subcommittee this year: utilizing commercial solutions to
satisfy government missions.
My subcommittee has examined how the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, could apply commercial space-based
data to improve weather forecasting. In similar fashion, today we will
explore commercial opportunities to provide NASA with critical earth
science data.
As one of NASA's Science Mission Directorates, contributions from
Earth Sciences have enhanced our understanding of the Earth. As one
example, NASA Earth Science missions have improved our weather
forecasts. I represent the State of Oklahoma - I know all too well the
dangers posed by severe weather events, and the need to improve our
capabilities of predicting storms to protect lives and property.
At NOAA, the opportunity exists for the Agency to partner with the
growing commercial weather industry. Such partnerships could greatly
reduce the cost of operating large monolithic satellite systems,
resulting in lower government spending, greater resiliency, and
increased quality of forecasts.
The Environment Subcommittee has heard from a number of private
sector companies that have or will soon have the capabilities to
provide data to NOAA, and want to partner with the Agency. In an
encouraging sign, NOAA has begun to take notice of the emerging
industry and has started taking the first steps to incorporating
private space-based technologies.
In September of this year, NOAA released a draft commercial space
policy, designed to assist the acquisition of future commercial
technologies. I look forward to NOAA releasing a final version that
incorporates stakeholder concerns and feedback with the draft version.
In encourage NOAA to make releasing the final Commercial Space Policy a
top priority, along with releasing the necessary next steps such as
NESDIS' accompanying procurement process guide. These documents are
essential to forming the basis for how the private sector will interact
with NOAA going forward.
I am pleased to see this Committee taking the first steps to look
at how NASA can follow a similar trajectory. It is my firm belief the
government ought not do what the private sector can. Our ability to
utilize commercial options will minimize government spending and aid
mission directives. I am optimistic that a market will materialize for
many different space-based technologies, as we have seen time and time
again with the Department of Defense's requirements and are beginning
to see with NOAA's needs. NASA ought to recognize this pattern and take
a good hard look at utilizing these opportunities.
To do this, NASA should take a proactive step to re-establish its
commercial earth observation data buy program that has laid dormant for
years, establish clear policy supporting and directing the acquisition
of commercial data, establish the appropriate protocols to support
commercial options, and begin meaningful dialogue with the private
sector to assess the usefulness of public-private partnerships to meet
its Earth observation data requirements.
With NOAA, we've seen commercial space-based data companies waiting
for the Agency to have a finalized framework in place so they can enter
into agreements, raise capital, and launch satellites. However, in the
case of NASA, there isn't a commercial earth observation data policy in
place yet.
I hope this hearing can be used to identify and determine the
necessary first steps in that process.
I thank the witnesses for being here today, and look forward to
your testimonies. Thank you and I yield
Chairman Babin. Thank you, Chairman Bridenstine. I
appreciate that.
I now recognize the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on
Environment, the gentlewoman from Oregon, Ms. Bonamici, for an
opening statement.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank
you to all of our witnesses for being here today.
Chairman Bridenstine and I have held a number of thoughtful
and engaging hearings examining how NOAA can advance the role
of the commercial sector in providing critical weather data to
our National Weather Enterprise. We've discussed potential
challenges and opportunities with numerous representatives of
the weather community, and with Vice Admiral Manson Brown, the
Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Environmental Observation
and Prediction.
The message has been consistent: there are great
opportunities to engage the commercial sector in ways to
supplant NOAA's observational mission--supplement NOAA's
observational mission, but we must maintain the core policies,
namely free and open access to data, that have allowed our
scientific community and the American weather industry to drive
innovation and economic growth. Our critical weather data must
remain reliable and of the highest quality to protect the lives
and livelihoods of millions around the world.
In September, NOAA released its draft Commercial Space
Policy, which outlines the policies and guidelines for how the
agency will engage with the commercial sector. Most
importantly, NOAA reaffirms its commitment to adhere to the
policy and practice of full, open, and free data exchange as
established by current laws and policies to maintain a system
of reciprocity for global data. A system of reciprocity that
means NOAA receives three times the amount of data it
contributes--improving forecasts and reducing costs.
I am pleased that NOAA appears to be on the right path to
improve engagement with its commercial partners, and I'm
looking forward to reviewing the final policy, which I
understand will be released in the coming weeks. NOAA has an
operational mission, and their data and information are
considered public goods.
NASA serves a research mission with different challenges
and opportunities to engage the commercial sector, and as we've
discussed today, there have been partnerships going on for
quite a long time. So although there may be an opportunity for
NASA to adapt some of NOAA's commercial policies, there are
certainly important distinctions that require careful
consideration.
A common challenge both agencies face is ensuring that data
purchased from commercial sources can be shared without
significant restrictions. For the most part, the unrestricted
access to weather data has been the foundation of the current
billion-dollar commercial weather industry, an industry that is
the best in the world. It's very likely that data purchased by
NASA can be shared in a way to further stimulate future
commercial ventures.
At the same time, a gap in data continuity in NASA's Earth
observations could have serious and detrimental effects on our
research enterprise and our understanding of the climate. Both
NOAA and NASA are well aware that existing partnerships with
private companies carry risks, such as delays in production,
launch failures, and cost overruns. For NOAA, any commercial
policy that provides critical observational data for weather
predictions must consider these factors, as well as the risk to
the lives of millions of people across the country. NASA faces
similar challenges when developing its path forward to engage
its commercial partners, if not on the same scale.
Mr. Chairman, again I am pleased that we are having this
hearing, not only to recognize the positive direction NOAA is
taking to engage commercial parties, but to identify common
ground for NASA to adopt into its own commercial policies, and
I look forward to hearing from our witnesses, and I know they
have years of expertise among them. We're fortunate to have
them here.
And I yield back the balance of my time. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Bonamici follows:]
Prepared Statement of Subcommittee on Oversight
Minority Ranking Member Suzanne Bonamici
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to our witnesses for being
here today. Chairman Bridenstine and I have held a number of thoughtful
and engaging hearings examining how NOAA can advance the role of the
commercial sector in providing critical weather data to our national
weather enterprise. We have discussed potential challenges and
opportunities with numerous representatives of the weather community,
and with Vice Admiral Manson Brown, the Assistant Secretary of Commerce
for Environmental Observation and Prediction.
The message has been consistent: there are great opportunities to
engage the commercial sector in ways to supplement NOAA's observational
mission, but we must maintain the core policies, namely free and open
access to data, that have allowed our scientific community and the
American weather industry to drive innovation and economic growth. Our
critical weather data must remain reliable, and of the highest quality
to protect the lives and livelihoods of millions around the world.
In September, NOAA released its Draft Commercial Space Policy,
which outlines the policies and guidelines for how the Agency will
engage the commercial sector. Most importantly, NOAA reaffirms its
commitment to adhere to the policy and practice of full, open, and free
data exchange as established by current laws and policies to maintain a
``system of reciprocity for global data.'' A system of reciprocity that
means NOAA receives three times the amount of data it contributes--
improving forecasts and reducing costs.
I am pleased that NOAA appears to be on the right path to improve
engagement with its commercial partners, and I'm looking forward to
reviewing the final policy, which I understand will be released in the
coming weeks.
NOAA has an operational mission, and their data and information are
considered public goods. NASA serves a research mission with different
challenges and opportunities to engage the commercial sector. So
although there may be an opportunity for NASA to adopt some of NOAA's
commercial policies, there are important distinctions that require
careful consideration.
A common challenge both agencies face is ensuring that data
purchased from commercial sources can be shared without significant
restrictions. For the most part, the unrestricted access to weather
data has been the foundation of the current billion dollar commercial
weather industry, an industry that is the best in the world. It is very
likely that data purchased by NASA can be shared in a way to further
stimulate future commercial ventures. At the same time, a gap in data
continuity in NASA's Earth observations could have serious and
detrimental effects on our research enterprise and our understanding of
the climate.
Both NOAA and NASA are well aware that existing partnerships with
private companies carry risks, such as delays in production, launch
failures, and cost overruns. For NOAA, any commercial policy that
provides critical observational data for weather predictions must
consider these factors, as well as the risk to the lives of millions of
people across the country.NASA faces similar challenges when developing
its path forward to engage its commercial partners, if not on the same
scale.
Mr. Chairman, again I am pleased that we are having this hearing,
not only to recognize the positive direction NOAA is taking to engage
commercial parties, but also to identify common ground for NASA to
adopt into its own commercial policies. I look forward to hearing from
our witnesses, and I yield back the balance of my time.
Chairman Babin. Thank you, Ms. Bonamici.
I'd like to now recognize the Ranking Member of the full
Committee for a statement, the gentlelady from Texas.
Ms. Johnson of Texas. Thank you very much.
Good morning, and welcome to our distinguished panel of
witnesses. I am pleased that we have an opportunity to discuss
NASA's Earth Science and Applications program.
As I have said on numerous occasions, NASA is a critical
engine of discovery, science, innovation, and inspiration.
Earth Science and applications research is a key agency
responsibility.
A 2005 study by the National Academies stated that
``Decades of investments in research and the present Earth
observing system have also improved health, enhanced national
security, and spurred economic growth by supplying the business
community with critical information.'' NASA's Earth Science and
Applications program provides a broad array of benefits and
applications across the public and private sectors. For
example, after the Deepwater Horizon spill in 2010, NASA's
project allowed response teams to track the movement of the oil
into the coastal waterways, and this was critical in assisting
in monitoring the impact and recovery of affected areas along
the Gulf of Mexico.
Our investment in Earth observations has also spawned
successful international cooperation. The Global Precipitation
Measurement, or the GPM mission, a cooperative effort by NASA
and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency, is advancing our
understanding of Earth's water and energy cycles, improving the
forecasting of extreme events that cause natural disasters, and
extending current capabilities of using satellite precipitation
information to directly benefit society. Maintaining and
enhancing our Earth Science capabilities and investments in the
years to come will require that we continuously look for new
sources, be they international or from the private sector.
Indeed, with growing numbers of American companies launching
and operating space-based remote sensing small satellites, this
may be an opportune time to assess the private sector's ability
to complement NASA's Earth observation systems.
I hope our distinguished panel will provide us with an
objective assessment of both the opportunities and challenges
associated with leveraging commercial offerings.
With that, again I want to thank our witnesses for being
here today, and I look forward to your testimony. I yield back.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Johnson of Texas follows:]
Prepared Statement of Full Committee
Ranking Member Eddie Bernice Johnson
Good morning, and welcome to our distinguished panel of experts. I
am pleased that we have an opportunity to discuss NASA's Earth Science
and Applications Program.
As I have said on numerous occasions, NASA is a critical engine of
discovery, science, innovation and inspiration. Earth Science and
applications research is a key agency responsibility.
A 2005 study by the National Academies stated that ``Decades of
investments in research and the present Earth observing system have
also improved health, enhanced national security, and spurred economic
growth by supplying the business community with critical information.''
NASA's Earth Science and Applications Program provides a broad
array of benefits and applications across the public and private
sectors. For example, after the Deepwater Horizon spill in 2010, a NASA
project allowed response teams to track the movement of the oil into
coastal waterways. This was critical in assisting in monitoring the
impact and recovery of affected areas along the Gulf of Mexico.
Our investment in Earth observations has also spawned successful
international cooperation. The Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM)
mission, a cooperative effort by NASA and the Japanese Aerospace
Exploration Agency, is advancing our understanding of Earth's water and
energy cycles, improving the forecasting of extreme events that cause
natural disasters, and extending current capabilities of using
satellite precipitation information to directly benefit society.
Maintaining and enhancing our Earth Science capabilities and
investments in the years to come will require that we continuously look
for new sources, be they international or from the private sector.
Indeed, with the growing number of American companies launching and
operating space-based remote sensing small satellites, this may be an
opportune time to assess the private sector's ability to complement
NASA's Earth observation systems.
I hope our distinguished panel will provide us with an objective
assessment of both the opportunities and challenges associated with
leveraging commercial offerings.
With that, I again want to thank our witnesses for being here
today, and I look forward to your testimony. With that, I yield back.
Chairman Babin. Thank you, Mrs. Johnson.
Now, let me introduce our witnesses. Our first witness
today--I want to thank you all for being here. We really
appreciate it. The first witness today is Dr. Pace. Testifying
first is Dr. Scott Pace, Director of the Space Policy
Institute, and Professor of the Practice of International
Affairs at the George Washington University. Dr. Pace
previously served as Associate Administrator for Program
Analysis and Evaluation at NASA, as Assistant Director to Space
and Aeronautics in the White House Office of Science and
Technology Policy, and as Deputy Director and Acting Director
of the Office of Space Commerce and the Office of the Deputy
Secretary of the Department of Commerce. Dr. Pace earned his
bachelor of science degree in physics from Harvey Mudd College,
master's degrees in aeronautics and astronautics, and
technology and policy from the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, and a doctorate in policy analysis from the RAND
Graduate School.
And Dr. Scott. Our second witness today is Dr. Walter
Scott--Sir Walter Scott, we said a while ago--Founder,
Executive Vice President and Chief Technical Officer for
DigitalGlobe, the first company to receive a high-resolution
commercial remote sensing license from the U.S. government. Dr.
Scott has previous experience serving as the Assistant
Associate Director of the Physics Department for the Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory and is President of Scott
Consulting. Dr. Scott earned a bachelor of arts in applied
mathematics from Harvard University and a doctorate and master
of science and computer science from the University of
California at Berkeley.
Mr. Robbie Schingler is a Co-Founder and the President of
PlanetLabs. Mr. Schingler has nine years of NASA experience
under his belt helping to build a small spacecraft office at
NASA Ames and serving as Capture Manager for the Transiting
Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or T-E-S-S, TESS, that will launch
in 2017. Robbie has also served as NASA's Open Government
Representative to the White House and is Chief of Staff for the
Office of the Chief Technologist at NASA. And Mr. Schingler has
received his master of business administration from Georgetown
University, his master of science in space studies from the
International Space University, and his bachelor of science in
engineering physics from Santa Clara University. Good to have
you.
Testifying fourth is Dr. Samuel Goward, Professor Emeritus
at the Department of Geographical Sciences at the University of
Maryland, College Park. Dr. Goward has a long history working
with remote sensing beginning his career with NASA Goddard
Institute for Space Studies. He then worked at NASA Goddard
Space Flight Center where he helped build the University of
Maryland geography department. Dr. Goward has served as Co-
Chair of the USGS National Landsat Archive Advisory Committee
and is the recipient of the USGS Powell Award, the highest USGS
award bestowed upon non-agency individuals. Dr. Goward earned
his bachelor's and master's degrees in geography from Boston
University and his Ph.D. in geography from Indiana State
University. Thank you for being here.
And Dr. Busalacchi. Our final witness today is Dr. Antonio
Busalacchi, Director of the Earth Systems Science
Interdisciplinary Center and Professor in the Department of
Atmospheric and Oceanic Science at the University of Maryland.
Dr. Busalacchi previously served as Chief of the NASA Goddard
Laboratory for Hydrospheric Processes. Dr. Busalacchi also has
experience as Chair of the Joint Scientific Committee that
oversaw the World Climate Research program, and as the Chair of
several National Academy of Science and National Research
Council Boards and Committees relating to remote sensing. Dr.
Busalacchi currently serves as Co-Chair of the National
Research Council's Decadal Survey on Earth Science and
Applications from Space. Dr. Busalacchi earned his bachelor's
in physics, his master's in oceanography, and his Ph.D. in
oceanography from Florida State University.
I now recognize Dr. Pace for five minutes to present his
testimony. Dr. Pace, thank you.
TESTIMONY OF DR. SCOTT PACE,
DIRECTOR OF THE SPACE POLICY INSTITUTE,
GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
Dr. Pace. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for the
opportunity, particularly in a joint fashion, to discuss the
important topic of how commercial capabilities could be used to
the benefit of the Nation's Earth science investments.
I had the privilege of working on Title II of the 1992 Land
Remote Sensing Act with Barry Beringer, the former Chief
Counsel of the House Committee on Science. In the aftermath of
the Cold War, at that time Title II reformed the U.S.
commercial remote sensing license process, and removed many
commercial regulatory barriers. This reform was successful
beyond our somewhat modest expectations, leading to a more
dynamic and information-driven global industry.
The idea, as has been noted, of buying data from commercial
sources for NASA, is indeed not new. In 1998, I testified to
the House Subcommittee on Basic Research on using commercial
data sources in NASA's Earth Science Enterprise. At the time, I
discussed the need for NASA to consider the needs of other
civil agencies in buying commercial data for Earth science
needs. The idea was that NASA's capabilities and buying power
could be leveraged to support other public missions. New
applications of remote sensing data could be demonstrated to
accelerate the growth of commercial applications.
Looking back from now, the National Geospatial Intelligence
Agency, rather than NASA, became the dominant government
purchaser of the U.S. commercial remote sensing data.
Information technologies also advanced rapidly so that more
computer and sensing power could be packed into smaller
packages, and our concerns over access to adequate
radiofrequency spectrum for remote sensing also turned out to
be somewhat correct. There is in fact increasing pressure on
spectrum not so much for remote sensing bandwidth but from
competing demands from mobile terrestrial communications.
Rather than a few conventional satellites connected to
centralized data management systems, we are seeing dozens of
small satellites connecting to highly distributed networks in
which even an iPad might be a ground station. And among other
changes, sometimes the data files are becoming so massive that
moving them to the user becomes less efficient than creating
large data cubes that users can query remotely it's truly
remarkable how much data's being put together.
Today, NASA's Earth Science Division researchers can
propose to purchase commercial data using contractor grant
funds when the purchased information is required by or would
substantially enhance the research activity. Now, of course, if
similar data or information were available in the public
domain, there would no point in making that purchase, and some
commercial data may already be available under all government
licenses such as those held by NGA, so there are some potential
public-private partnership activities already going on.
It's also not news to those here today that budget
allocations have been flat or declining in real-dollar terms
for NASA and NOAA. If NASA were to have the same buying power
that it had in fiscal year 1992 when we did the Land Remote
Sensing Act, it would have a budget of about $24 billion. At
the same time, NASA is now being asked to support more Earth
science activities than just those of the Decadal Survey. The
success of past NASA missions has created ongoing demands for
operational yet exquisite scientific data, and this makes it
difficult for NASA to fund new starts for Decadal Survey
priorities.
For both agencies and companies, it's common to find that
each wants to only pay, as we would say, the marginal cost of
having a capability rather than the average cost of having a
capability. If the dominant market demand is for a public good,
then not unreasonably the burden rightly would fall on the
government. If the dominant market demand is from private
customers, then the burden should be borne by the private
sector.
In many cases of civil remote sensing, however, like
Landsat, there's a roughly even balance of public and private
sector demand, which makes a clear partnership and definitions
much more difficult, not easier.
Major elements, I would argue, of NASA's Earth Science
program are likely to remain government-led due to the lack of
commercial demand for specialized scientific data, that is,
customers outside of the government. Commercial providers will
likely not soon replace unique platforms such as those on the A
train. On the other hand, where NASA needs can be met by
commercial data sources, cooperation with other agencies such
as NGA can increase the government's buying power, and as has
been noted, NASA does have the authorities to do this more
extensively.
In acquiring commercial data, NASA should ensure that it
gets sufficient rights so that data sets can be shared for
scientific non-commercial purposes. It should ensure that as
sufficient insight into how the data was generated such as peer
review can independently assess conclusions based on those
data, and I think some of the other witnesses will likely note
that there are a variety of rights that can be bought, and it's
not a one-size-fits-all situation.
There should be procurement on-ramps to enable
experimentation and large-scale innovation in parallel with
current government systems and international partnerships. We
can talk about some of those, for example, for Landsat. In the
long term, it will be more risky to pursue only traditional
acquisitions without a mixed portfolio that includes non-
traditional and commercial procurements.
Finally, NASA should continue to be a strong domestic and
international advocate of preventing interference with radio
spectrum upon which all remote sensing relies. Spectrum
protection is and will continue to be challenging due to
commercial terrestrial communication demands for more spectrum
in the years ahead.
Thank you for your attention and I look forward to any
questions.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Pace follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Babin. Yes, sir. Thank you, Dr. Pace. I appreciate
it.
I now recognize Dr. Scott for five minutes to present his
testimony. Dr. Scott, thank you.
TESTIMONY OF DR. WALTER SCOTT,
FOUNDER AND CHIEF TECHNICAL OFFICER,
DIGITALGLOBE
Dr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'd like to acknowledge that 23 years ago, with its support
for the 1992 Land Remote Sensing Policy Act, this Committee set
in place the framework that enabled commercial space
observation of the Earth to be born and to set the stage for
what's turned out to be a very successful public-private
partnership.
Over 23 years ago, when I started DigitalGlobe, the Cold
War had ended, and the global transparency that had been
provided by satellite reconnaissance had contributed to keeping
the Cold War cold because it allowed nations to act on the
basis of facts, not on the basis of fears. Along the way, the
Landsat program introduced the world to satellite imagery in
1972, and this led me to wonder, couldn't those benefits be
more widespread? Imagine if there were fewer instances of
hunger, thirst, strife, sickness around the world. Wouldn't
that lead to increased global stability and a greater quality
of life for mankind?
So now roll the clock forward. The satellite--high-
resolution satellite imagery industry was successfully
commercialized and brought to market in 2000 supporting
customers that include a wide range--energy, financial
services, U.S. allies, U.S. government, online mapping. If
you've looked at satellite imagery on your mobile devices, it's
probably DigitalGlobe's. And in many ways, satellite imagery--
the satellite imagery industry represents an ideal model for
public-private partnerships.
In our case specifically, we've been a trusted partner of
the U.S. government for more than a decade, most recently with
NGA's Enhanced View SLA, which is a ten-year firm fixed-price
contract where the government pays for the products and
services that it receives but not for the infrastructure, the
overhead, the workforce, or any of the associated costs of a
traditional government acquisition. And today we provide NGA
with over 90 percent of their foundational Earth imagery
requirements. They get first priority tasking to our high-
resolution unclassified imagery, and it can be shared broadly
to support operational mission planning, disaster response,
recovery, and situational awareness.
So what are some of the key lessons learned from that
public-private partnership? The first one is to balance the
needs of the U.S. government with a commercial partner. We make
our money by collecting imagery and then licensing it multiple
times to different customers for use in different ways. As
such, if a customer is allowed to widely and freely disseminate
the totality of our products, it undermines our ability to
deliver commercial value, and so there are models in which we
could make all of a certain type of imagery available for broad
sharing as Landsat is today but at a higher cost to the
government to offset the loss of the commercial opportunity,
and the government would need to make that tradeoff.
The second key point is, it's critical to have a
predictable regulatory regime that's designed to foster
innovation. This is extremely important to us, and I'd like to
thank the recent support by this Committee on the SPACE Act
that was passed last night, specifically Chairman Bridenstine
and Congressman Perlmutter--thank you very much--who championed
the remote sensing language that I believe is a needed first
step to regulatory reform. If you think about it, the current
regulations in our industry were written at a time when very
few players outside the government were capable of remote
sensing, and the world is obviously very different now where
there are billions of people who use the internet to access
satellite imagery, and there are hundreds of remote sensing
satellites being launched by dozens of nations.
The United States played a critical role as an
international leader in the space industry, and to maintain and
extend our leadership, we need a regulatory framework that
encourages that leadership and staying well ahead of and not
simply achieving parity with foreign competition.
So in closing, I want to thank you for the opportunity to
describe our unique public-private partnership with NGA. It's
been our honor to work with NGA, which is unwavering in its
efforts to secure our Nation, and we share a commitment to that
service and it's why so many of our employees have chosen to
spend their careers at DigitalGlobe. There's no higher honor
than serving those who serve our country, and that's how we
live up to our purpose of seeing a better world.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Scott follows:]
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Chairman Babin. Thank you, Dr. Scott.
I now recognize Mr. Schingler for five minutes to present
his testimony.
TESTIMONY OF MR. ROBBIE SCHINGLER,
CO-FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT, PLANETLABS
Mr. Schingler. Thank you, Chairman, and thank you very much
to the Committee for inviting us here today and having this
important conversation.
I would like to offer you my thoughts on how a changing
landscape--and how the landscape is changing in commercial
space activities. This suggests that NASA and other government
agencies should rethink the nature of their relationship with
the private sector.
The concept of public-private partnerships needs to expand
to be inclusive of the full portfolio of activities where
government and private sector efforts overlap and intermingle.
A core objective of his suite of activities should be to
encourage U.S. entrepreneurial ingenuity at this certainly is
going to be a strong source of U.S. leadership in space in the
21st century.
I will speak specifically to opportunities in the realm of
Earth observation to illustrate this larger concept, but this
same framework is applicable to other challenges and
opportunities that we face in space today.
Over the past several decades, in parallel to the
pioneering work being done at NASA, a new world of sensor
technology was emerging driven by the massive improvement in
technologies from the commercial sector including consumer
electronics, industries, biotechnology industries and the
internet. What this means is the capacity is to have highly
capable, sensitive, long-lived, low-cost components fielded in
technology platforms in any location. We see this in our
pockets. We see this in drones. We see this in our homes, in
our cars. It's a global sensor revolution that's giving us near
real-time data about the world around us.
So my cofounders and I, inspired to think big at NASA,
wanted to bring the sensor revolution to space. So we formed
PlanetLabs. Our first goal was to leverage the utility of
having a distributed sensor network in space, and that is to
image the world Earth every day, and we call that mission one,
and the purpose of doing that is to make global change visible,
accessible, and actionable.
To accomplish our goal of whole Earth everyday imaging,
we're placing more than 100 satellites into a sun-synchronous
orbit. Today we've launched a total of 101 test satellites over
the last 2-1/2 years, and we are currently operating nearly
four dozen spacecraft in two different orbits. Today we operate
the world's largest Earth observation constellation, and given
our pace of development and learning and our planned launch
manifests over the next 12 months, we anticipate having the
global daily monitoring capability from space operating this
time next year.
PlanetLabs is one of several companies leading a new
revolution in Earth imaging. Companies with a similar
perspective on innovating quickly with new technology, pursuing
a meaningful mission, and disrupting markets and industry
sectors, companies that are privately funded looking for
commercial market return first before approaching the
government. These companies are bringing higher-resolution
imaging, higher revisit Earth imaging, video from space,
commercial weather data, and other capabilities to reality.
Much of these technologies' industrial capability that is being
developed lend itself to other missions in space, especially in
areas where disaggregation and distributed sensory networks can
be best utilized.
I am compelled to note that at Planet Labs, we consider
ourselves to be in partnership with the civil government Earth
observation community every day. For example, we use Landsat 8
data for many critical purposes. We use MODIS data, cloud data
from NOAA systems. NASA and NOAA provide a critical foundation
for our activities, and without their publically available
data, we would be significantly challenged to accomplish our
goals. Moreover, the longitudinal history and reliability of
these systems are key for industry to prosper and for
scientists to discover greater understanding or our planet.
Since the beginning of the space era in the middle of the
previous century, space activities have had two extremely
strong pillars: the national security space domain and the
civil space domain led by NASA. The private sector has evolved
to a point where it's certainly a third pillar into itself.
Therefore, it is time to rethink a new structure for government
contractor relationship with industry. A new industry-
government relationship considers several factors holistically.
These factors include government programs that foster
innovation by creating white space for new concepts,
creativity, and exploration that could led to new capabilities,
products and services by the outcome, not the process,
government programs that utilize kinds of agile aerospace
methods practiced at planet and elsewhere to more rapidly
advance their internal technology projects and train their
professionals for multiple methods of program management,
government agencies who can act as consumers in the market,
able to recognize that they are one of many customers in a
marketplace of new data and services, data buys for research
and development and validation, and become a solid second
commercial customer of a commercial product, and finally, a
regulatory environment that is responsive and supportive to the
innovations that come from the private sector, a good
regulatory environment that has insight, oversight and
foresight to foster commercial innovation.
Thank you very much. I have much more detail in the long-
form testimony, and I look forward to answering your questions
today.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Schingler follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Babin. Thank you, Mr. Schingler.
I now recognize Dr. Goward for five minutes to present his
testimony.
TESTIMONY OF DR. SAMUEL GOWARD,
EMERITUS PROFESSOR OF GEOGRAPHY,
UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND AT COLLEGE PARK
Dr. Goward. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I guess that I'm here representing the past and what we
have or have not learned from it. So I think it's important to
revisit Landsat, who I variously referred to as the albatross,
as in the Lost Mariner, or the Rodney Dangerfield of land
remote sensing, because it has suffered many, many tragedies
over the years. The first started when the mission was first
described and developed by an NRC panel in 1967 out at Woods
Hole where the discussion of Earth observations led to the
decision that land remote sensing would be most likely to
commercialize. Unfortunately, that developed from a tradition
of aerial photography, which preceded by a century this
discussion of Landsat, and actually missed the point of the
innovators and visionaries who first conceived of the Landsat
mission, which was to be a global monitoring system, not a
picture acquisition system, and in fact, that's been missed
many times but actually the first Landsat mission was designed
to have two satellites to demonstrate how you would develop an
operational constellation to monitor Planet Earth as my
colleague was just describing. Now, that was back in the 1970s
when these designs were being developed, but it's never been
captured as a part of the Landsat mission, and in fact, we've
degraded since then, at least from my point of view.
It's important to recognize that because of the sense that
Landsat was most likely to be commercialized as a substitute
for aerial photography, it has suffered at least two examples
of commercialization which have failed, the first of which was
in the 1980s when the executive and Congress moved Landsat to
NOAA and then commercialized the system with EOSAT. That was an
experience that all of us involved in the science community
still live in fear of today, and in fact, it's one of the
reasons when you find scientists hesitating when we talk about
private-public partnerships that the experience with EOSAT is
clear still in everybody's minds.
Now, there are many lessons learned that I'm not going to
go over today about what happened in that case, and we should
never forget those lessons learned as we look to the future
because, honestly, on the other side, I had been involved in
the science data by convening a science panel to select the
vendors that were chosen to provide products to NASA for Earth
observations in the late 1990s, and we actually had a
remarkable series of successes including the space imaging
IKONOS data and we would have used DigitalGlobe and did very
late in the process but there were launch issues that occurred
prior to that.
So the second time that Landsat suffered a data buy issue
is in the acquisition of Landsat 8, and under that process, the
first process that was pursued was a data buy in which both
Resource 21 and DigitalGlobe were involved. DigitalGlobe
decided, probably for clear reasons, that they were getting out
of that game before the bidding was selected, and Resource 21
was not selected because there was simply not cost savings
involved to the government with the bid that they provided. But
that's the second commercial effort for the Landsat mission,
and I can tell you both of those efforts have put us behind in
a science development of the value of this mission to observe
the Earth as a result of those activities. So when you talk to
the science community, you're going to get a very funny
reaction about private-public partnerships, which is not
necessary a bad thing but you have to understand this history
colors the view of the science community in the use of this
approach to data acquisition.
However, it's important to also recognize that when Landsat
came back to the government in the 1990s, that data buy became
no longer an issue but the value of the data for science
activity became very clear, and again, I won't go through the
detail. I'm out of my time, so I'll stop here. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Goward follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Babin. Thank you, Dr. Goward.
And now I would like to recognize Dr. Busalacchi for your
testimony as well for five minutes.
TESTIMONY OF DR. ANTONIO BUSALACCHI,
PROFESSOR AND DIRECTOR OF THE EARTH
SYSTEM SCIENCE INTERDISCIPLINARY CENTER,
UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND
Dr. Busalacchi. Good morning, Chairman Babin, Chairman
Bridenstine, Ranking Members Edwards and Bonamici, and members
of the Subcommittee.
Prior to my coming to the University of Maryland 15 years
ago, I was a civil servant for 18 years at the NASA Goddard
Space Flight Center. While I was a lab chief at Goddard, I
served as a source selection official for the SeaWiFS Ocean
Color Data Buy from Orbital Sciences Corporation that is
directly relevant to this hearing.
Presently, I also serve as the Co-Chair of the Decadal
Survey for Earth Sciences and Applications from Space being
carried out by the National Academies of Science, Engineering,
and Medicine. The report from this study will provide the
sponsors--NASA, NOAA and the USGS--with consensus
recommendations from the environmental monitoring and Earth
science and application communities for an integrated and
sustainable approach to the conduct of the U.S. government's
civilian space-based Earth system science programs.
Before continuing with my testimony, I should note, though,
that I'm speaking in my own behalf today. Nothing in my
testimony should be construed as indicating anything about what
the Decadal Survey Committee may recommend when a report is
published in the summer of 2017.
If there's one take-home message from my testimony this
morning, it is the need to establish a series of best practices
to guide future public-private partnerships for Earth remote
sensing, drawing on the lessons learned from the past. So in
this regard, and based on my own experience, the following are
characteristics of a successful partnership between NASA and a
private entity.
Firstly, the need to establish an appropriate insight/
oversight model with a commercial partner. What worked well for
the SeaWiFS Science data buy was one where NASA maintained
insight, but not oversight, of the project. Next, to ensure the
highest quality of the scientific data, NASA needs to have
access to the algorithms and instrument characterization,
access to, and ability to re-use the data, and establishment of
an appropriate data archive. Turning data into information of
value to both the commercial entity and to the science
community now and in the future requires detailed knowledge of
how the raw data are generated, the algorithms that are used to
process the data and generate higher level data products, often
combined with data from other sensors and platforms, and
control how the data are archived.
Another important aspect is the need for science teams as
part of a plan to maximize the utility of the data. The
establishment of a science team early in the development of a
NASA Earth observation mission is a familiar and well-grounded
recommendation. Once established, early science efforts, via
development of a prototype system, or synthetic data sets, can
contribute directly to engineering and system analyses. It can
also optimize algorithms through competition. Such teams
provide a conduit to the user community, and also provide
timely engagement of the research community, which would
rapidly expand the user base.
With respect to a successful public-private partnership,
technical readiness is an important measure of what observation
methodology may be ripe for transition. In the case of Earth
imaging, as we've heard this morning, there's over six decades'
worth of heritage on the design of such sensors. This has
provided the opportunity for significant core competencies to
developed, as we've heard, in the private sector, thus enabling
public-private partnerships. Those technologies that are mature
are likely the ones that may be most amenable to a public-
private partnership. Conversely, the more novel the technology,
or newer the data stream or observation, the greater the
requirement for government involvement in order to draw on a
wider base of expertise for sensor characterization,
calibration, validation, science data processing, and re-
processing.
Lastly, while obvious, it must be stated that the
commercial demand and market for the data is key to cost
savings to the government. If the government is the sole user
of the data, there's little incentive for a public-private
partnership. In the example of SeaWiFS, the cost to the
government was reduced by Orbital Science's intent to sell the
real time data to the commercial fishing industry. Transition
across basic research, to applied research, to development of
products and applications is not fast, and it's not easy.
However, the extent to which this can be accelerated in support
of a range of societal benefit areas, be they agriculture,
transportation, fishing, land use, et cetera, will determine
the non-governmental demand for the data, and potential cost
savings to the government.
In closing, public-private partnerships offer an
alternative and potentially less costly method to acquire Earth
observations. However, with SeaWiFS as a guide, a successful
public-private partnership may be realized only in limited
circumstances, and only with the careful attention to the
particular needs of both profit making entities and the science
community. Thank you for your attention. I look forward to the
questions.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Busalacchi follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Babin. Thank you, Dr. Busalacchi. I thank all of
the witnesses for your testimony, and the Chair recognizes
himself for five minutes.
Dr. Scott Pace, traditionally NASA's Earth Science Division
focused on one-off research satellites to demonstrate
technology in science. Recently, however, NASA was given
responsibility for the Sustainable Land Imagining Program, and
a number of NOAA's long term satellite observational
requirements, including TSIS-1, the Ozone Mapping and Profile
Suite, OMPS, and the JPSS-2 radiation budget instrument, and
future ocean altimetry missions. How, if at all, do these new
responsibilities represent a unique--represent unique
opportunities for public-private partnerships?
Dr. Pace. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Each one of these
missions is somewhat different, and, as my colleague was saying
earlier, need to pay attention to the particulars of each case,
in particular finding, you know, non-government or non-NASA
agencies who want the data. In the case of Landsat, at the risk
of continuing the Rodney Dangerfield analogy, I think that the
technical risks in providing that data tend to be the most
well-bounded, and there are multiple non-NASA users. And that,
given the right incentives, commercial entities could fund
development tests and operation of those systems.
However, that option, I think, has been largely precluded
by the intent of Congress, that NASA would develop the next
Landsat satellite pretty much as a repeat of earlier
satellites. And I would simply look at the NASA Appropriations
Conference report for fiscal year 2015, which really precludes
any sort of out of the box approaches to data collection.
That's why I talked about the need for some sort of on ramp, or
parallel activity, maybe revising the science data buy, or
maybe looking at some more partnerships with NGA in each of
these areas, and to not pre-judge what the outcome would be,
but maybe have a competition through NGA, or through the SDB,
and see what you get. I would suspect that the Landsat option
would come in pretty attractively, but then there would have to
be a robust internal discussion in the Congress as whether or
not they wanted to have that on-ramp, or really--rather, they
wanted to continue with the current appropriations language.
Chairman Babin. Thank you, Dr. Pace. And this next question
is directed to Dr. Scott and Mr. Schingler. According to the
2007 Earth Science Decadal Survey, an emerging source of data
is the commercial sector. In the past, a program of Earth
observations was associated almost exclusively with government
managed or government sponsored projects. Today, commercial
sources of Earth information are rapidly increasing in
availability and scope. Commercial satellite systems are now
reliable sources of high resolution Earth imagery, and
commercial remote sensing companies have greatly expanded their
offerings. In your opinion, where does the commercial remote
sensing sector stand today, and how can the commercial sector
fulfill civil government Earth observation needs? Dr. Scott,
you first, and then Mr. Schingler.
Dr. Scott. So I'd say--I'll break the answer down into two
parts. The first part is to leverage those data sources that
already exist, bearing in mind not to break the business model.
So we've talked a fair bit about where sharing of data can be
bounded by licensing. So, for example, sharing of data to the
research community, but perhaps not in a way that undermines
the commercial benefit broadly. We have such an agreement in
place with NGA, where NGA has quite a degree of ability to
share within the government, with coalition partners, with
allies, but that does not undermine our ability to serve our
other commercial customers with different licensing models. So
it's possible for those to coexist.
Then I think the second part is to leverage the commercial
sector to create data sources that might not yet exist, but
which could be created cost-effectively, because the commercial
sector is able to acquire systems and operate them in a manner
that is typically more efficient than traditional government
acquisition. And the best situation is certainly one where the
commercial provider, if you will, lives in the house that it
builds, where it leverages the same system to support
government and non-government needs, and so the totality of its
business is based on the success or failure of that system. So
the incentives of the commercial provider are aligned with the
government.
Chairman Babin. Thank you, Dr. Scott. Mr. Schingler?
Mr. Schingler. The decadal survey for Earth science was a
great step forward, because it was actually the first time that
it was done by the National Academies and Earth Science, so it
really did provide a prioritized list of the data that needed
to be collected, from a scientific basis.
Within that, they had a call for venture class missions,
and--which, in my opinion, is one of the greater things that we
could do in order to lower barrier of entry for new scientists
to come in to understand our planet. However, the sensors were
not there, the industrial base was not there in order to reach
a price point at the time that the National Academies report
was released. Today it's very different. You could actually see
that launch access to space is still a major barrier, and part
of NASA launch services, together with SMD, is helping to fund
$17 million for three new commercial nano launch capabilities
and access to space. It's a really, really good step forward.
But when you combine those things together, you could think
about a portfolio of different scientific activities, some of
which bring about a rapid amount of capability, taking more
risk, but at a much decreased cost. And then with that, that
can then help smooth our future critical path into the future.
Thanks.
Chairman Babin. Thank you, Mr. Schingler. Now I'd like to
recognize the gentlelady from Maryland--Ms. Bonamici, okay. I'm
sorry.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you,
witnesses, for your testimony. Dr. Pace, you said in your
testimony that in acquiring commercial data, NASA should ensure
it gets sufficient rights so that data sets should be--can be
shared for scientific, non-commercial purposes. It should also
ensure that it has sufficient insight into how the data were
generated so that scientific peer review can independently
assess conclusions based on those data. So Dr. Goward brought
us some lessons from history. So how is that accomplished? Is
that through regulation, or through really good negotiation?
How does NASA ensure that it gets those rights, and that it has
that insight?
Dr. Pace. I think it has been described, actually, by Dr.
Scott that there are a wide variety of rights that you can buy.
In some ways, the idea of purchasing data is kind of a
misnomer. What you--you really don't buy a computer program.
You buy a license to use that computer program. So the question
is, what's the negotiation over the bundle of rights you can
get? An NGA, of course, has a way of negotiating certain
rights. So it becomes a competitive aspect, and there's a cost
tradeoff. It becomes part of the make or buy decision for the
government. So the government goes in and says, I want to
acquire certain kinds of information, data, to do my public
mission. I can decide to build a government satellite to do
that at a certain amount of cost, sometimes more than what the
private sector would do, but then I have more flexibility down
range. Or I can decide to buy a bundle of licensing rights to
go get the same sort of thing. And this is where having a large
buyer, like NGA, can be leveraged, you know, for the benefit of
the government.
So I think it's fundamentally a business analysis, make or
buy, and then fundamentally it's a legal negotiation and a
competitive process, and that companies should come in and be
prepared to bid a range of activities. Now, if it's something
like a decadal science priority, I would say that there be a
high, high priority on having very deep metadata that you get
because you're trying to do something at a very much cutting
edge. There may be no commercial counterpart for that decadal
science priority. And so then the question of build or buy
becomes really of can the government do it more efficiently, or
can a private sector party do it efficiently?
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you very much. Dr. Busalacchi, for a
public-private partnership that supports NASA's requirements
for basic and applied research, how does that compare with a
public-private partnership that could support NOAA's
operational weather mission? When we're considering evaluating
those public-private partnerships, what are the differences,
and how would we evaluate those?
Dr. Busalacchi. Thank you very much. First, there's a clear
difference between NASA research and NOAA operations. They're
often seen as parallel, but there are significant differences.
Let me draw on the NOAA operations example. In order to support
numerical--operational numerical weather prediction, the
demands of providing a forecast on time scales from minutes, to
a day, or a couple days into the future, require those
observations to be taken down, adjusted into the model, and
those bits can actually then fall on the floor after they're
used for supporting the numerical weather prediction.
Now, we've learned that those data do have value for other
applications. However, in the case of NASA research, when
you're looking at time scales from days, to weeks, months, and
years, you're very concerned about the stability, the
continuity, insight to the algorithms that you may not have
because of proprietary reasons when dealing with the private
sector. So there's a difference in time scale, and a clear
difference in the need for stable, continuous calibrated and
validated records on the research side.
Ms. Bonamici. And that leads me to my next question, for
Mr. Schingler and Mr.--and Dr. Scott. Many Earth science
objectives require long, stable, uninterrupted time series
measurements. Can the commercial market support such a long
term operation? With NOAA weather data, for example, it's
important to have open, publicly accessible data so our--other
countries will share their data with us, and the American
public has access as well. So what happens if the U.S. buys
data, and then can't share it? If NASA contracts out its Earth
science work with a predictable, reliable funding stream, would
the public-private sector accommodate requirements to make that
data public?
Mr. Schingler. So the commercial community can absolutely
help to support time series measurements in a reliable and
predictable way in no other case that our commercial customers
demand it as well. So that is absolutely something that the
community can do. When it comes to NOAA, and when it comes to
the license around publicly available data, I think that needs
to be incorporated into the business models of the companies.
So perhaps you could use an example of what we know in the
aerospace community with GPS and selective availability. So
there could be a downgraded version that is available to the
U.S. Government that is bought, then made as open data, with
then higher fidelity data for some of their commercial
customers. So that is something that you can then coexist, and
come up with a sustainable business model around, while you
still actually create a public good, and provide that service
to the government.
Ms. Bonamici. Dr. Scott?
Dr. Scott. Well, in terms of data continuity, we've been
providing data since 1999, which, relative to the Landsat
program, doesn't go back to 1972, but for the commercial remote
sensing industry, is certainly the longest uninterrupted record
of continuous observation. I'll also mention, just as an aside,
the commercial sector has put quite a degree of effort into a
high degree of fidelity and calibration of that data,
leveraging, in fact, a lot of work that NASA had done over the
Landsat program.
In terms of open availability, I think open is--it feels
very binary. It feels like it's either completely open, or it's
not open at all. And, as Dr. Pace was saying, it's very analog.
There's a wide range of gradation. I'll use for--DigitalGlobe
as an example. We make data available to web portals, Google,
Apple, and others, that you can download on your mobile device.
You'd say, well, that's open. How does that not undermine the
commercial market for DigitalGlobe's data? Because there are
certain rights and certain limitations on the data that's
available that mean that it's possible for us to, in a very
granular way, enable data for different customers with
different rights to meet their specific needs.
So I want you to imagine, for example, making data
available that had rights for sharing for research purposes,
but not for commercial purposes. Or rights that were available
for sharing with other nations, but not for sharing for
commercial purposes. So I----
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you very much. My time has expired.
Thank you.
Dr. Scott. Thank you.
Ms. Bonamici. I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Babin. Yes, ma'am, thank you. I now recognize the
gentleman from Oklahoma, Chairman Bridenstine.
Mr. Bridenstine. Thank you, Chairman Babin. I'd like to
thank all of our panelists for being here. I was hoping maybe
next time we could get a few more degrees on the panel. With
all these doctors, for a second I thought I was in a hospital,
but I'm glad I'm not in a hospital. So it's great to see all of
you. Dr. Scott, I wanted to, number one, thank you for the
service you've already given to this great country. You took
great risk upon yourself, and created something that brought us
to where we are today, which is why we're even having this
discussion, so thank you for your service, and all you've
already done.
Dr. Goward, I wanted to address your comments earlier. I
read your testimony, and I had a different takeaway from what I
just heard. And I wanted to see if maybe I could have you maybe
enlighten us a little more about what your thoughts are going
forward. One of the things I read is--it says today, with the
maturing of new sensor and satellite technologies, the
opportunity exists to fly at least four Landsat observatories
at the same total cost as a single satellite which uses the
traditional technology of Landsat-8. So when you talk about
these new technologies, it sound--your testimony that I read
sounded a lot like Mr. Schingler. Can you share with us your
thoughts? Do you believe we can move towards a Landsat kind of
commercial capability? Can you turn on your microphone, please?
Dr. Goward. Thank you. I'm not sure it would be commercial.
I mean, that's really outside of my purview in many ways. But,
my former student and colleague, Darryl Williams, and I put
together an EV-2 proposal through Global Science and
Technology, and in that we worked with Surry Satellite, and
it's a U.S. based company at this time. And we did a proposal
which showed that, for about $130 million, we could build a
prototype system. Wouldn't be fully complimentary with Landsat,
but sufficiently to supplement and compliment Landsat. That's
substantially less than what this last--Landsat-8 has cost us.
GST then went on to do further work with Surry. In a fully
complementary Landsat mission, was able to demonstrate that,
for about a quarter of a million dollars--quarter-million--$250
million they could build a fully complementary system.
It's my view that we should give this a try now, and get
that technology out on the table, because, again, from our
scientific experience, I don't believe that the commercial
potential of the Landsat mission will be realized until we get,
as my colleague to the right mentioned, daily repeat coverage.
Mr. Bridenstine. Right. Okay.
Dr. Goward. The land dynamics just happen too fast, and you
don't see it every 16 days, when clouds block you at least 50
percent of the time.
Mr. Bridenstine. Okay. I'm running out of time here. I
wanted to move to Dr. Pace. You mentioned in your testimony
that the Earth sciences missions have--the demands have grown,
and the requirements have grown, and yet there are
opportunities where we can share the cost because there are
non-NASA customers, potentially. And you mentioned Landsat is
one of those places where we could do commercialization, but
then you mentioned that it was precluded by Congress. I'm very
interested in this. What did Congress--why did Congress
preclude this?
Dr. Pace. Well, my understanding is, if I read the NASA
Appropriations Conference report, it states, ``The
Committee''--``Conference does not concur with various
Administration efforts to develop alternative out of the box
approaches to this data collection''--referring to Landsat--
``whether they are dependent on commercial or international
partners.'' And so essentially this said, build another Landsat
satellite similar to what you've already been building. And I
have a sense of deja vu with this because I was the guy at the
Commerce Department who was told to get Landsat out of the
Commerce Department at that time, so I wasn't very popular with
my other agency colleagues.
One of the things that we looked at were alternatives for
LightSAT or SmallSAT versions of Landsat in 1992. We were
taking advantage of some SDI technologies that had come out of
Livermore Laboratories and other places, and so there were
theoretical designs, and they were all just that, theoretical,
but for LightSAT versions of Landsat that Dr. Goward was also
talking about. And so it strikes me that today, given the
greater design maturity and experience we have with small
satellites, that we should go back and be looking at more
innovative ways of doing things. The reason we wanted to look
at SmallSATs back then is we felt that cost growth would be a
problem for any agency that took over Landsat. And so that's
why I said in my testimony that if we simply continue with only
the traditional practices, that is actually going to be more
risky than having some innovative options in the portfolio that
could lower costs in the longer term.
Mr. Bridenstine. Okay. That--and I'm out of time, Mr.
Chairman, but as far as the appropriations, I guess, Conference
report, that language is unfortunate. I don't think that
necessarily reflects the view of a lot of people that serve on
this Committee, on both sides of the aisle. So I need to delve
down into that a little bit more. Maybe, Mr. Chairman, if we
could do a second round, I'd appreciate that. Over to you.
Thank you.
Chairman Babin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to now
recognize the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Beyer.
Mr. Beyer. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I'd be happy to defer
to the Ranking Member from Maryland, if she would prefer that.
Ms. Edwards. Thank you very much.
Chairman Babin. Sorry about that.
Ms. Edwards. Thank you very much. Just a little confusion
here, just moving around. I'm curious--OSTP's national plans
for civil observation includes an action entitled Explore
Commercial Solutions, where federal agencies are actually
tasked with identifying cost-effective commercial solutions to
encourage private sector innovation while they preserve the
public good nature of Earth observations. In particular,
agencies are asked to consider a variety of options for
ownership, management, and utilization of Earth observation
systems and data, including commercial data buys and commercial
data management. In developing such options, agencies are to
preserve the principles of full and open data sharing,
competitive sourcing, and best value in return for public
investment, and I'm curious as to the viewpoints, if we could,
quickly, should be the first steps in implementing this kind of
guidance from OSTP. Starting with you, Dr. Pace?
Dr. Pace. Well, I think one of the things that ought to be
looked at is--look across all of the agencies that are involved
in this sort of remote sensing. This means looking at what NGA
is doing with its strategy, look at what NOAA is being asked to
do, look at what NASA's looking to do. So don't look at it as
simply an agency--single agency only sort of thing. It's really
across the administration.
And then you should be able to see, what portfolio mixture
am I doing? Am I just--what things are being done as large
traditional satellites? What areas do I have innovative smaller
satellites, and what areas do I have a mixture of small data
buys, or licensing, pilot programs? So I'm not trying to say
what those number ought to be. I'm saying there ought to be a
portfolio, and then there ought to be a discussion within this
Committee, and within both sides of the Hill, as to what the
right amounts of effort ought to be in those areas. But you
ought to have a mixed portfolio, not just a single one.
And so I don't think that the OSTP direction is quite being
followed at point. I also don't think that the decadal survey
recommendations, to look at more innovative sourcings, are
being followed. And I think that NASA in particular is being
burdened by large operational ongoing missions that--there's
all kinds of good reasons why they're there, lack of
appropriation allocations for NOAA, problems with the 302(b)
allocation, all those sorts of things. But nonetheless, NASA is
getting more burdens than simply you would expect from its
decadal science queries.
Ms. Edwards. Dr. Goward, do you have an opinion about this?
Dr. Goward. Thank you. Just thought of four general
guidelines in my experience over the years is--as Dr.
Busalacchi had mentioned, insight versus oversight in private-
public partnerships is really critical, otherwise private
industry gets hampered in innovating in the--in their work. But
from the other side, private industry has to be willing to
participate in arrangements where the observations are
available for no cost distribution. Particularly for the
Landsat mission we've gone from practically no usage of the
historical record to usage that's in the millions over the last
2 to three years because USGS has been willing to provide low
cost--no cost access to the data record.
Honestly, one of the limitations on--was that they were not
allowed to compete in the applied commercial marketplace, and
this was a serious problem for them. The--that company was
unable to really build on their capacity to develop the
commercial marketplace. They were prevented from doing so.
Ms. Edwards. In the time that I have remaining, do any of
the other witnesses have an opinion about OSTP's guidance, and
how we can begin implementing that guidance?
Dr. Scott. I'd say one of the first things to do is look at
what the industry is both doing and capable of doing. There's
often a tendency within government to make assumptions about
the industry that are, in fact, not founded in fact, and a good
place to start would be to reach out to the industry and find
out what the industry thinks, what the industry is doing, what
the industry is capable of doing.
Ms. Edwards. And Dr. B, because I am butchering your name.
Dr. Busalacchi. That's fine, I'm used to it. So I've
already spoke to the issue of the heritage of the methodology.
In the case of SeaWiFS, with respect to data access challenge,
in order for Orbital Sciences to market ocean color data, NASA
did not have free and open access to the data, and overall this
data access arrangement worked well for research. The
researchers had to register and verify that they were only
using SeaWiFS data for research, and not for commercial
purposes. And even though most of the research with SeaWiFS was
done in delayed mode, we even still, within the rights of the
data license, had access to the data in real time for certain
cruises.
So, going forward, any public-private partnerships need to
develop a cost model based on data latency, archival, access,
and resolution. It's going to be really issue to sort of--
really important to tackle those issues.
Ms. Edwards. Thank you very much, and I yield the balance
of my--well, I don't have any time, but I yield it anyway.
Chairman Babin. Thank you, Ms. Edwards. Let's see. I'd like
to recognize the gentleman from Arkansas, Mr. Westerman.
Mr. Westerman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to
the panel for being here today. Dr. Goward, you talked about
Landsat being the Rodney Dangerfield, but, you know, I would
like to give it maybe a little bit of respect today. Having
worked in the forestry industry, I've seen how the imagery can
be used. You know, in all--we've had developments in the
analytics, being able to look at the images and gain more from
the images. You know, in a wintertime photograph you can tell
coniferous trees from deciduous trees. And then--now, through
spectral imagery, you can look at the different signatures of
the colors of the leaves, and get a species distribution
through it.
So I know that the analytics have advanced, but how would
you say the image resolution and quality of data has changed
for Landsat over its 43 year history? And maybe, just briefly,
Landsat-1 versus Landsat-8?
Dr. Goward. The changes have been subtle. The changes
occurred between Landsats 3 and 4, when we went from one type
of a sensor, MSS, to thematic mapper, TM. And then with the LOI
on Landsat 8, a number of changes occurred. Additional bits of
data to characterize illumination conditions, narrowing of the
bands to increase avoidance of atmospheric contamination.
So they may be subtle, but they get critically important
information that allows us to more and more reliably evaluate
forests, agricultural production, other features that we just
simply get better at as we refine our instrumentation.
Mr. Westerman. So we've got a long record of continuous and
comparable observation that has allowed users to document
changes to the land surface and other features over decades.
What are the advantages and disadvantage of--and disadvantages
of deploying Landsat instruments on other satellites, whether
government or commercial, instead of recreating the same
Landsat satellite as the one vehicle for U.S. moderate
resolution land imaging?
Dr. Goward. I see no reason not to deploy an equitable
instrument on a variety of platforms. The things you have to be
careful about are the orbital patterns, whether you're in a sun
synchronous, or in a solar variant observation condition. But
you're certainly not constrained to a single platform.
Mr. Westerman. So you think we can maintain the aspects of
the data continuity with different platforms?
Dr. Goward. No, absolutely, and it's more that the detail
level of the instrument characteristics is critical.
Mr. Westerman. Okay. So the cost of Landsat-8 was about a
billion dollars, and the Administration is now preparing to
develop Landsat-9, I think the last I saw a 2023 launch for
Landsat-9, which is essentially a clone of Landsat-8. Is there
a rush to develop Landsat-9, or does the government have the
time to evaluate all options for satisfying these data
requirements? And what would you recommend NASA do?
Dr. Goward. It's an interesting problem. The design life of
Landsat-8, from an engineering point of view, is five years. So
that, by the time we get to 2023, we're over ten years. Now, do
we suffer a failure in between time? I don't know. We certainly
had had problems with Landsat-7 early on, and it could happen
again. So are we in a rush? Should be, because we should move
that timeline for the next launch to an earlier date, if at all
possible.
Mr. Westerman. So how many Landsats are we getting imagery
from now? Are there still two----
Dr. Goward. Still two.
Mr. Westerman. And what--those are eight and----
Dr. Goward. And 7.
Mr. Westerman. Okay.
Dr. Goward. And 7, of course, has a partially functioning
mirror system.
Mr. Westerman. Okay. And with that I'll yield back, Mr.
Chairman.
Chairman Babin. Thank you, Mr. Westerman. Now I'd like to
recognize the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Beyer.
Mr. Beyer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I would like to
thank both Chairmen and both Ranking Members for putting this
together. And thank all of you for coming. It's been
fascinating.
Mr. Schingler, a--probably a stupid question, but you
mentioned that you have the--100 doves up in a single sun-
synchronous orbit. Are these spaced all around the globe, in
the orbit itself,and is it really just a single orbit, or a
single orbit for each dove?
Mr. Schingler. Yeah, let me clarify. So over the last 2-1/2
years we have launched 101 satellites on nine different
rockets. All of those have been as secondary payloads, and the
majority of them have been through the International Space
Station. And the International Space Station is in a 52 degree
orbit, so it is not in a sun-synchronous orbit. Over the next
12 months we have a number of launches, including one that is a
dedicated rocket, that is going to our ideal orbit, which is a
475 kilometer sun-synchronous orbit. And that one launch, in
and of itself, will be able to allow for us to have daily
coverage.
And the way that that works is we distribute the satellites
along track in one particular sun-synchronous orbit, and as the
Earth rotates underneath it, our satellites act together, kind
of like a line scanner, in order to image the entire surface of
the Earth.
Mr. Beyer. Line scanner's a great image, so thank you--and
the size of the satellites?
Mr. Schingler. The size of our satellites are five
kilograms. They're in the 3U form factor, so it is--one person
can pick it up.
Mr. Beyer. Yeah, very cool. And, Dr. Goward, your last
recommendation said NASA and the U.S. private sector need to
move away from increasingly expensive single satellite builds
towards lower cost, high temporal repeat Landsat class
observatories, et cetera. Is this what Planet Labs is doing, or
is this what DigitalGlobe is doing?
Dr. Goward. What Planet Labs and DigitalGlobe are doing are
not the same thing. What we're really talking about, for a
Landsat system, is one that covers four different parts of the
electromagnetic spectrum, and some of those require a more
complex platform than what, for example, Planet Earth will be
flying. And when I mention the lower cost SmallSAT alternative,
we're talking about more on the order of three to 500 kilogram
satellites, rather than five kilogram.
Mr. Beyer. Okay. Great, thank--yes, Mr. Schingler?
Mr. Schingler. Yeah, absolutely, the Landsat platform is
really quite exquisite in its spectral capability. And that is
something that we have longitudinal information over the last
42 years, and want to continue moving forward. I think part of
the concept is it may be possible to launch an instrument that
does not do all of the spectral bands in one satellite, but
instead you can have a couple of different satellites that then
focus on the phenomenology that we want to continue as a global
community with Landsat.
Mr. Beyer. One of the things I've been impressed by today
with--including all these degrees, as Chairman Bridenstine
noticed, is how many of you have moved back and forth from
government to private sector. Dr. Pace, do you have any
concern, with your NASA and your private sector perspective,
that there would be a loss of in house expertise as we
outsource more and more to the commercial sector?
Dr. Pace. That's a great question. I think that's actually
really central to thinking about what do we want NASA to do to
be a smart buyer? I think NASA should always have one or two
spacecraft builds in house that they do themselves to make sure
they have that hands-on expertise. At the same time, I think
that NASA is comfortable and--with the idea of buying--and
relying on the private sector, and doing commercial data buys.
And I think, as NASA has been asked to do more and more
missions without really an increase in its top line, I think
it's going to become more incumbent on them to find ways of
partnering with the private sector. So I would first say make
sure they have expertise in house at places like Goddard, but
also make sure that they start relying more on the private
sector to acquire the data. And, as Dr. Scott said, the best
way to do that is to ask industry. Too often we can assume what
industry can do. And it's perfectly possible for industry not
to be able to meet requirements at a certain point in time, so
it's always important to have a backup plan. Having a primary
plan of, you know, a conventional spacecraft, okay, but make
sure you also have a backup plan, or an alternative, doing
something more innovative. And, really, I think the agency
should be doing both.
Mr. Beyer. Great, thank you. Dr. Busalacchi, I only have a
minute, but you were deeply involved in SeaWiFS. Was that cost
effective? And using Orbital Sciences, was there added value
gained from partnering that perhaps offset the extra cost?
Dr. Busalacchi. Well, SeaWiFS was a grand success in terms
of the quality of the science data we got, and the cost to the
government was actually less as a direct result of the private
sector data buy. Now, whether or not Orbital Sciences made a
profit, I'm not the one to speak about that, in Virginia, for
example. But, again, it was a grand success from the science
point of view.
But what we don't realize, oftentimes, is how important the
engineers at Goddard--the role that they play. Even though this
was technically a data buy, there were a number of challenges
that came up. The mission was delayed by four years, and
Goddard engineers, in the end, provided considerable support on
the engineering side for power system, altitude control,
navigation system, component quality. We had a very good
working relationship, but the point was--is that--as opposed to
a number of the topics here this morning, there was not a lot
of heritage in the instrument. There was the prior coastal zone
color scanner, but beyond that, there was a novel lunar
calibration, so there was really the need for expert
engineering support from an organization like Goddard.
Mr. Beyer. Great. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Chairman Babin. Yes, I'd like to recognize the gentleman
from Colorado, Mr. Perlmutter.
Mr. Perlmutter. Thanks, Mr. Chairman, and to Dr. Scott,
long time no see. Appreciated the tour last week of
DigitalGlobe. And I guess my question--I'll start with you.
You've got this giant library of information. Who gets access?
Who curates it? How does anybody figure out all the stuff
that's in there?
Dr. Scott. So we have generated about 100 petabytes or so
of data. It's accessible in the cloud. It's catalogued by an
increasing amount of metadata, starting with just when it was
collected, but growing to include a lot of information about
what's actually in the image. And we've exposed that to our
customer community via something we call a geospatial big data
platform, which is fundamentally about not trying to take these
huge data boulders and say, you know, here's 100 petabytes of
data, good luck finding a place to put it, instead enabling
people to access data in the cloud with a set of algorithms
that are wrapped around it to enable exploitation, and a
growing ecosystem of partners who contribute those algorithms
to enable the exploitation.
Mr. Perlmutter. So if I wanted to see something involving
the soils in some country in Africa, how do I get that
information to you, and then how do you provide me that slice
of information?
Dr. Scott. So there are a couple of ways of gaining access
to that. If you're interested in viewing the data, just looking
at the data, there are web services where we expose that data
to you over the web. If you're interested in performing
analytics, you can bring your algorithms, or use algorithms
from one of our partners, like Harris, who offers the ENVI
toolkit, the image processing toolkit, and perform that
processing in the cloud. We have a set of application program
interfaces, as well as user interfaces, that allow you to
search for what's available in that particular region, and then
drop that data into your Amazon S3 bucket for subsequent
processing.
Mr. Perlmutter. I guess what I'm--and I appreciate that. So
you--DigitalGlobe--and to the other panelists, please jump in
if you want--we're accumulating lots of information out there.
And we don't know all the potential users of that, and
precisely what they want to do with it. So if I am the United
States Government--let's say I'm the Air Force. I pay you some
certain fee for access to all of it, any time I want it, and
then some other user of the library may have a much more
limited cost, and, you know, library card that allows just
access to certain things. Is that how it works?
Dr. Scott. I think that's a great model, actually. It's
sort of a customized library card with rights that are
consistent with how you intend to use the data. We support a
range of business models. Some of those business models involve
the actual delivery of data. Other business models involve--you
get a library card for data analytics, and we receive our
compensation in any of a number of ways, some of which are
revenue share based, some of which are subscription fee based.
Mr. Perlmutter. Okay. So to all of the panelists, I mean,
if there were one or two things that we, as members of
Congress, could do to make sure that the technology that you
all are developing, whether it's on the information side, or
flying the satellite side, or the optical pieces, what could we
do, maintaining security for the nation, yet allowing you to
continue to grow the commercial side of this? Mr. Schingler.
Mr. Schingler. So I think the first thing is we should
figure out a way to relatively quickly get access to the
commercial capability that's there, and to engage in a dialogue
to really understand more--not just what the product is, but
the capabilities of industry. That will help to inform
strategies around procurement, and other things, into the
future.
And secondly is--for things into the future, we should look
at other transactional authorities, which do allow for the
commercial entity to continue to build their commercial
service, while relatively quickly sell a capability to the U.S.
Government.
Mr. Perlmutter. Okay. Thank you. Dr. Pace?
Dr. Pace. I would add that we should probably be looking
beyond just the initial data acquisition and the satellite side
itself, and to think about where could commercial providers be
part of the data archiving and processing, analysis function in
the cloud. That is not something which is a government unique
function. And there's also systems where commercial users could
share, you know, the same hosting infrastructure, and that's
whole other market, you know, in and of itself. It's just data.
It's not particularly specialized.
The second thing I would mention, this is probably a
subject of a different hearing, is making sure that NOAA's
commercial licensing and regulatory process responds to the
changes in technologies in markets that have been going on. The
regulations that were written in the early '90s really, in many
cases, have become a bit outmoded. There's a lot that's really
good, but there's a lot that's really largely irrelevant today,
and I think that kind of regulatory responsiveness is a subject
that the industry needs.
Mr. Perlmutter. Thank you, and I yield back to the Chair.
Chairman Babin. Thank you. Now we're going to go back
through for a second round of questions, and we're going to
limit this to three minutes, if that's okay with everyone.
So my first question would be to Dr. Pace. In your
testimony you mentioned that there's a need to protect the
electromagnetic spectrum used by remote sensing and GPS. Now,
if you would, please explain in more detail to the Committee.
Dr. Pace. Well, sir, for example, remote sensing is
crucially reliant upon things like GPS to provide the actual
location of the data. So if there's interference with GPS,
there's interference with the remote sensing industry.
Chairman Babin. Uh-huh.
Dr. Pace. There's also great pressure on all space spectrum
by commercial communications. Everybody understands the
importance of mobile broadband, the importance of that to the
economy and growing the economy, but also there are unique
functions that are under great pressure. One area in particular
that's come up recently, and I'm sorry to use the phrase, six
to nine gigahertz. There's some high frequencies that are being
talked about for--in a Senate--on the Senate side, and this
incorporates--covers a lot of microwave sounders that are used
by multiple weather systems. And you can't move to other areas.
The water molecule doesn't vibrate in some places. It's not
flexible. And so I would suggest paying attention to spectrum
as an underlying need of the industry, particularly for
critical sensors that really can't be moved anyplace else.
Chairman Babin. Thank you. And then this would be a
question for Dr. Goward and Dr. Pace. Does the U.S. Government
have a requirement to maintain one or two Landsat satellites at
a time?
Dr. Goward. Undefined.
Chairman Babin. Undefined?
Dr. Goward. Um-hum.
Chairman Babin. Okay. That answered that. How about Dr.
Pace? Same thing?
Dr. Pace. Nothing to add. It's--that's been part of the
long story of Landsat.
Chairman Babin. Okay. And then, real quick, all--in the
next ten years, what major developments will be made
commercial, remote sensing, and could these developments be
used by NASA to improve their imaging efforts, or decrease the
cost of remote sensing to the government? And if one of you
would be glad to answer that, I would appreciate it. Dr. Scott?
Dr. Scott. Well, I think there are a number that have
already been made, and this may actually be relevant to one of
the earlier questions. Our most recent satellite launch,
WorldView-3, incorporates 16 spectral bands of high resolution
data, plus an additional 11 spectral bands of 30m resolution
atmospheric data. And that was done leveraging technology that
had been developed for the Landsat program, but at a very small
fraction of the cost of a Landsat satellite. That's just an
example of the sort of innovations that are happening in the
commercial sector that I would encourage the government to
understand better in making its future decisions.
Chairman Babin. Okay. Thank you. I would like to recognize
Mr. Perlmutter again, from Colorado.
Mr. Perlmutter. Can I pass to Mr. Bridenstine as I'm
collecting my thoughts here?
Chairman Babin. Certainly.
Mr. Perlmutter. Okay.
Chairman Babin. I want to recognize the gentleman from
Oklahoma, Chairman Bridenstine.
Mr. Bridenstine. So you're giving me all three of your
minutes? Is that what's going on here? No, I'm kidding. I'll
take my own three minutes. Thank you, Chairman, and Mr.
Perlmutter. A couple of thoughts I had. You mentioned, Mr.
Schingler, the exquisite spectral bands and capabilities from
Landsat, and maybe that's not your area of expertise, but you
could have a distributed architecture, or disaggregation, where
you could have different satellites doing different things.
I heard, you know, Dr. Pace talk about--in his testimony he
talks about maybe not commercializing Landsat, but using other
sources to gather data. Is it possible, when you think about
Landsat, and the commercial opportunities that are out there
right now, can we gather similar data that would be useful,
given the exquisite spectral bands that Landsat uses? Can
commercial provide a resource in addition to Landsat, Dr. Pace?
Dr. Pace. Yeah, I think it can, and I think it would make
for a robust series. Landsat data continuity is one of the
precious things that the science community has, and rightly
wants to guard, so having additional satellites has been
mentioned. The idea of a single Landsat was never the original
idea. It was always to have this kind of continuous
observation. That, to me, sounds like a service that could be
provided, with maybe government as a foundation, but with
complements from the private sector in a way that, I would
argue, is analogous to what's been talked about with GPS radio
occultation.
Mr. Bridenstine. I noticed that in your testimony, and
thank you for bringing that up. I was not expecting that, but
that's something we've worked hard on this Committee to have,
radio occultation move alongside the other great capabilities
that are being provided by NOAA, to move alongside it. And
we've actually carved out some funding in our bill here on this
Committee to make sure that NOAA could purchase that data. And,
of course, working with Dr. Voles and Admiral Brown on those
capabilities has been a great experience.
One last thing with my last 50 seconds, and maybe this is a
question for Dr. Scott, we heard Dr. Pace talk about
consistency in the regulatory framework coming from the
Department of Commerce, coming from NOAA. Of course, that's
critically important to this kind of industry. You make
investments, and those investments are for your shareholders.
At the same time, you're signing up contracts. When those
regulations change in midstream, that can have negative
consequences. Can you share with us if there's anything we can
do to ensure that there's--maybe we can, maybe we can't, but
how does that affect you, as a business owner?
Dr. Scott. So when you build satellites that take a few
years to build, and operate for a decade or longer, and have
invested billions of dollars in the course of doing that, the
stability of the regulatory environment is absolutely
essential. You need to know, and your customers need to know,
that they can rely on continuity of service, and that there
won't be variability subject to essentially the whim of a
government agency.
We've been fortunate that we have enjoyed, to date, an
environment where, while it has not necessarily been as forward
leaning as we would like, it's been stable. The ability of that
regulatory environment to, instead of react to, but rather
enable industry to anticipate market needs, that's something
that we would like to see change. The pace of technology is
moving far faster than the regulatory environment that was
conceived back in the 1990s can remotely keep up with. And
that's really one of the biggest impediments in the industry
going forward.
Mr. Bridenstine. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Babin. Yes, sir, thank you. Now I'd like to
recognize the gentlewoman from Maryland, Ms. Edwards.
Ms. Edwards. Thank you, and I'll be brief. I'm just curious
to know if there are some markers that can help us determine
when and if NASA should use public-private partnerships for
data collection. Is there, you know, some--one point, or--and
then how should they be evaluated? Because I think we've gotten
a handle on how we evaluate NASA driven, internal driven
projects. How do we evaluate public-private partnerships? And
if I could start with Dr. Scott, to Mr. Schingler, to Dr.
Busalacchi in that order, and do it as quickly as possible. How
to determine when and if, and how to evaluate them?
Dr. Scott. Probably the simplest phrase is start with
asking. So start with exposing to industry what the needs are,
and at the same time, engage in a dialogue with industry to
understand what the capabilities are. One of the reasons why we
have historically been able to acquire satellites very cost-
effectively is that we approach the problem from both ends. We
approach it from the standpoint of what is the technical
capability, and then what are the business needs and the
business opportunities? And we look for the intersection of
those, as opposed to approaching it unilaterally from one side
and say, well, you know, here's what we want, never mind the
fact that it's nearly impossible to achieve it. We look for the
intersection.
Mr. Schingler. So for when to evaluate it, or for when to
approach public-private partnerships, I think you first do need
to evaluate it first, before you get into a complex arrangement
between industry and government. And that evaluation, just
exactly as Dr. Scott is saying, should be based on the service
as it is today, and the direction of where it's going. And it
may not be from the traditional requirements driven approach,
but more of a capabilities-based approach. And that the
assessment of the data shouldn't be necessarily taken by
itself, but actually in conjunction with other data assets that
are already there.
Dr. Busalacchi. So by forming points, as I mentioned,
heritage, NASA's very good at assessing technical readiness,
what is the reduced cost to the government, and what is the
market demand in the commercial sector, and then evaluating
what is the elimination, or reduction, in the financial and
operational risk, what is the increased efficiency to be had,
and what is the reduction in the fixed cost? I say those five
main things can be evaluated.
Ms. Edwards. Thank you. 25 seconds to spare, and I yield.
Chairman Babin. Thank you. Appreciate it, Ms. Edwards. And
I'd like to recognize the gentleman from Colorado.
Mr. Perlmutter. Thank you. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. Dr.
Busalacchi, just a question, and congratulations, I think, are
in order for you to co-chair the decadal --- you know, I've got
to tell you, before I ever got on this Committee, I never heard
the word decadal before, and I never was quite sure--apparently
it's every ten years. It doesn't have anything to do with
decay, does----
Dr. Busalacchi. No, but our report will be done in much
less than a decade.
Mr. Perlmutter. All right. So my question to you is, as a
co-chair with Dr. Abdalati, from the University of Colorado, by
the way, are you going to be focusing on how the data's
collected, or what types of data are collected, or both? I
mean, can you share what your focus of the committee's going to
be?
Dr. Busalacchi. So I'm not being facetious, it is all of
the above. It will be looking at what census--or what missions
where in the queue from the previous decadal survey that have
yet to be realized, what new science and applications may be
possible going forward, and, as we've been hearing here, what
role can the private sector play, and what are the new
technologies? Just right now the academy is having--spinning up
a report that will be out before our report on CubeSATs. And so
I fully agree with Mr. Schingler, access to space is a key
issue, and if we could lower down the cost to access to space,
the potential is there for these CubeSATs to be up there, and
really change sort of our approach. So, again, short answer is
yes to all of, existing science, new science, new technologies,
and commercialization in the private sector.
Mr. Perlmutter. Thank you, Doctor, and I'll yield back to
the Chair.
Chairman Babin. Thank you, Mr. Perlmutter. I want to thank
the witnesses for their testimony, and the Members for your
questions. The record will remain open for two weeks for
additional written comments, and written questions from
members. And with that, this hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:59 a.m., the Subcommittees were
adjourned.]
Appendix I
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Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
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