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U.S. Satellite Programs in Jeopardy of Collapse
smooth wombat writes "A committee of the National Academy of Sciences, headed by Richard Anthens, has warned that 'the vitality of Earth science and application programs has been placed at substantial risk by a rapidly shrinking budget.' The list of Earth-observing satellite programs affected is a long one and includes satellite programs which observe nearly every aspect of Earth's climate. A delay in launching a replacement satellite or the disabling of a current satellite without a replacement could mean that data necessary to monitor or predict an upcoming event would be severely restricted. For its part NASA says that tight budgets force it to cut funding for all but the most vital programs. 'We simply cannot afford all of the missions that our scientific constituencies would like us to sponsor,' NASA administrator Michael Griffin told members of Congress when he testified before the House Science Committee February 16."
I know that NASA is a romantic lover of most slashdot readers, but I welcome any and all cuts that happen. I wish these cuts weren't performed so that the U.S. can finance its imperialism, but it is a start.
NASA has a 50+ year history of boondoggles including a recent billion dollar launch of a golf cart to the moon. I'm not sure I could find where in the U.S. Constitution Congress is allotted the money or power to launch golf carts for a billion dollars. All I really see is a slow moving, red-tape laden bureaucracy that gets little done with the massive amount of money it is given. Look at the $60b ISS for more of your money lost to cronyism.
Half of NASA's US$15b budget goes to these scientific satellites. The common response from slashdot readers is to the need for these satellites in advancing commercial applications, but no commercial application is really advanced efficiently without there being a commercial need to be filled. With Burt Rutan and Paul Allen's drive to create commercial viability in space, I'm seeing almost no need for NASA anymore. In fact, I believe NASA and the federal regulations on space flight are both keeping private competitive markets from blossoming.
The U.S. is bankrupt -- more bankrupt than any country in history. A great majority of the citizens of the State are so far in debt that there is no likelihood of escaping it in their lifetimes, so the citizens push the debt off to the next two generations. Your parents are destroying our futures, and we're destroying the futures of our children, because of outrageous and unconstitutional programs such as NASA.
Let's look at NASA for what it is and ignore the science fiction fantasy: NASA is a theft program where our elected officials rob money from citizens to pay for a boondoggle program that none of you would likely pay voluntarily. I don't see any public interest achievements in NASA, and I definitely don't see why NASA or the U.S. government needs to be handling any scientific research.
If you're afraid for the climate or the environment, donate your money voluntarily to commercial or not-for-profit businesses to create research wings. Asking me to pick up the tab for your toys, against my will, is really not acceptible anymore to me. I've looked at the budget, and it seems to be one big cash cow for Boeing and other corporate cronies that have received billions over the decades.
It is time to just end the program entirely and leave it up to a competitive marketplace. There are enough billionaires with money to spend, let them finance these toys strictly for ego.
Putting satellites into orbit is science interfering with God's domain.
Oh, I'm sure ExxonMobil and all President Bush's other oil sponsors will be so upset.
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The sky is falling! Oh Noez!
The earth is heating up internally!
We as humans are out producing the worlds volcanos in greenhouse gases - we have to be stopped! Someone help us plz!
Give us money!
Umm ok. So all of you liberal wackos....you sound no different than the conservative wackos to me.
Cost of missing 6 weeks worth of ocean surface temperature, a quarter's loss of micromeasurement of ocean surface levels, or a year's worth of rainforest acreage photographs: pretty much nothing.
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Cost of leaving a dictator in power: (excerpts from: http://www.weeklystandard.com/Utilities/printer_p
"Four months before Saddam's fall, Human Rights Watch estimated that up to 290,000 people had "disappeared" since the late 1970s and were presumed dead. The Coalition Provisional Authority's human rights office estimates that 300,000 bodies are contained in the numerous mass graves. "And that's the lower end of the estimates," said one CPA spokesperson. In fact, the accumulated credible reports make the likely number at least 400,000 to 450,000. So, by a conservative estimate, the regime was killing civilians at an average rate of at least 16,000 a year between 1979 and March 2003."
(Of course, any numbers of killings do not include many thousands of cases of torture, rape, amputation, branding, and other atrocities committed by Saddam's regime that stopped short of death.)
[Furthermore,] U.N. economic sanctions were also killing civilians. Critics regularly claimed sanctions caused 4,000 to 5,000 Iraqi children to die per month from poor nutrition and health care. UNICEF attributed some 500,000 unnecessary deaths to the sanctions in the 1990s. The sanctions remained in place as long as Saddam's regime refused to comply with international requirements. Liberation made it possible to lift the sanctions almost immediately--thus saving approximately 60,000 lives a year, if we use UNICEF's numbers.
Meanwhile in many sections of Iraq, people have their first clean water, their first reliable electricity, their first real sewer system, ever. Hundreds of schools, dozens of hospitals exist where no service was available for at least 20 years.
Yeah, what *were* we thinking? We should have saved the money and spent it on satellites!
I know it's TERRIBLY fashionable among some circles to be against the war. But I think your throwaway comment that the money was 'pissed away' is somewhat hyperbolic, if not a downright lie.
Just mod me (troll) now.
-Styopa
Re:Guns or butter? Bush chooses guns.
(Score:2)
by (arg!)Styopa (232550) on Tuesday March 07, @09:13AM
Cost of missing 6 weeks worth of ocean surface temperature, a quarter's loss of micromeasurement of ocean surface levels, or a year's worth of rainforest acreage photographs: pretty much nothing.
Cost of leaving a dictator in power: (excerpts from: http://www.weeklystandard.com/Utilities/printer_p
"Four months before Saddam's fall, Human Rights Watch estimated that up to 290,000 people had "disappeared" since the late 1970s and were presumed dead. The Coalition Provisional Authority's human rights office estimates that 300,000 bodies are contained in the numerous mass graves. "And that's the lower end of the estimates," said one CPA spokesperson. In fact, the accumulated credible reports make the likely number at least 400,000 to 450,000. So, by a conservative estimate, the regime was killing civilians at an average rate of at least 16,000 a year between 1979 and March 2003."
(Of course, any numbers of killings do not include many thousands of cases of torture, rape, amputation, branding, and other atrocities committed by Saddam's regime that stopped short of death.)
[Furthermore,] U.N. economic sanctions were also killing civilians. Critics regularly claimed sanctions caused 4,000 to 5,000 Iraqi children to die per month from poor nutrition and health care. UNICEF attributed some 500,000 unnecessary deaths to the sanctions in the 1990s. The sanctions remained in place as long as Saddam's regime refused to comply with international requirements. Liberation made it possible to lift the sanctions almost immediately--thus saving approximately 60,000 lives a year, if we use UNICEF's numbers.
Meanwhile in many sections of Iraq, people have their first clean water, their first reliable electricity, their first real sewer system, ever. Hundreds of schools, dozens of hospitals exist where no service was available for at least 20 years.
Yeah, what *were* we thinking? We should have saved the money and spent it on satellites!
I know it's TERRIBLY fashionable among some circles to be against the war. But I think your throwaway comment that the money was 'pissed away' is somewhat hyperbolic, if not a downright lie.
Just mod me (troll) now.
--I am just asking??? ---
$400 billion for the Iraq war. All of it pissed away...
You say pissed away but it's not like that money was burned. I'd be willing to bet that the vast majority of the money is still right here in the US. It's called redistribution of wealth. With Democrats it goes to their friends and the poor. With Republicans it goes to their friends and defense contractors. Really not a lot of difference between the two other than defense contractors usually pay their employees better than do the poor.
Is buying a Harley Davidson as your first motorcycle since you were 16 at age 49 a midlife crisis issue?