 10, 9, we have Ignition Sequence style. Scroen by people in every nation on earth, what they're able to produce determines the basic quality of their lives. Developed nations, shown on this world food distribution map in blues and greens, can produce or buy enough food for their own people. But half the world's population lives in countries which have been slow to develop advanced technology. Although these developing nations of Asia, Africa and the Middle East are increasing their ability to produce food and other products, predictions are that there will still be 800 million people without enough to eat in 1985. Experts agree that the developing countries must be helped to increase their own production. Experts also agree that grain banks must be created in countries which can afford them. Extra grain, which can be shipped to areas where starvation threatens the population. Grains are the world's most important food crop because they provide the flour for the basic food supply of most families. Bread. 1972, a satellite was launched which will help to manage world agriculture. Landsat, the earth resources satellite. Images recorded by the satellite from 910 kilometers in space are being tested by agricultural planners to see how landsat can be used to map the different crops growing on the earth's surface. Early studies prove that the images clearly identified basic kinds of earth surfaces. Rock and bare soil areas shown on this image in grays and whites. Water, shown in black. And vegetation, shown here in red. But to manage agricultural crops effectively, planners must know more than that. They must know how many acres of each crop are growing and what harvest can be expected. Experiments show that when landsat data is processed through a computer, the areas of vegetation can be broken up into various kinds of vegetation. This landsat image of an area in South Dakota showed that by selecting a few wheat fields in a test area, all the wheat fields in that area could then be identified. The United States Department of Agriculture has recently started using landsat to improve the accuracy of United States crop acreage estimates. Traditional USDA methods rely on information from telephone and mail surveys, and from reports of observers who visit sample fields throughout the season to measure the amount and progress of crops. Agency officials say that by adding landsat data to their conventional ground reporting systems, they are now able to get greater accuracy at less cost than by using conventional methods alone. At the Johnson Space Center in Texas, an experiment is underway to see if landsat images can be used to help estimate crop production on a worldwide basis. The experiment is called LACI, the Large Area Crop Inventory Experiment. Three U.S. government agencies are working together in LACI. NASA, the agency which operates landsat, NOAA, the agency which operates the National Weather Service, and the United States Department of Agriculture, which has responsibility for all agricultural programs of the U.S. government. LACI is experimenting only with production estimates on wheat. Later efforts may test other crops. LACI in simple form works like this. Electronic data from landsat is converted into film images much like photographs. Interpreters select and mark areas in each image which are known to be wheat. Information about these known wheat areas is then fed into computers. Trained operators request the computer to display all areas in the image which are like wheat. Once the number of acres of wheat is estimated, an attempt is made to discover the yield of each acre. How many bushels per acre are likely to be harvested? And here's where NOAA enters the experiment. Weather information, gathered from NOAA's meteorological ground stations, is combined with other information to predict yield per acre estimates. Finally, landsat's estimate of the number of acres of wheat is multiplied by estimates of the yield per acre to compute the total production estimate for a large area. During the first year of the LACI experiment, scientists studied only areas in the United States' Great Plains. Sample areas were studied closely and the results were verified by aerial photos and site visits. Now, LACI is exploring possibilities for studying wheat-growing areas outside the United States. For example, this image is a wheat-producing area in Australia. If LACI is successful in predicting wheat production in test areas, it will provide an efficient, cost-effective way to monitor agricultural activity. The techniques will be available to benefit mankind, helping to alleviate fears of worldwide famine. Every man, woman, and child in America uses the equivalent of a tree 100 feet tall and 16 inches in diameter every year. Fortunately, trees are a renewable resource, but they must be well managed to obtain maximum growth. It takes from 60 to 100 years for an unmanaged forest crop to renew itself, to grow from seedling to a forest ready for harvest. However, today's commercial forest managers are growing successive crops of softwood timber in a much shorter time. Genetically superior seedlings are planted and cared for in nurseries under ideal conditions. The young trees are moved carefully to cleared areas when they are strong enough to survive. Growth is encouraged in many ways. For example, helicopters spray the young trees with fertilizer pellets. One of the nation's largest forest products companies, the Warehouser Company, recently worked with scientists at the Goddard Space Flight Center to see whether Landsat might help keep track of what is happening to forest crops. Warehouser must keep track of 5.7 million acres of timberland. The company studied Landsat imagery of its North Carolina region to see what it would reveal. The area inside the white square is the study area. This is a computer blow-up of that study area, recorded in August 1973. This blow-up of the same area was recorded six months later, in February 1974. Comparison of the two images reveal that Landsat can be a useful tool for recording changes in forest conditions. Notice the area outlined on the left-hand image. It is mostly red, indicating a growing forest. Now look at the same area outlined on the February image. Much of what was red in August now shows up in black. The image shows that this area of about 50 acres has changed, been cleared, or perhaps burned during the six months. Most industrial forest companies already have systems for monitoring timber homings. The steadily improving Landsat technology may provide an economical supplement for gathering needed information. This could contribute to more efficient management of the 200 million acres of commercial forest land throughout the United States. Insect damage to crops and trees is a fearful threat to farmers and foresters. Damage to certain trees begins when the larva stage of particular insects, such as this gypsy moth caterpillar, chew away at the leaves. Gradually, the trees are defoliated and must begin working overtime to grow new leaves to save themselves. If the insects strip the trees of foliage two or three years in a row, the trees will die. In 1973, gypsy moths defoliated 1.7 million acres in the northeastern United States. The hope in the fight against gypsy moths is to be able to see where they are attacking and kill them before permanent damage is done. The trees may be saved if the insects are sprayed after their first attack, but before they attack again a year later. This 1973 Landsat image of a forested area in Pennsylvania revealed areas under gypsy moth attack. Note the discolored streaks where trees have been defoliated. This suggests that the satellite can be used to provide inexpensive maps for pilots who need to know where the damage is occurring in order to spray effectively. These early experiments using Landsat to help monitor the Earth's agricultural resources offer great promise for the future. It's just a beginning for the many peaceful uses of outer space. Air and water, which we have always taken for granted, is slowly deteriorating and has begun to repair what we have damaged and to preserve the natural resources that are still unharmed. Citizen protests, actions by Congress, the White House, all are involved in the fight. Even outer space is getting into the act. Landsat, the Earth Resources Satellite. Landsat records images of large areas of the Earth's surface from 910 kilometers in space. The satellite offers new and valuable information to people who are grappling with difficult problems of environmental quality. This computerized Landsat image shows a scene in the state of Maryland, a scene much like this one. A strip mine producing coal, an efficient source of energy to meet America's growing energy needs. Inge is the cheapest, quickest way to mine coal. Strip off the top layers of Earth, shove them to one side, and gouge out the coal that lies in shallow areas beneath the surface. And hauled away, and the mine is abandoned. What remains? A scarred land, stripped of vegetation, topsoil gone, wildlife gone, streams polluted by the dark acids of the coal mining operation. Strip mining has become one of America's most serious land destruction problems. The state of Maryland is using Landsat imagery to do something about reclaiming land which has been damaged by strip mining. The process of restoring the land will be started by the strip mining companies, if laws requiring them to do so are passed and enforced. The state of Maryland has such a law. It requires coal companies to replace topsoil and plant new vegetation, and then to pass inspection by state officials. To enforce such a law, officials in Maryland must know the location of every strip mine, and what stage of mining or reclamation the mine is in. It's a costly kind of survey for the hundreds of mines in different conditions. Locating and monitoring strip mines is becoming cheaper and faster by using computerized Landsat images. Landsat's remote sensing instruments can survey the entire state, revealing old and new strip mines quickly and accurately. By examining the Landsat image with a computer, all areas of bare earth can be displayed in one color, red in this example, light blue is used for natural vegetation, and white for mined areas where land reclamation has begun. 2.3 million acres of land have been stripped for coal mining in the United States. Only one-third of this land has been reclaimed. As stronger laws are passed in states which allow strip mining, Landsat can become a major tool in helping to keep the balance between digging the coal American needs and restoring the land it must preserve. Locating air pollution from outer space is more difficult than locating destroyed land areas. But the satellite did play space detective in a story about weather changes caused by people on the shores of Lake Michigan. This mosaic of satellite images shows the bottom tip of Lake Michigan, where steel mills on the lake's western shore sent plumes of smoke out over the water. Across the lake on the eastern shore, an unusual amount of snow had been falling over one land area. Steel mills here, lake here, snow here. It was a meteorologist studying this Landsat image who came up with an answer to the mystery. The satellite image showed smoke plumes coming from the steel mills seen in the center of the circle. The smoke can be seen traveling over the lake in an eastward direction. The particles of smoke encounter moist air out over the lake. The smoke particles then act as condensation nuclei and cause snow to form under certain meteorological conditions. Clouds blow on over the lake to the opposite shore and drop their load of snow on the people there. Until the Landsat image, the relationship between the particles of smoke and the clouds had never been observed. It's a case of unintentional cloud seeding discovered and recorded by Landsat every day. Much of it is dumped into our waters of New York and New Jersey. Waste is hauled 20 kilometers out to sea and dumped there. In the past few years, fears have been growing that water circulation patterns may be bringing pollution from these distant dumps back to shore. Water near the beaches has shown signs of pollution and the causes of the problem are not clear. Here is a Landsat image of the New York, New Jersey shoreline displayed on a computer. The satellite's remote sensing instruments reveal the hairpin-shaped garbage and acid dumps, 20 kilometers from shore. The computerized image can also detect where suspended solids fill the water along the shoreline, giving scientists a new kind of map for studying ways that polluting substances move from one place to another. One special kind of waste disposal has become a killer of American waters. The chemical wastes from thousands of factories hyped into our lakes and rivers. These chemical factory wastes often carry large amounts of nitrates and phosphates into the water, which slowly kills all living plants and animals through a process called eutrophication. Ironically, these phosphates and nitrates are the basic ingredients in the fertilizers which people use to make their lawns and gardens healthy. It is this very fertilizing quality of the chemicals, which causes the problem in lakes which receive large amounts of factory wastes. The heavy amount of fertilizing chemicals shot into the lake begin to super-fertilize the green algae, which normally grows in healthy amounts. The algae multiplies with great speed, often blanketing the water with a green scum. Results? The natural relationship between growing and dying plants and animals in the lake is thrown out of balance. The lake's oxygen supply grows smaller and smaller, and the living things in the lake die. The fear of phosphate damage to Lake Champlain in the northeastern United States involved landsat imagery in a court battle between the states of New York and Vermont, which border Lake Champlain. When a new paper mill was built on the New York side of the lake, it started piping its waste chemicals deep into the lake. Vermont officials tested the water. They claimed that these chemicals were traveling to the Vermont side of the lake, and that damage was likely to occur. New York denied that the paper mill waste products were reaching Vermont waters. Sources of pollution are difficult to trace. Was the pollution plume traveling, or wasn't it? Looking for evidence, a scientist at the University of Vermont examined a landsat image of the lake and surrounding area. With the help of a computer, he located the paper mill. He also saw that the plume of pollution coming from the paper mill could be clearly detected, and that it did cross into Vermont waters. The result of the long court battle between the states was an agreement to protect Vermont's waters. Landsat images can be used to help enforce this agreement. Remote sensing by satellite is in its infancy as a tool for helping to solve the earth's environmental problems. Researchers are testing the images in many different ways to discover what they can reveal, knowing that landsat can help in the battle to restore the dying and preserve the living environments of our land, sea, and air. The closer look may be the better look, but to understand the whole of something, the better look may well be the look from farther away, tough out into space, that we get our first view of the earth as a planet. In 1972, a satellite was launched specifically to record images of large areas of the earth from an orbit 910 kilometers away. Landsat, the earth resources satellite. Geologists welcome landsats' big views from space as a new way to study large areas of the Earth's crust. Satellite images are providing complete, detailed views of faults in the Earth's crust. These cracks in the surface may run for hundreds of kilometers, but they're not easy to detect and trace. Landsat images, 185 kilometers on each side, offer geologists an exciting new view of these important earth fractures. Geologists study faults in the Earth's crust, such as this view of part of California's San Andreas fault system for many reasons. One important reason is earthquakes. This diagram shows an earthquake-prone fault in the Earth's crust. Great pressures from deep inside the Earth can begin to press on one side of the fault. On the other side, the Earth begins to slip, to move, and then suddenly shifts. Earthquake-prone fault in the state of California, a huge fracture more than 1,000 kilometers long, the San Andreas fault system, consisting of many smaller faults, like this recent break. Hundreds of earthquakes have occurred along this fault and the smaller faults that branch off of it. Landsat images of the geological fault systems in California have given scientists a new and valuable perspective on this threat of earthquakes to the population of this region. Views like this, combined with many other kinds of data, will help scientists monitor the San Andreas fault system. Knowing exactly where the faults lie should help to determine where not to build a town, a nuclear power plant, or a recreational mountain resort. Landsat images can be used to revise and correct the geologic maps of all areas of the Earth where earthquakes occur. Fractures in the Earth's crust are related to more than hazards like volcanoes and earthquakes. They're the pathways through which minerals travel upward from the depths of the Earth. Minerals begin as solutions, containing chemical elements far below the Earth's surface. High temperatures form bodies of magma or molten rock. Mineralizing liquids from these bodies of magma move through faults and fractures, diagrammed here in yellow. Along the way, the rising liquids interact with rocks in the crust and gradually form minerals. Iron, gold, lead, copper, silver, all of the many ores which are precious hidden resources. Iron is often present when other minerals are formed. And just as anything which contains iron will rust when left exposed to air and moisture, rocks which contain iron show a color change when they're exposed on the Earth's surface. This discoloration was a clue to possible mineral deposits which early prospectors would search for. Early gold hunters would also look near streams, probably without ever knowing that streams follow fractures and fractures are likely to have ore deposits nearby. In their search, these prospectors had a little knowledge, hunches and prayers. Most found disappointment. A few found gold. And the easy to find surface deposits of gold and other ores have been exhausted. Geologists have had to look harder and more scientifically for new deposits, probing deep into Earth fractures for the treasure. Modern technology can remove ores from deep in the Earth and every known deposit is drilled, exploded, and dug to produce its maximum yield. Global resource, harder and harder to find at a time when the world's growing population demands more and more mineral resources for manufactured products and energy. Challenges facing geologists today is to find scarce new mineral deposits. The launching of Landsat in 1972 began a new era for geologists involved in this urgent search. This is a Landsat map of the entire United States, a mosaic of many overlapping Landsat images piece smoothly together. This new total view reveals to the eye of a trained geologist the subtle indications of entire fault systems which were previously undetected. For example, many gold, silver and copper mines in the state of Nevada are found along a fracture called the Midas Trench. The Midas Trench is shown here by arrows placed along the fracture on this Landsat image. Since minerals most often develop along fault lines, Landsat's better mapping of faults provides modern-day prospectors with valuable clues as they explore new areas. Landsat imagery can provide another hint to people trying to design where to begin prospecting operations. When Landsat images are processed on a computer, areas with surface iron oxide discoloration can be clearly distinguished from surrounding areas by displaying them in a separate color, for example, green. This surface discoloration can be a sign of mineralization. This is a Landsat image of a well-known mining area in Nevada. When the locations of known mines are placed over the Landsat image, they match the areas of the iron oxide discoloration. In exploring new areas for minerals, Landsat maps which show fractures and discolorations are a useful first step in showing prospectors where to begin work with other exploration techniques. Landsat can't find the buried treasure, but it can help point the way. Landsat's remote sensing view and its continuing repetitive coverage of the same area can also record changes in the Earth's land masses. At the bottom of this Landsat mosaic of Iceland is the small island of Hamey, an island with a volcano which had shown no activity for years. In 1973, that changed. The volcano suddenly erupted. The volcano roared, raining fiery volcanic ash down on the town. The air filled with poisonous gases belched out of the volcano. The people were all evacuated and much of the town was destroyed as waves of red-hot lava poured through the streets and on into the sea. By the time the volcano was spent, lava pouring into the sea and solidifying had added two and one-half square kilometers to the size of the island. A reminder that this entire island was once formed by volcanic lava bursting out from beneath the ocean floor. The new two and one-half square kilometers of land were recorded clearly on this Landsat image, showing scientists how the satellite can be used to map land mass changes in the most remote areas of the Earth. Landsat's remote sensing provides us a view from outer space which helps us to better understand our dynamic and ever-changing planet.