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NASA Slashing Observations of Earth
mattnyc99 points us to a new report by the National Research Council warning that, by 2010, the number of NASA's Earth-observing missions will drop dramatically, and the number of operating sensors and instruments on NASA spacecraft will decrease by 40 percent. The report says, "The United States' extraordinary foundation of global observations is at great risk." Popular Mechanics asks an MIT professor what it all means. From these accounts it is clear that the Bush administration's priorities on a Mars mission and a moon base are partly to blame for the de-emphasizing of earth science. Neither article quite says that some responsibility must fall to the administration's footdragging on global warming.
Second, the NASA budget is essentially fixed. There are 4 directorates within NASA:
- Aeronautics (conventional aircraft-related research)
- Science (satellites and probes)
- Space Operations (funding to maintain shuttle and station)
- Exploration
- COTS (Funding commercial space to provide space transportation capability (non-exploratory)
- Constellation (Ares/Orion/LSAM - the vehicles that will both replace shuttle as well as comprise the lunar architecture)
The problem is that over the next couple years, the Exploration budget starts ramping up as the development costs begin to really add up in advance of a 2014 first (crewed) flight. Meanwhile, until the shuttle is retired in 2010, the SOMD budget must remain relatively constant since the cost of operating the shuttle fleet doesn't dip until its retirement. So what are your choices?If you ask me - the obvious solution is:
D) Increase NASA funding to maintain all of the above until Ares/Orion enters an operations phase.
Keep in mind - the NASA budget is about half of one percent of the federal budget...
Note: you can mock the lunar outpost and Mars missions all you want - but those costs aren't even in the budget yet (and won't be for some 10 years or more) and are not driving this "problem" despite the misleading claims in the article.
"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
Now you're just propping up straw men by mentioning Kenya. China and Russia both have space programs. Many more countries are able to launch satellites. You are very quick to resort to insults and being condescending (was it really necessary to start your post with "Um"? I didn't really think so) rather than discussing the facts. As you seem to now insinuate Earth observation is "pointless shit" I can't quite understand what you're even trying to argue.
On July 25, 1997, before the Kyoto Protocol was finalized (although it had been fully negotiated, and a penultimate draft was finished), the U.S. Senate unanimously passed by a 95-0 vote the Byrd-Hagel Resolution (S. Res. 98),[40] which stated the sense of the Senate was that the United States should not be a signatory to any protocol that did not include binding targets and timetables for developing as well as industrialized nations or "would result in serious harm to the economy of the United States". On November 12, 1998, Vice President Al Gore symbolically signed the protocol. Both Gore and Senator Joseph Lieberman indicated that the protocol would not be acted upon in the Senate until there was participation by the developing nations.[41] The Clinton Administration never submitted the protocol to the Senate for ratification.
So Al Gore signed it as a gesture while stating he wouldnt act on it, and Congress voted unanimously to reject it (in possibly the first and last time Dems and Repubs ever agreed on anything). Its OK, you can still hate Bush for other shit.
actually the US puts the most CO2 into the atmosphere out of anyone (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CO2_emission)
Maybe defense at 537 billion.
How about Health and human services at 687 billion? There is oodles of waste there.
Here is a breakdown of the US budget taken from the treasury departments website http://www.fms.treas.gov/mts/index.html
Budget Outlays
Legislative Branch 4,463
Judicial Branch 6,382
Department of Agriculture 88,296
Department of Commerce 6,673
Department of Defense-Military 537,308
Department of Education 66,623
Department of Energy 21,583
Department of Health and Human Services 687,946
Department of Homeland Security 49,302
Department of Housing and Urban Development 45,891
Department of the Interior 9,952
Department of Justice 24,643
Department of Labor 50,218
Department of State 15,225
Department of Transportation 65,928
Department of the Treasury:
Interest on Treasury debt securities (gross) 440,627
Other 58,626
Department of Veterans Affairs 74,032
Corps of Engineers 7,758
Other Defense Civil Programs 47,540
Environmental Protection Agency 7,875
Executive Office of the President 3,644
General Services Administration 881
International Assistance Program 17,246
National Aeronautics and Space Administration 16,350
National Science Foundation 5,837
Office of Personnel Management 67,428
Small Business Administration 1,433
Social Security Administration 621,979
Other independent agencies 22,295
That is a total of 3 trillion, which gives NASA a wopping 0.5% of the US budget. During Apollo, it was at 6%. That is quite a difference.
NASA still does amazing work, but its kind of hard to make everything work when Congress will not give them the budget they were told to plan to. Something gets cut when they don't get money they were supposed to.
You're confounding two issues:
1) global climate change
2) global trade
and you're wrong, too:
"the worst offenders get a free pass"
The USA and Australia _are_ the worst offenders, and neither are signing Kyoto.
Of course, you can't lose an economic advantage just because you might SAVE THE FUCKING WORLD. Next quarter's stock prices are the only measure of the right thing to do.
And you're in a much better position to pressure China and India to sign on if you're already in compliance. Meanwhile, the US is still far and away the world's greatest producer of greenhouse gases. Not to mention the fact that much Chinsse industry is produced to order for US customers.
Here's something for ya: Empirical evidence. You know, we have a good record of atmospheric composition and temperatures for the past 50-60-70 years.
Somebody tested various models on historical data. You know where you started, you know what happened, and you know the outcome.
Good enough for you?
They tried it. More here.
But, feel free to post any good rebuttals on this study if you indeed know more than I do.
Stop the brainwash
"It [Kyoto] was basically a bill that punishes the first world for pollution, while the worst offenders get a free pass."
The way I see it, by refusing to sign "the worst offenders" have given themselves a "free pass" at the expense of everyone else.
First up, Kyoto was never intended to be a silver bullet, it has a use by date of 2012 and was intended to get everyone on board and "level the playing field". As a prototype GHG treaty it was eventually accepted by virtually all nations, the only two dissenters (that still matter) are Australia and the US.
Second, although China may surpass the US one day, (either in total or per capita output), currently the US consumes 25% of global fossil fuels and has 3% of global population and where I live (Australia) has a similar per capita ratio.
Third, the developed world is "developed" due largely to the advantage we have gained over the 20th centry by burning FF's and in doing so we have used up a large chunk of the climates finite ability to "cope" with the extra CO2 (by "cope" I mean provide a habitat able to support humans and thier civilizations indefinitely).
Fourth, China, India, ect, have not burnt FF's in large amounts until recently and understandably demand some form of compensation in any "first cut" treaty to account for the capacity the developed world has already used (ie: in their eyes, "leveling the playing field").
Fifth, The claims of the US & Oz governments that they "will meet their Kyoto obligations anyway" is creative accounting at best, but I prefer to call it a lie.
AGW is a global problem that urgently requires a global treaty, in much the same way as atmospheric N-tests did in the 60's & 70's (BTW: the scientists had a rough time back then also, eg: Marsden from CSIRO who found plutonium spread throughout the atmosphere). I don't pretend to have the political answers but we won't get an answer until all parties come to the table in good faith, since that is unlikely we are probably doomed to be remembered as the Nero generation, that is if there is anyone left to remember.
I wouldn't mind this (myopic/insightfull?) "ruin the economy" meme as much had the US & Oz used economic models that were anywhere near the strength of the much maligned climate models, instead they used classic Friedman models and the associated basic assumptions that resources are infinite and pollution is sombody else's problem.
Take a close look at this "coventional" wisdom (well "conventional" to >3% of mankind) that Kyoto would "ruin the economy", what it really boils down to is: "it would ruining the fossil fuel market". I can only assume it will do this in much the same way as the ozone treaty ruined the CFC market, lead controls have ruined the paint and gasoline markets, and the atmospheric N-Test ban ruined the US military.
Global treaties to ensure global corporations and nation states at least attempt to preserve "the commons" is not some half-arsed socialist plot, it's plain common sense not to shit in ones own nest.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
> It seems to me that for global warming all you need are the temperatures everywhere.
Great idea, just explain to me how you get the temperature at 8km height without a satellite? Or 30km? This is important information for understanding what is happening.
> You just need to take the temperatures from all those meteorology stations all over the world, take an average, plot it.
No. Part of the question is the attribution to a reason, which current consensus puts on greenhouse gases.
> And even if you need data from meteo satellites, why do you need NASA there? By now there are enough sensors up there to forecast the weather
And this study warns that there will be less of these sensors. Also, note that you need different satellites for weather forecasting and climate change detection.
> Forecasting then just feeds that into a model and tries to predict what will happen tomorrow
If you just observe, how are you able to develop a model? You do not know the processes