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dinner not really free: price listening + 1 more talk Dan: don't talk too long don't get too technical [why I'm here] version + JPL/cal space graduate summer pgm sum '90 observing the earth from space the space program has given us the perspective of the earth as a unique, fragile, and beautiful place. Apollo astronaut Jim Lovell: referred to Earth as "a grand Oasis in the great vastness of space". (that's rare eloquence from astronaut - tend more toward poetic or scientifically revealing comments like ".."_) •view the apollo 11 astronauts had standing on the surface of the moon. during the >20 years since Apollo, Scientists have come to appreciate that the Earth is a complex, synergistic system of interacting physical, chemical, and biological components. The oceans, atmosphere, earth's interior and biosphere are highly coupled--none can be understood in isolation … we have to study them as a system. further, civilization's activities over the last several decades have begun to have a significant effect. We are an active and influential component of the system. * as you all know, we are faced with the prospects of accelerated environmental change due to processes of deforestation, desertification, rising levels of CO2 and other "greenhouse gases", ozone depletion. there are many scientific questions which we're only now becoming smart enough to ask) * while NASA has conducted highly visible efforts of human exploration, it has also pioneered study of earth. [remote sensing Landsat, wx satellites; data from Nimbus-7 satellite gave scientists a record of the growing hole in the ozone layer over the Antarctic] The study of the interacting earth system requires a global perspective-- a perspective we can get from earth orbit it also - of course - reqs gnd based observation - but to model + describe whole planet, need data over whole planet (global perspective)