Find the Facts 
The first action is not to decrease the number of photogrammetrists. Like everyone else, I believe that 
the population that should be controlled is not me, but some faceless, nameless they somewhere else in the 
world. 
Quite clearly the task with which we are all faced is to learn to manage the entire world. We need to 
develop the scientific, political, and social mechanisms to provide enough food, reasonable freedom from 
onerous labour, and a life expentancy beyond age 35 to every person on the globe. We need to find and 
distribute the resources to do this, being at the same time responsive to the legitimate concern that near-time 
gains are not taken at the expense of long-term deterioration of the planet which we hold in trust for future 
generations. 
The most obvious prerequisite for effective management is information. And the type of information 
required for resource discovery, distribution, and management is most efficiently collected by the techniques 
of photogrammetry. The requirement for basic topographic mapping as a fundamental tool for planning does 
not need to be elaborated before this audience. Our first task is to continue to develop our mapping technology 
so that more information can be produced at less expense and in shorter time frames so that development need 
never be impeded by the lack of adequate data about the terrain. 
We have come to appreciate that the conventional line drawn map does not provide all the information 
which land planners need and can use. The orthophotomap is a nearly ideal method of presenting all the 
information on the photograph while at the same time preserving the metric accuracy on which photogramme- 
trists pride themselves. Last year the Institut Geographique National in Paris held a Symposium on 
Orthophotography. It was attended by representatives from 25 countries. Their consensus was that orthophoto- 
mapping was essential to provide speed of compilation, completeness of detail, and low cost. It was agreed that 
orthophotomaps would be most useful in urban areas, but as yet we do not know how to handle the 
discontinuities in scale presented by tall buildings. 
Those of you who have known me for years know that I have generally been scornful of photointerpreta- 
tion as an art rather than a science. I am still inclined to feel that way. I have attended too many meetings where 
one speaker gets up and says, in effect, ‘I knew there were land and water down there, and I flew my camera 
over the area. And when I looked at the pictures - sure enough - there were land and water. The experiment 
was a success". And the next speaker will say, “I knew there were wheat and oats down there, and I flew my 
scanner over the area. And when I looked at the records - sure enough - there were wheat and oats"'. The 
empirical, pragmatic, approach has not been adequately supported by the science which causes and permits 
unambiguous recognition of the signatures. Yet I firmly believe that when the world is saved by photogramme- 
try, the success will be more attributable to the photointerpreters and remote sensor types than to us micron 
chasers whose god is positional accuracy rather than content. The development of the science - rather than the 
art - of image interpretation is certainly one of the most challenging tasks immediately before us. 
One of the favorite targets of environmentalists and other scientists, whose personal ox has been gored 
by lack of funding, is the space programme. I recently encountered a satirical note that said “What is a 
spacecraft but the precise dynamic equivalent, in terms of our present theology and cosmology, of the static 
Egyptian pyramid? Both are devices for securing, at extravagant cost, a passage to heaven for the favored 
few". 
Surveys of the environment must be global. In the past we have tended to collect information which tells 
us how to do what we have already decided to do. What we need now is information that tells us what to do. 
Satellites provide a means of obtaining worldwide and timely data needed to determine and make visible those 
problems that deserve our most vigorous attention. 
One of the most significant events of our lifetimes was the launch, yesterday, of the Earth Resources 
Technology Satellite (ERTS). It is the first attempt to apply the techniques of photogrammetry and 
photointerpretation on a worldwide scale. Doubtless, in the next two weeks we will hear a great deal about 
ERTS. Photogrammetrists will find much to criticize in the lack of stereo coverage, the relatively poor 
resolution, and the geometric distortions. Nevertheless it will provide an enormous amount of information at 
scales which are compatible with the scope of global problems. We had better learn to use this type of data 
before we clamour for the higher resolution, larger scale, and stereo coverage which we know could be 
obtained. 
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