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of the IGBP. Fundamental studies of physical, chemical and biological processes of all kinds are required. The National Science Foundation (NSF) leads many of these efforts. The National Oceanographic and Atmosphere Administration (NOAA) will provide important data on the immediate state and short-term behavior of the global environment using operational weather satellite data. The U.S. Geological Survey and the NSF can provide studies of the earth's past climate from paleontological studies and from ice sheet cores. These paleoclimatic data are invaluable for testing the validity and robustness of modern GCMs. The U.S. Federal Agencies have come together under the banner of the Committee on Earth Sciences (CES) to define a U.S. Global Change Program along with roles for each of the agencies.

There are many government agencies and international scientific societies that must work together under the spirit of a Mission to Planet Earth to understand our planet and what we are doing to it. But at the heart of all these efforts--essential to their success-- is the global data set on the earth and how it is changing, which can only be provided from space by NASA, and by the other space- faring nations of the world. Some 23 of the national space agencies of countries around the world have formed under NASA leadership the Space Agency Forum for the International Space Year (SAFISY) to coordinate International Space Year (ISY) activities with a major theme being Mission to Planet Earth. It is a fitting theme for the ISY, which was first suggested by Congress and then proclaimed by President Reagan. NASA, which has the responsibility for the ISY in this country, has been encouraging the ISY to give particular emphasis to the study of the earth; not only space observations but also complimentary ground-based studies by all nations of the world which have space activities. The ISY culminates in 1992, and will provide the lead-in to the era of the 1990's when the IGBP and major national programs in global change will begin.

NASA's Preparations for Mission to Planet Earth

NASA currently has a strong program in the earth sciences that will build to a Mission to Planet Earth in the 1990's. The Earth Science and Applications Division in OSSA has an extensive Research and Analysis program, funding mainly the university community, along with a suborbital program of experiments using aircraft, balloons and rockets, to study a variety of earth processes. In addition to the suborbital platforms, we are developing a number of scientific instruments for flight on the Space Shuttle, Space Station and free-flying satellites. These instruments will conduct focused earth studies in preparation for the space components of Mission to Planet Earth. Several older spacecraft are still collecting global earth data including Nimbus-7 and the Earth Radiation Budget Satellite.

We use all of these programs in a coordinated effort to understand our environment; a good example of which is the Upper Atmosphere Program (UARP), a program mandated by the U.S.