Abstract
This paper presents the history and the present structure of COSPAR (Committee on Space Research) and a few events of the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space(COPUOS) in which the author has participated. COSPAR was established by ICSU as a reaction to the launch of Sputnik and supported by the United Nations (UN) and UNESCO in particular. The reason for this action was that there was a fear in the cold war era the space would be over politicized and its peaceful and scientific aspects would be neglected. Under the same reason the UN COPUOS was established. COSPAR has observer status at COPUOS.
At the time of the COSPAR establishment a special privilege was given to two major space powers, USA and USSR. All the officers of COSPAR were nominated by the academies of these two countries. It took 34 years until the present democratic structure was completed. Since there are many experts of space science in COSPAR not a few of them have contributed to the activities of COPUOS. After the launch of Landsat remote sensing became one of the key subjects in both COSPAR and COPUOS. Finally the efforts of Japan, USA and France in developing earth observation satellites in early days are described.
