This growth has continued even further through the improved performance of 
photogrammetry, when computers were introduced into the technology. 
The Space Program to reach the moon was an added challenge to free 
photogrammetry of rigid conventional approaches. This had beneficial 
influences also on the standard uses in mapping and special applications. 
And then remote sensing from satellites became the off-spring of the space 
program in the 1970's. 
There was a danger for a while, that remote sensing would develop separately 
from photogrammetry, leaving it aside without scope for the future as an 
outdated technology. This was due at that time, no doubt to the reluctance 
of many practically oriented mapping photogrammetrists to hop on the 
bandwagon which was offered to many disciplines by the initial earth 
observation space effort. Now that commercialization of space remote 
sensing is, rightly or wrongly, in sight at this time, the bandwagon 
opportunities have made way to a more realistic assessment of the 
capabilities of remote sensing and the growing conviction that the mapping 
profession can make an essential contribution to solve the many problems in 
remote sensing on its road to Geographic Information Systems data 
collection. 
And in this respect, I am glad that the integration of remote sensing is 
steadily taking place within our own society, particularly in the field of 
mapping, but also in industrial applications. This integration is also most 
beneficial and essential to the further development of classical 
photogrammetry, which can be considered as being in a state of transition 
from the analogue and analytical phases into the digital phase of the year 
2000. 
Larry Fritz, our Commission President, has played an effective role in 
fostering this continuing transition. I remember his brilliant idea of an 
ASP-Analytical Plotter Symposium, which he chaired in 1980, in order to 
bridge the wide gap between analogue photogrammetric practitioners and 
governmental analytical photogrammetrists. 
Now he is to be congratulated again in having succeeded in arranging 
co-sponsorship and participation of such important organizations responsible 
for the world-wide introduction and the spreading of remote sensing as NOAA 
and NASA, and I would like to heartily welcome Dr. Bishop and Dr. Tilford 
who represent these organizations here today. 
The International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing can 
certainly not claim to be the only organization to hold important meetings 
on remote sensing technology, nor does it intend to. We live in a 
pluralistic society and it is better to coexist, to cooperate and to 
coordinate with other organizations having activities in remote sensing such 
as IEEE, the IAF, ERIM and many regional groups such as AAS and Earsel. 
This is better than staking out idle claims. 
In this respect, those responsible for these organizations have agreed to 
meet at regular intervals to coordinate scheduling and topics of meetings 
and to sponsor joint events, if this is considered useful. We also hope 
that NOAA, NASA and other agencies involved in such activities will 
participate in these coordination efforts. Our next meeting has been agreed 
upon during the ISPRS Commission VII-Symposium in Enschede at the end of 
August of this year. 
Mr. Fritz has, in addition to the remote sensing sector, furthermore 
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