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In the United States, for example, NASA has long had an aggressive program of Global Earth Sciences. NASA developed the orbiting capabilities which today form the basis of the United States' NOAA and GOES operational weather satellites and the Landsat land remote sensing satellites.

Geostationary weather satellite systems have been developed by Japan, Europe, and India, with GMS, Meteosat and INSAT, respectively. The Soviet Union, France, Japan and India now have land remote sensing spacecraft, ESA, Canada, Germany, Italy, Brazil, China and others are developing satellites or instruments. 

NASA is now orbiting the Nimbus 7 and Earth Radiation Budget, or ERBS, research satellites. Nimbus is providing global data on stratospheric ozone, sea surface and sea ice variables. And EBS is furthering our understanding of the balance of radiation input and output between the Earth and space - a  balance which is key to improving our understanding of climate. 

Beyond these ongoing missions, NASA will be doing much more in the area of Earth Science and Applications in the near future. And many of our activities will be cooperative efforts with other nations.