Millard's Corner

Well, it took the USGS 10+ years to pull it off, but they have finally discovered that Landsat data is a valuable enough resource that it should be free. See Press Release for more detail. For those just checking in, this was the original position of the OhioView project when it started in 1996. Our basic premise then was that data that was too expensive to use was worthless. OhioView (and others) spent the next decade working with the USGS to bring the price down to the purchasing power of mere mortals (about $600/scene)

Now, according to the above press release:

The USGS is pursuing an aggressive schedule to provide users with electronic access to any Landsat scene held in the USGS-managed national archive of global scenes dating back to Landsat 1, launched in 1972.

And the’re doing it for free! If it’s not recent, and the standard recipe is ok, just click and order it. An email notification later and a quick download and you’re in business. If it IS recent, just download it. No waiting! That’s a far cry from the 30-40 day window to get a tape that OhioView (and every other user) faced when we first started

OhioView has since moved on to concentrate more on applications and research and development than on Data stockpiling. However, we still maintain an increasingly brittle data infrastructure with few resources available to maintain it, so this news is welcomed.

The thing is, OhioView was never meant to be the permanent solution to the problem of data distribution. It was a way to work around the obstacles that kept that data out of the hands of ordinary remote sensing folks. I think it’s been a phenomenal success at doing that, even spawning a national effort. But, it’s time to focus efforts on other more fruitful areas.

This is awesome news. To the USGS? My tired RAID arrays thank you!

UPDATE: Jury is still out on whether this will a) replace the need for terrain corrected data and b) be available with the needed 48 hr turnaround. Don’t spin those arrays down yet..