Re: [at-l] Laser Shows from the Sky this Month

["Ryan K. Brooks" <ryan@inc.net>]

Nothing to worry about... About as dangerous as the IR from your TV Remote,

-R


"David F. Addleton" wrote:

> I tho't AT-L might find the news release below quite interesting. I don't
> know whether this may or may not give cause for concern to any hiker/camper
> in the affected areas, mainly in the Northeastern forests.  Perhaps some of
> our engineering, medical, and scientific camp fire buddies can give us the
> low down on the lasers NASA plans to shine on these forests. I'd love to
> hear from anyone who finds themselves under this experiment. There's info
> in the news release you can use to get more info. I've sent a copy to Lee
> Tune, hoping he will respond to our list with additional information.
>
> David
>
> PS to Lee Tune:  The AT-L is an email listserv for hikers/campers with a
> special interest in the Appalachian Trail which passes through the targeted
> forests. Please let us know what we should expect should one of these laser
> equipt aircraft pass overhead while we're looking skyward.
>
> Thank you.
>
> Lee Tune  University of Maryland Office of University Relations (Phone:
> 301-405-4679)  Allen Kenitzer Goddard Space Flight Center (Phone:
> 301-286-0697)   Sept. 9, 1999
> RELEASE NO: 99-096
> NASA WILL STUDY FORESTS WITH LASER INSTRUMENT, MEDIA BRIEFING SCHEDULED FOR
> SEPT. 17
> A NASA research aircraft will fly over selected U.S. forests this month
> with an innovative laser instrument to find out for the first time just how
> much vegetation is in these forests. When this technology is launched into
> space next year aboard the NASA/University of Maryland Vegetation Canopy
> Lidar (VCL) spacecraft, it will create the first global maps of forest
> vegetation. Scientists will use these maps to monitor the health of forests
> and the capacity of forests to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
> VCL mission scientists will discuss the upcoming flights and will present
> new results from rain forest research flights conducted over Costa Rica in
> 1998 at a news media briefing Friday, Sept. 17 at 10 a.m. The briefing will
> be held at the University of Maryland, College Park, Md., in Room 1124 of
> LeFrak Hall. The University's Geography Department will house
> command-and-control and data processing operations for the VCL mission.
> Scientists at the briefing include:
> * Samuel Goward, chair, University of Maryland Geography Department
> * Ralph Dubayah, VCL principal investigator, University of Maryland
> * Bryan Blair, Instrument principal investigator, NASA Goddard Space Flight
> Center
> * Robert Knox, Forest ecologist and VCL science team member, NASA Goddard
> The new instrument uses a sensor technology known as lidar (light detection
> and ranging) that other missions have used to map the surface of Mars and
> coastal erosion on Earth. The unique adaptation of this technology onboard
> VCL will accurately map the ground hidden beneath dense forests and measure
> the structure and density of the forest. VCL observations will aid
> scientists studying global climate change and monitoring forest ecosystems
> around the world.
> The aircraft flights will map portions of three forests with the Laser
> Vegetation Imaging Sensor (LVIS), built at NASA's Goddard Space Flight
> Center (Greenbelt, Md.). Flying aboard a NASA Wallops Flight Facility C-130
> aircraft, LVIS will map eastern U.S. forests in Maryland, North Carolina,
> and New Hampshire beginning Sept. 16. Mapping in California's Sequoia
> National Forest starts Sept. 28. LVIS flights over the Costa Rican rain
> forest have produced the first finescale measurements of topography hidden
> beneath the forest canopy, canopy height and structure, and tropical forest
> biomass using remote sensing.
> Media briefings during the airborne campaigns are planned for NASA's
> Wallops Flight Facility, Va., and Fresno, Calif. For more information,
> contact Lee Tune, University of Maryland Office of University Relations,
> tel. 301-405-4679; e-mail ltune@accmail.umd.edu
> The VCL lidar instrument contains five lasers that send pulses of energy to
> the Earth's surface. Photons from the lasers bounce off leaves, branches,
> and the ground and reflect back to the instrument. By analyzing these
> returned signals, scientists receive a direct measurement of the height of
> the forest's leaf-covered canopy, the ground-level below and everything in
> between.
> VCL is scheduled for launch in September 2000 from Alaska's Kodiak Launch
> Complex. This will be the first orbital launch from the new Kodiak Island
> facility. The VCL mission is the first selected program of NASA's Earth
> System Science Pathfinder project. The mission is led by the University of
> Maryland with collaboration from NASA Goddard's Laboratory for Terrestrial
> Physics and other academic and industrial contributors, including Orbital
> Sciences Corp., Omitron Inc., Swales Aerospace, Fibertek Inc., Raytheon,
> and Universal Space Network.
>
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