The most comprehensive program ever undertaken to monitor the Earth as an ecosystem will allow you to examine terabytes of data generated daily by nineteen Earth- orbiting satellites - in real-time, and with full-color graphics.
"We're certainly going to be the largest data-generating system in the civilian world. No question about it," says Robert Price, Director of the Mission to Planet Earth Office at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center near Baltimore. Over a 15-year period, nineteen Earth-orbiting satellites (EOS) will be sent skyward by the space agency. One of the largest will generate a terabyte (1012 bytes) of data about the Earth every eight days - that's enough to fill 2,000 CDs or 500,000,000 pages of text. "The EOS program will produce data on the scale of that contained within the Library of Congress about every ten days," says Price.
NASA's Mission to Planet Earth (MPTE) represents what may be the most comprehensive program ever undertaken in the name of understanding the Earth as an ecosystem. Once charged solely with exploring distant worlds, NASA is now turning its attention homeward. "The idea grew out of a critical mass of scientists coming together to understand how the Earth as a system is changing," Price explains. "If humankind is changing the face of the Earth, it's time we started answering some of the scientific questions relating to that."
Are we irrevocably altering the biosphere? Half of the estimated 7 billion tons of carbon dioxide we emit annually into the atmosphere remains there permanently. That's the equivalent, in weight, of 136 Volkswagen beetles parking in our atmosphere every second of every day. Yet no definitive evidence exists that would force us into changing our ways. With-out compelling proof, businesses and governments tend to ignore dire warnings. Simply put, we do not have the facts.
Just one of the EOS's satellites will generate 45 terabytes in a year. If stored on the common nine-track magnetic reel, that's 270,000 tapes.
So are we screwing things up, or can the Earth take it? Mission to Planet Earth will address this crucial question, and in the process give us a wealth of new information about desertification, acid rain, the greenhouse effect, ozone depletion, weather cycles, oceans, crop growth, skin cancer, cataracts, and even the human immune system.
The goal: Take every ecological aspect of that spinning blue-green ball of rock and water we call Earth and transform it into data that is instantly available for analysis and experimentation anywhere, anytime.
Mission to Planet Earth has generated a host of challenges for NASA. The sheer volume of data required to address these environmental issues will be unprecedented - and expensive. Originally slated for US$17 billion, Mission to Planet Earth's budget has been whittled down to US$8 billion through the year 2000. When amortized annually, that accounts for about 8 percent of NASA's US$14.3 billion annual budget. Regardless of budget cuts, the program will launch its first satellite in 1998, and will continue launching through the year 2013.
But sending data-collecting satellites spaceward is only half the task. Storing, analyzing, and rapidly disseminating the information once it is sent back will prove equally difficult. To manage this massive data system, NASA is constructing the Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) and placing its resources on the Internet.
Based at the Goddard Space Flight Center, the EOSDIS building will work with eight other Distributive Active Archive Centers (DAACs) located across the continental United States and Alaska. Each archive will cater to a specific scientific discipline. One DAAC at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama will focus on the Earth's hydrological cycle. Another in Oakridge, Tennessee will focus on the bio-geo-chemical cycle, tracing carbon as it moves through the atmosphere, the oceans, and all living things.
The information to be generated by EOS will be unparalleled in scale. When completed, EOSDIS will be the Earth's largest database, holding some 10 petabytes (1016), or 10 quadrillion bytes of information. That is equal to about 10 billion books (the Library of Congress holds a mere 27 million).
How is NASA going to store so much information? "What's saving our rear, so to speak, is a lot of new storage technologies that look really promising," says Jim Green, chief of the Space Science Data Operations Office at Goddard Space Flight Center.
While NASA is not sure just what those storage technologies will be - the field is changing too rapidly to commit to anything for a project that begins in 1998 - Green is confident that the technology of storing data will continue to match NASA's ability to collect and distribute it through the Internet.
(Just one of EOS's satellites will generate an average of 45 terabytes in a year. If stored on the common nine-track magnetic reel, that's 270,000 tapes. And that satellite has a 15-year mission. With the helical scan storage technology NASA is currently utilizing, 45 terabytes can be stored on top of a desk.)
The general public often senses that an agency like NASA has more information than it knows how to deal with - that somewhere there is a warehouse, dark and cavernous, where all data is destined to land. In fact, nothing could be farther from the truth.
"Data is too unique and expensive to be locked up in archives," says Ethan Schreier, associate director for operations at the Space Telescope Science Institute.
Once the data is collected and stored, it must be put to use. For massive amounts of data, the most efficient route is visualization - creating tools that will take Mission to Planet Earth's terabytes and turn them into working models scientists can use. While several research consortia are vying to create Mission to Planet Earth's visualization system, the Sequoia 2000 project, established at the San Diego Supercomputer Center, is a top contender for the job.
"How do you deal with mass amounts of data?" asks Peter Kochevar, head of the Sequoia Visualization Research Group. "Our answer is to make use of the bandwidth of the human visual system so that a person can make the most appropriate sense of information that is contained in data."
The goal is to represent ecological data visually, then look for patterns that illustrate the degree to which our species has altered the global environment.
In other words, a picture is worth a thousand lines of code.
With research funding from NASA, Sequoia 2000 is also developing database management and high-speed networking tools that complement the visualization process.
In Sequoia's prototypes, a screen displays a map of the world. Click on a portion of that world, and the region is brought to the foreground. Through an array of icons, the end-user can trigger a climate simulation program with topography colored as a function of elevation, and arrows representing wind vectors.
"We might put down some digital smoke, for example, then travel with that through the upper atmosphere as it follows the wind vectors. We get to see eddying effects as the wind courses across the Rocky Mountains," says Kochevar. "These are the things scientists are looking for. They're looking for patterns in their data. They're looking for processes at work that explain weather systems."
But once NASA's satellites are quietly orbiting the Earth and scientists are receiving objective information on how our ecosystem is faring, the hard work will probably just have started. While it will be difficult to store, distribute, and understand terabytes worth of data, it will be infinitely more difficult to change the policies of businesses and governments based on that understanding.
But the facts, at least, are forthcoming. The first small step for humankind - shifting our focus inward - is underway. Welcome to the new frontier in space - managing our old frontiers here on Earth.
Hubble is Only the Beginning
Mission to Planet Earth lives in the realm of data superlatives. But other NASA programs serve as helpful precursors. The Hubble Space Telescope is a prime example.
Hubble is commonly remembered by its flaw: an imperfection less than half the width of a human hair that is scheduled for repair during the December shuttle mission. Less understood, though, is that Hubble is the most powerful optical telescope in the world.
Hubble is one of NASA's mega-projects, currently generating close to half a terabyte of data a year. That will nearly double, in half the time, the amount of information previously collected and now stored in Goddard's archive. This fact was anticipated when Hubble was on the drawing board. The design process forced NASA to rethink the acquisition and distribution of astronomical information.
NASA's information has always been public, but the technology has not always existed to make it readily available to astronomers. But as NASA was preparing for Hubble's data, the desktop PC and the Internet became standard equipment in the astronomy community. Now to see fine portraits of galaxies, users no longer have to wait for processed data, or for use of a supercomputer.
Contact Information
Mission to Planet Earth: +1 (310) 286 6255.
Sequoia 2000 Project Public ftp: (toe.cs.berkely.edu128.32.149.117), go to directory/pub/sequoia. Contact: Dr. Peter Kochevar (kochevar@sdsc.edu) San Diego Supercomputer Center: +1 (619) 534 5000.
General information: Ira Machefsky (ira@postgres.berkely.edu) DEC Sequoia 200 project manager: +1 (415) 853 2160.
Space Telescope Science Institute (Hubble) Space Telescope Electronic Information System: (ftp stsci.edu 130.167.1.2), or call (800) 544 8125, +1 (410) 338 4700.
The Social Dimension
"If you want to understand what global changes are taking place, you need to understand the [human] factors that are the causing them... And you need to understand the impact." So says Dr. Roberta Balstad-Miller, president and CEO of the Consortium for International Earth Science Information Network, or CIESIN. Based in Saginaw, Michigan with satellite offices in Ann Arbor and Washington, DC, CIESIN's reach is as global as the Internet.
One of the nine terrestrial partners in NASA's Mission to Planet Earth EOSDIS program, CIESIN's charter is "To facilitate access to, use, and understanding of global change information." CIESIN is a nexus of socio- economic data and applications that will act as an online "virtual data center" - a repository for information that can be analyzed in light of the ecological data collected from the orbiting satellites.
Miller sees the organization as bridge between the natural sciences and the social sciences. "We're creating integrated databases that have both natural and socio-economic features and data. We're also a bridge between the scientific community and the policy community. "
CIESIN will share information from many affiliated sites, including the sizable databases of such notable organizations as the Atlanta, Georgia- based Center for Disease Control, the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland, and the Tata Energy Research Institute in India.
Typically, the socio-economic data of the world's nations has been stored discreetly in repositories within those countries. Through CIESIN, these repositories are becoming interconnected. Of the propitious information zeitgeist, Miller is certain. "It couldn't have happened ten years ago," she says. "Ten years ago we always saw the world in terms of our own nation. Now what propels much of this is a research agenda that scientists are developing in order to understand changes on a global scale. The kind of information that we have is a peaceful information, there's no benefit in keeping it to ourselves."
CIESIN is also very wired. From basic e-mail and store-and-forward connectivity - through which researchers could order a custom-made CD-ROM - to 45-Mbit access for "online science" - CIESIN's goal is open access to resources. This year's efforts focus on getting more developing nations online. Projects are already underway in Brazil, Argentina, and Nigeria. Currently, (ciesin.org) has a registered Gopher-site, a WAIS-server, and a World Wide Web (WWW) server running Mosaic. Send mail to (ciesin.info @ciesin.org) for more information. -Will Kreth
Hubble is Only the Beginning
Mission to Planet Earth lives in the realm of data superlatives. But other NASA programs serve as helpful precursors. The Hubble Space Telescope is a prime example.
Hubble is commonly remembered by its flaw: an imperfection less than half the width of a human hair that is scheduled for repair during the December shuttle mission. Less understood, though, is that Hubble is the most powerful optical telescope in the world.
Hubble is one of NASA's mega-projects, currently generating close to half a terabyte of data a year. That will nearly double, in half the time, the amount of information previously collected and now stored in Goddard's archive. This fact was anticipated when Hubble was on the drawing board. The design process forced NASA to rethink the acquisition and distribution of astronomical information.
NASA's information has always been public, but the technology has not always existed to make it readily available to astronomers. But as NASA was preparing for Hubble's data, the desktop PC and the Internet became standard equipment in the astronomy community. Now to see fine portraits of galaxies, users no longer have to wait for processed data, or for use of a supercomputer.
Contact Information
Mission to Planet Earth: +1 (310) 286 6255.
Sequoia 2000 Project Public ftp: (toe.cs.berkely.edu128.32.149.117), go to directory/pub/sequoia. Contact: Dr. Peter Kochevar (kochevar@sdsc.edu) San Diego Supercomputer Center: +1 (619) 534 5000.
General information: Ira Machefsky (ira@postgres.berkely.edu) DEC Sequoia 200 project manager: +1 (415) 853 2160.
Space Telescope Science Institute (Hubble) Space Telescope Electronic Information System: (ftp stsci.edu 130.167.1.2), or call (800) 544 8125, +1 (410) 338 4700.
Garrett Culhane (garrett@well.sf.ca.us) is a San Francisco-based freelance writer.
