Summary Report 4 Evaluation Methodology

While the scientific and remote sensing communities are convinced of the present and potential utility of the information produced by satellites, national policy and decision making communities are not similarly persuaded. Since governments must be convinced that any new technology is in the national interest before they can incur the costs of making it operational, it is of critical importance for the scientific and remote sensing communities to understand what motivates national decision makers and to make those arguments and provide those analyses which will be found convincing. Unfortunately, there is no single line of reasoning which a priori is convincing. There are many motivating themes in any governmental decision, some highly rational and quantitative, others subliminal and non-quantitative but all extremely important.