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.

Comments

Slashdoublespeak

[Keebler71]

First, the NASA science budget is increasing, not decreasing as the article would make you think... it just isn't increasing as fast it had been promised.

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?

• A) Cut shuttle off early and leave ISS unfinished and have an 6-7 gap in manned space flight?
• B) Delay Exploration development until the shuttle is retired (similar gap in manned space flight since you are just pushing development to the right)?
• C) Or do you delay science missions for only a few years until NASA is "over the hump years" (2008-2010) in which they are trying to maintain old vehicles and develop new ones?

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.

Re:I wonder...

[Mike Rubits]

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.

Re:I wonder...

[RenderSeven]

Bullshit. Your reference is to an uncited student paper. From Wikipedia:

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.

Re:I wonder...

[OiToTheWorld]

actually the US puts the most CO2 into the atmosphere out of anyone (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CO2_emission)

Re:A huge waste of taxpayers money?

[RockClimbingFool]

You sir know jack shit. You want to save the world on NASA's 16 billion a year? Why don't you try to some other pot...

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.

Re:Bandwagon posts are just annoying

[Jeppe Salvesen]

Oh yeah?

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.

If you take this data and combine it with a decade of earlier results, the debate about whether or not there is a global warming signal here and now is over at least for rational people.

But, feel free to post any good rebuttals on this study if you indeed know more than I do.

The Nero generation

[TapeCutter]

"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.