This Echo is READ ONLY !   NO Un-Authorized Messages Please!
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

April 11, 2003

National Space Development Agency of Japan

NASDA REPORT NO.129

Part 3 of 3

Let Us Talk Space Challengers

Interview with Earth Observation Research Center (EORC) in NASDA
Mr. Takeo Tadono and Masanori Matsuoka

The Works behind the "World Heritage from Space" Series

"Series of World Heritage from Space" appears in the back of this
NASDA REPORT is created by the Earth Observation Research Center
(EORC) in NASDA. The articles are not their primary work.

The staff creates them exclusively for NASDA REPORT. In this issue
Space Challngers, we interviewed the people behind these articles, Mr
Takeo Tadono and Masanori Matsuoka, both from EORC, about the process
involved in creating the article. 

Interviewer: What type of organization is the EORC?

Tadono: As you know, NASDA develops and launches rockets and
satellites. The EORC is a place to study how to use the data from
these satellites effectively. As you see in the "World Heritage"
article, satellite data is presented as image data. So many people
think it is just like taking pictures, but it really is not like
that. Actually, many types of data must be processed to develop those
useful images and the data product. I think the EORC is the closest
one to the end-users among many NASDA organizations. 

Interviewer: Let's talk about the article. Why did you choose the
World Heritages? 

Tadono: Well, that's a difficult one (laughs). Prior to this series,
we had an article called "World Rivers Seen from Space," if you
remember. Back then, we were talking about what we can do next. And I
just had an interest in the World Heritages at that time. We also
figured that the subjects would be more recognizable to the reader.
We could continue on the river, but most of the famous ones had
already made it into the article. 

Matsuoka: We also thought the descriptions would be pretty easy to
write, since there are many books and publications on the subjects. 

Interviewer: What are the actual processes involved in writing the
article?

Matsuoka: Well, first we study the latitude and longitude of the
heritage site. Then we search the archives (at the Earth Observation
Center) in Hatoyama. If we come across a good image, we process it to
make it clear and try to identify the buildings and so force in the
image. It's a lot of work to identify landmarks from the limited
resolution of the images. 

Interviewer: What was the most difficult world heritage to identify?

Matsuoka: Oh, that has to be the Great Wall of China (laughs). That
was very difficult. It is almost impossible to identify. People often
say that you can see it from space, that you can see it from the moonÑ
and I believe that, butÉ We reordered images three times and it took
us five days. We even called in a researcher from China to make sure
we had correctly identified the Great Wall. 

Interviewer: Have you ever actually visited any of these places?

Matsuoka: One time I bought a book to study a location, and became so
interested in the place that I actually ended up visiting (laughs).
It was Istanbul. 

Tadono: I did the reverse. I decided to do the article after visited
there. I visited Rome. I believe I used information I got on the trip
to write the article.

Interviewer: I see. So this series has been useful for yourselves
personally (laughs). 

Matsuoka: Oh yes. But we bought those books from our own pockets.
(laughs).


Interviewer: We are coming up on allergy season for cedar pollen. Can
you distinguish cedar forests from space? Pollen? 

Tadono: Uh... (exchanges a glance with Matsuoka). That might be a bit
difficult (smiles). You can identify that they are conifer forests,
though. 

*

Editor's Note

While it is unfortunate to hear that pollen updates from space are
not currently possible, we learned many interesting things in this
interview. 

Readers may be surprised to know that some of the topics had to be
rejected because a suitable photo from the ground were unavailable
even though there was a good image from space,. While this article is
tacked onto the very last page of the publication like a little
bonus, I would be happy if you think about the troubles the staff
took when you read it next time.

 - END OF FILE -
==========

@Message posted automagically by IMTHINGS POST 1.30
---