There has been enormous interest and considerable investment in recent years devoted to the development of the Terahertz (aka Submillimeter) spectral region for imaging and sensing. While a number of 'one of a kind' scientific applications (astrophysics, upper atmospheric processes, physical chemistry, molecular physics, etc.) in this spectral region have been highly successful, there are no 'public' applications of the THz. It is the central thesis of this paper that for most of the well publicized applications the lack of signature, clutter, and phenomenolgical knowledge -Signature Science - impedes progress at least as much as technical shortcomings. Thus, Signature Science represents a major scientific opportunity and a technological necessity. An important goal of Signature Science should be to provide a scientifically based body of knowledge that will make end-to-end system analyses possible at an early stage of system and application conceptualization and design. In this paper we will focus on three THz applications that have the potential to make a near term impact: 1) Imaging through obscurants, 2) Spectral signatures of gas phase chemicals, and 3) Signature quantification and analysis methods for optimal use of the information content of the spectra of solids, especially explosives.
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