
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, May 1, 1990                   TAG: 9005010371
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

NASA DATA/ INFORMATION TROVES LIE UNEXPLORED

THE HUBBLE Space Telescope launched last week has technical problems. But scientists remain confident that most can be overcome and that the telescope will give human beings their clearest view ever of the universe.

Meanwhile, back on Earth are stacks of information about this planet, the solar system and the universe from 30 years of American space missions - and it's not being used. All this is written on an estimated 1 million reels of magnetic tape; most of it has not yet been sorted, catalogued, read or evaluated. Hundreds of thousands of those reels are being stored - if that is the word - under lamentable conditions, and could be lost to us and posterity.

The reels probably contain a lot of junk: Data from earlier missions were radioed back to Earth in great quantity and not always discriminately. But the reels also contain treasures. After sifting 10-year-old information, scientists recently constructed the clearest picture yet seen of Mars' biggest volcano. Upcoming are detailed photographs of the dark side of the moon.

Elsewhere in this trove is information on global-climate change, loss of rain forests and the thinning of the ozone layer. Such intelligence could be vital to decisions governments are trying now to make on broad-scale environmental problems.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has always been better at gathering raw data than managing it. The General Accounting Office reports that NASA doesn't know just what it has on those reels, has never done an agencywide inventory, and doesn't have ready access to tapes stored in its centers or at universities.

GAO found piles of tapes tied down with steel straps, left in warm rooms, or kept in other conditions that could cause irreparable damage or loss. Tapes were prepared for use on data-processing hardware that may no longer exist.

One million tapes are only a beginning. NASA is preparing a "Mission to Planet Earth" program that is expected to produce more data in one day than in those previous 30 years. GAO says the NAS has started to address its data-management problems, but that more money is needed.

Uncle Sam became notorious for paying farmers to grow grain and then leaving much of it to rot. It's equally foolish to pay for valuable information and let it perish.

by CNB