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Report

Learning via satellite boost farm output per acre some

This report describes a global applied research project - - Project
Learn - - being sponsored by the International Space University in
Strasbourg, which aims to address key educational needs,
particularly in remote and rural areas, via satellite. The project aims
to bypass conventional approaches to education, health care and
communications development by using global information
technologies at a local level and drawing a range of international
organizations into a cooperative effort. Examples of the kind of work
to be undertaken by the project are presented.
The current enthusiasm for Mars satellite carriers providing
exploration and the search for life staggering 2000 G H z of capacity - -
in our universe is clearly a boost to the equivalent of 2 terabits/second.
what has been lagging enthusiasm This is capacity equivalent to over
for space. Suddenly politicians, 10000 television channels and
school children and people in the millions of voice circuits available
street are looking again for new any time and anywhere on earth.
and bold frontiers. Ironically, at a T o d a y there are only a few
much less visible level, the potential remote sensing, GIS, GPS satellite
of 'new' space application systems providing medium
programs to solve the problems of resolution accuracy. This repre-
our planet is also reaching its peak. sents a total global market size of
The problems of education, health only about $850 million. Again,
care, the ozone hole, global within the decade there will be
warming, technological unemploy- dozens of these systems providing
ment, crime, transportation, a commercial range of services
energy, urban planning, agriculture that represents a worldwide
and more will be aided by new and market of $15 to $20 billion.
highly capable new space Not only will these new and
communications and geoinforma- highly capable new satellite
tics systems in the 21st century. applications begin to be a key part
These new systems are truly of the global economy, but the
unparalleled in their coverage, impact of these systems on our
performance and impact. key planetary problems will be
Today there are some 50 satellite significant, if not profound. High
communications carriers providing resolution remote sensing satellites
some 2 0 0 G H z of telecommuni- linked to Global Information
cations capacity. Within a decade, Systems (GIS) will make possible
however, there will be 100 to 150 'precision agriculture' that can
30% and save water and other
resources along the way. These
same tools can be used to create
effective urban planning and
implement 'intelligent highways'
to reduce pollution, reduce traffic
jams and increase commuter
efficiencies.
The most spectacular gains of
all will be in satellite tele-
communications. Satellites will
assume a new role. No longer will
satellites serve as a ' p o o r relative'
working to support terrestrial
fiber optic systems by providing
connections just to rural and
a remote areas or relieve terrestrial
network congestion. The satellite
communications systems will in
fact bypass the terrestrial
networks and provide direct
services to the home and office.
This change will start with direct
broad cast satellite systems and
land mobile satellite systems, but
it will spread to high data rate,
multi-media satellites that can
provide broadband and video
services right to the home and
office to very low cost micro
terminals some 50cm or less in
size.
The potential of these awesome
new satellite systems, with some of
these innovative satellite networks
being able to provide 250 Gigabit/
second to a terabit/second. These
new satellite capabilities are
staggering - - more telecommuni-
cations capability than all of
Europe had two decades ago. Less
than one percent of this system
capacity could make a global tele-
education project or two possible.
Less than five percent of the new

SPACE POLICY November 1997 339

Report
satellite capacity to be launched in
the next decade could make
possible a wide number of global
and regional tele-education and
tele-medicine projects that could
respond effectively to the unmet
needs of the estimated two billion
people on our planet who have
little or no education or health
care services available to them.
Project Learn, which is being
initially sponsored by the
International Space University
(ISU) of Strasbourg, France, is
planned as a global applied
research project that hopes to
build a body of knowledge so that
these new satellite tele-service
systems can indeed reach their
potential in the 21st century.
This new ISU initiative will
involve more than a dozen space
and communications organiza-
tions around the world. Its name,
Project Learn, stands for Local
Education and Resource Network.
This global tele-education test,
demonstration and evaluation
program is being explored by the
ISU with NASA, the European
Space Agency (ESA), C R C of
Canada, the Russian Space
Agency, N A S D A and C R L of
Japan, the Indian Space Research
Organization (ISRO) the Inter-
national Telecommunication
Union (ITU), the World Bank,
the European Commission,
I N M A R S A T , I N T E L S A T , and
several of the affiliate campuses
around the world.
This article outlines the idea
behind Project Learn and why the
ISU might be able to play a global
leadership role in addressing key
global educational needs,
especially in rural and remote
areas. To date, a distinguished
panel of experts from around the
world has agreed to serve on an
Executive Advisory Panel, 1 and
the I T U has agreed to assist in the
final evaluation of the Project
Learn tests and demonstrations
and the circulation of a global
340
report on the overall findings and
conclusions reached.
This initiative has a history
that started with I N T E L S A T ' s
Project Share, then continued
with the 1994 Barcelona Summer
Session Design Study-Global
Access to Tele-Health and
Education Services (GATES) and
continues on with the ISU
Master's P r o g r a m T e a m Design
Project for 1998 New Visions
in Tele-education. The potential
of the m a j o r new supply of low
cost space segment capacity in
the early 21st century and the
parallel advent of user friendly
terminal equipment makes a
practical hands-on undertaking
like Project Learn of urgent
importance.
Why Project Learn?
The pathway to the future can
sometimes be best seen by leaping
a few decades into the future and
looking backwards. Today the
world is a collection of 5.5 billion
people living in some 200
countries. There is concern today
about what the world may be like
in 30 years. Many scientists and
researchers are worried about a
wide range of ecological dangers,
unemployment and unequal
distribution of material and
intellectual resources. It is
estimated that some one billion
people have virtually no health
care or educational system and
another billion people have very
limited opportunity for schooling
or modern medical treatment.
There are only about 750 million
telephones and these are largely
concentrated in the homes and
offices of people living in the
developed 'OECD' countries.
There is no convincing plan to
suggest that today's unmet needs
will be effectively met tomorrow.
Many feel it would be a
desirable goal to educate and
provide medical services to
underserved populations, to
spread affordable communications
throughout the world and to allow
and address key environmental
issues on a planetary scale. The
trouble is most of our expanding
capabilities do little more than
keep up with population growth.
To make an impact something
new, dramatic, and totally
different must be done. By the
year 2030 the global population
may well be some 9 billion people
and still growing. A peak in our
world population may not occur
before 2050 and in fact may not
be achieved until 2075. Conven-
tional approaches to education,
health care, and communications
development, even if actively
pursued over the next 30 years,
may accomplish little more than
achieving a 'dead heat on a merry-
go-round'. In short conventional
approaches to train teachers and
to update conventional curriculum
may do little more that address
some of the new growth popu-
lation of some 3.5 billion people
that will be added over the next
three decades.
in short, by 2030 there could be
3 or 4 billions of people who are
underserved. Without a significant
change in approach ~-- i.e. a
fundamental paradigm shift - -
little progress will be made.
Clearly a new seed that grows new
types of communications and
information systems and spawns
new types of education and health
care systems is desperately needed.
Learn: a paradigm shift
We need a new approach that
leverages the very best of new
information and communications
technologies which still allows
local culture, language and
instruction/health care to reach a
larger audience. We need a new
approach that adapts to the new
SPACE POLICY November 1997

deregulated and competitive programs such as in Canada,
communications and information Australia, the Caribbean and many
industry that is cost effective, other locations. This new paradigm
responsive to social needs, and shift is set forth in embryonic form
allows effective patterns of here as a pilot project known as
international cooperation to be Project L E A R N .
achieved. These are issues which This new initiative has the
the ISU together with its following key aspects.
international faculty, its network Setting and integrating high
of affiliate campuses, its access to level goals. It is important to set
global research centers at NASA, goals that look beyond narrowly
ESA, CRL, ISRO, RSA, and defined objectives. We must look
elsewhere around the world m a y for the forest rather than trees or
well be uniquely able to address. leaves. Some development pro-
This is a p r o g r a m that must be grams seeks to expand the
at once global and local. It must number of rural telephones in a
be integrated but nevertheless country or region. Other pro-
decentralized and flexible. It must grams seek to attack the problem
allow various organizations and of illiteracy while others seek to
delivery systems to excel at what address the issue of infant
they do best and not be mortality. Yet others seek to
constrained by a monolithic improve programs in higher
management structures which education or training of tech-
attempts to define development, nicians in a particular area such
or education, or medical care in a as remote sensing or navigation.
one-dimensional way. It must be These are all worthwhile activities
coordinated by an institution with and there are clearly benefits to
a great deal of good will and such programs. They are
broad international trust. Project nevertheless often disjointed,
Learn is therefore a test of episodic, and are typically not
whether the ISU in partnership cooperative related to other
with a dozen other institutions development efforts. The idea of
around the world can provide at L E A R N is not to create another
least some of the answers. large and expensive global project
This integrated but essentially with a monolithic agenda. Too
internationally cooperative m a n y such initiatives have been
approach would create a tried and all have failed. The
framework for cooperation and a p p r o a c h here is the idea of
mutual support. This mechanism harnessing capabilities and
would allow commercial and programs that already exist and
governmental operators of to try to leverage their impact,
satellites, international organiza- coordinate their agendas, and try
tions, earth station manufactures, to seek innovative solutions that
computer terminal suppliers, 21st century hardware, software,
universities, colleges and training and courseware can provide.
centers, as well as educators and There is no better way to
doctors to work together to find illustrate what this means than in
better solutions. Already proto- providing specific examples.
types for this type of collaborative Example 1: rural telephony.
planning and implementation are F o r years the idea of expanding
starting to occur such as the rural telephony in developing
IBRD's 'Info-Dev' initiative and in countries has been a key
incipient programs of the I T U such development goal starting most
as World Tel. It is also emerging in emphatically with the Maitland
a number of national development Commission report of the I T U a
SPACE POLICY November 1997
Report
decade ago. Although some
progress has been made, the goals
of the Maitland Commission are
largely unmet. Under the new
paradigm the new goal would not
be to install telephones, switches,
satellites, microwave and fiber
optic cables in underserved areas,
but rather to achieve rural
interconnectivity. In the age of
'software defined' digital process-
ing equipment it is possible that a
computer that provides health
care or education can also be a
village telecommunications center
as well. The idea is that an
integrated approach to social
services needs may actually give
rise to more cost-effective and
better solutions than piece meal
thinking.
Example 2." improved schooling.
Most efforts at building improved
educational systems in developing
countries are oriented toward
training new teachers and
extending the number of schools,
colleges and universities. There
are, however, more people to be
educated in the next thirty years
than all of the people that have
been educated up to this time. New
approaches to tele-education that
use new satellite, earth station,
end-user terminal equipment and
virtual learning systems and
software, however, may be able to
reach m a n y more students at lower
cost, with more up-to-date
information and in more remote
and isolated areas. In China, for
instance, a satellite based tele-
education program started in 1986
with 37 earth stations and a few
thousand students. T o d a y that
system is working well within a
network of 90000 earth stations
and 3 million students. The key to
the success of this project is that
the educational programming has
been locally produced by Central
China Television and the Ministry
of Education and the transmission
and networking has also be
increasingly moved to Chinese
341
Report
designed and implemented
systems.
Example 3." rural health care.
Just as in the case of rural
education, approaches to provid-
ing rural health and tele-medicine
have tended to add more doctors,
nurses, and paramedics in rural
clinics and hospitals. The ISU
study Global Access to Tele-
health and Tele-Education System
(GATES) among others shows a
new strategy to use satellite
technology, portable terminal
equipment, and mobile operating
centers to create new forms of
rural and remote services.
Example 4: modern agriculture.
Increasingly sophisticated remote
sensing satellite systems are
available to assist with agriculture,
land management, fishing,
geological prospecting, etc., but
the actual application of these
technologies, particularly in rural
and remote areas, remains a
problem. It would be feasible for
communications and terminal
equipment designed for L E A R N
pilot projects to be adapted to
provide real-time practical advice
to farmers, such as when to use
insecticide spraying, tilling techni-
que, soil analysis, best time to
harvest, etc. The key here is to use
a LEARN pilot project to
combine different types of remote
sensing satellite data, local
meteorological data, computer
analysis, and remote communi-
cations links to provide an
integrated and cost-effective
service.
Example 5." developing service
industries in developing countries
and rural acceptance of new tele-
service. The 21st century will
bring new opportunities to the
developing world. There are
today over one hundred
thousand electronic immigrants
who live in developing countries
and provide services across
international boundaries. The
concept of remote information
342
workers known as 'lone eagles'
spreading from O E C D countries
to isolated locations around the
world will become increasingly
viable with advanced satellite
services able to provide broad
band services to anywhere on the
planet. Project L E A R N pilot
projects can test the viability of
using multi-purpose terminals
not only for unmet social
services but also for village based
tele-services as well.
Pilot programs to test the
concepts of project Learn
A coalition of research organiza-
tions is being formed to develop
the detailed elements of a Phase
One Project L E A R N program to
carry out trials of new multi-
purpose, software defined
processors for a wide range of
development applications. Initial
partners in this project include the
International Space University,
the Indian Space Research
Organization, several ISU
Affiliate Campuses including the
George Washington University,
the University of Colorado at
Boulder and, we hope, the
University of Delft. It is
anticipated that research contracts
will be sought from ESTEC in
Europe, CRC in Canada, C R L in
Japan and NASA Lewis Research
Center and Johnson Spaceflight
Center.
The pilot programs to be
developed for demonstrations in
1998 would likely include at least
one project in China involving
INMARSAT, one project in
Russia involving domestic satellite
systems, one project in India
involving low cost multi-media
based instructional materials and
a number of other possibilities still
being identified. Anyone with
interest, ideas, or suggestions
should contact the author via the
International Space University.
Conclusions
Although the scope of the Project
Learn activity in terms of
potential importance and ultimate
world-wide impact is large, the
actual Phase 1 Test and
Demonstration is intentionally
designed to be narrow and is to
be distributed among a number
of entities in order both to spread
costs and achieve a broad level of
interaction and cooperation
among as many key players as
possible. It would be intended in
Phase 2 that an expanded range
of satellite carriers, satellite
terminal and user terminal
suppliers, local content providers,
training centers, and international
organization could be involved in
this coordinated venture. The
entire Phase 1 activity is expected
to be accomplished largely
through donated satellite
capacity.
Clearly the world will face
many new challenges in the 2lst
century. The most important goal
in meeting these challenges will be
to educate all the people of the
world. Without new and powerful
tools of education it will be
difficult to cope with the new
world of a cyberspace and the
huge challenge of schooling
billions more students than ever
before in human history. For
decades we have seen our vision of
the future as moving toward the
Marshall McLuhan image of the
global village. But now we are
seeing the 21st century paradigm
as being one of coping with
globally interconnected
consciousness. It is starting with
I N T E R N E T , fiber networks and
global satellite systems and it will
likely end with what might be
called the evolution of the 'global
brain' or 'world mind'. If
dramatic breakthroughs are not
made in global education, the
problems of societal and national
gaps in learning and prosperity
SPACE POLICY November 1997

can only increase. Project Learn is
one small, but hopefully positive
step to address the problem of
21st education in the age of the
Global Brain, It is a very specific
way that space and space policy
Report
can influence the future develop- Joseph N. Pelton
ment of our planet. We can only Dean, ISU
hope that it will be a positive Parc d'lnnovation
influence which is based on Boulevard Gonthier d'Andernach
international cooperation and res- IIIkirch 67400
pect for local culture and learning. France

1The Project Learn Executive Advisory Panel comprises Dr. Henry Chasia, Deputy Director General, ITU, Geneva, Switzerland
(Honorary Chairman); Abdel Biari, World Tel, ITU, Geneva, Switzerland, (Chairman); Carlos Braga, Director of Info Development,
World Bank (IBRD), Washington, DC; Dr. Rodney Buckland, Open University, UK; Francis Choi, INMARSAT, Beijing, China; Leonard
Dooley, INTELSAT, Washington, DC; Dr. Max House, Memorial University Hospital, St. John's New Foundland, Canada; Dr. Narayan,
Indian Space Research Organization, Bangalore, India; Dr. Jim Stevenson, Education Broadcast Services Trust, Ltd, London, UK;
and Dr. Eugenio Triana-Garcia, European Commission, Brussels, Belgium.

SPACE POLICY N o v e m b e r 1997 343