Published
March 12, 2026
NASA’s Earth science work is often framed as discovery—and it is. But in today’s economy, it is also infrastructure: a trusted foundation for how companies understand risk, plan investments, and respond to disasters.
That was the clear takeaway from the NASA Earth Science Industry Day hosted at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce headquarters in partnership with NASA’s Earth Science Division. The goal was straightforward and user-driven: understand how Earth observation (EO) data is being used today—especially in insurance and risk—and what NASA and industry should prioritize by 2030 to make that data more actionable.
NASA’s leadership emphasized that data is only valuable when it informs decisions. Dr. Nikki Fox, NASA’s Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate, underscored that Earth is a uniquely dynamic laboratory and that NASA’s mission is to observe Earth as a connected system, maintain long-term and consistently calibrated records, and make data free and openly available. But she also stressed the point that matters most for businesses and communities: discovery must translate into understanding, and understanding must translate into action—resilience planning, infrastructure investment, disaster response, and stewardship that supports economic development.
Dr. Karen St. Germain, Director of NASA’s Earth Science Division, reinforced what makes NASA’s role distinct: technology development, space missions, and data stewardship at massive scale—serving Earth data to millions of users. She also highlighted NASA’s growing focus on “Earth science to action” and systematic private-sector engagement: learning what “trusted data” means to real users, where bottlenecks sit between science and decision-making, and which questions and missions should shape the next decade.
Industry perspective made the “last mile” challenge tangible. Mo Fotouhi of John Deere described how companies rely on foundational public datasets like Landsat for field-level insights and fuse them with other sources to meet operational needs. He also pointed to emerging tools such as NASA’s foundation models (including “Prithvi v2”) that can reduce reliance on labeled data and accelerate deployment. Yet barriers remain: EO is still too often treated as research rather than a core production capability; data volumes are huge and not always production-ready; and experienced talent that combines EO and operational delivery is hard to find.
If we want a more resilient economy by 2030, we should treat trusted, continuous EO data—and the systems that deliver it—as essential economic infrastructure. Convenings like this at the Chamber are a practical step: keeping the focus on the users, and building the feedback loop that turns world-class science into better decisions.
