Cooperation with the Soviets: Earth Resources, Weather, and the Environment

As envisioned by NASA-Hydromet-Weather Bureau planners in the early 1960s, a minimum of two polar-orbiting satellites provided by the United States and the Soviet Union would support GARP. Through the course of the 1970s NASA provided two generations of polar-orbiting satellites: the Tiros Operational System (TOS) and the Improved Tiros (ITiros). The Soviets made incremental upgrades to the Meteor system until 1975, when they introduced the Meteor-2 system.

American researchers and the press were quick to point out that Meteor satel­lites tended to have shorter functional and design lives than the US systems (six as opposed to twelve months).39 One trade journal reported that although the Soviets were satisfied with the operation of Meteor satellites, the United States was not. It went on, explaining, “US dissatisfaction with Soviet meteorological data was expressed recently by NASA administrator James Webb, who noted that the Soviets were not living up to the agreement on exchange of data.”40 Although NASA officials described photos as “excellent,” data tended to be delayed 24-48 hours (too late for use in weather prediction) and when they arrived, they were not gridded, adding to the difficulty of using them in a timely manner.41 Were NASA representatives dissatisfied with Soviet technologies, management, or both?

In spite of lags in development and frequent lapses in data dating to the begin­ning of cooperation, the Weather Bureau (later Environmental Science Services Administration and finally, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) continued to use what data was sent over from Moscow. Meantime, Meteor developers took credit for discovering several jet streams—many in the United States—as well as documenting hurricanes along the American east coast.42 Soviet officials estimated that fishing and merchant ships saved 5-7 percent cruising time because they were able to map optimal routes according to weather forecasts.43 In 1975, maritime savings amounted to approximately one million rubles ($1.35 mil­lion) annually and satellites had been crucial predictors of four hurricanes in the

Indian Ocean.44 While it is difficult to evaluate the reliability of these Soviet claims, they do demonstrate the cultural and political significance attributed to the Soviet weather satellite program. In 1970, Science reported that both the United States and Soviet Union were still “heavily involved in GARP” with both nations orbiting Automatic Picture Transmission devices on their satellites.45

In 1975, the Soviet Hydromet committed to launching a geostationary satel­lite (along with the United States, Japan, and the European Space Agency) for 1977-1979 GARP experimentation, but were forced to withdraw the offer in 1978, due to technical difficulties.46 Regardless, the polar-orbiting Meteor sat­ellites continued to provide useful coverage of roughly two-thirds of the globe, including information on cloud cover, ice formation, radiation, weather fronts, and jet streams.

As evidenced by a broad array of periodicals—newspapers, trade journals, and the like—prestigious, cutting-edge projects such as GARP attracted consider­able attention both in the public eye, as well as in professional fields. Morris Tepper, in recalling his work in developing NIMBUS satellites, explained, “By the time we’re talking in this period, the Global Atmospherics Program was get­ting very hot. I was interested in providing the data to that Global Atmospherics Program that they could use in order to globalize the numerical prediction models.”47 Later, he suggested that the linking of the peaceful uses of outer space and meteorology was “an obvious thing and that’s why GARP, which was to provide data to all the research groups all over the world, would be an excel­lent indication that NASA’s providing data to the world in terms of peaceful uses of outer space.”48 Others feared that NASA’s role in the day-to-day opera­tion of programs such as GARP was at times underappreciated. Noted NASA’s 1967 assistant administrator for policy analysis, “in the process of transferring space applications systems to user agencies the ‘space identity’ [i. e., NASA iden­tity] is lost.” Thus, he explained, “the general public does not fully appreciate this important continuing aspect of the NASA program. A clear recognition of our unique role in developing space systems for user agencies should be one of our important objectives.”49 This concern was particularly dire in the uncertain climate of the late 1960s, when NASA funding for even the Apollo program begged repeated justification.50