U.S. In Danger of Losing Earth-Observing Satellite Capability

New submitter crazyjj writes "As reported in Wired, a recent National Research Council report indicates a growing concern for NASA, the NOAA, and USGS. While there are currently 22 Earth-observing satellites in orbit, this number is expected to drop to as low as six by the year 2020. The U.S. relies on this network of satellites for weather forecasting, climate change data, and important geologic and oceanographic information. As with most things space and NASA these days, the root cause is funding cuts. The program to maintain this network was funded at $2 billion as recently as 2002, but has since been scaled back to a current funding level of $1.3 billion, with only two replacement satellites having definite launch dates."

Comments

Important to remember:

[fredrated]

The right hates science and it's conclusions, and the problem with these satellites is that they promote science and the conclusions scientists reach.

Re:Important to remember:

[Anonymous Coward]

It is worse than that. There is a group of people in the US Congress who just hate anything that the "other side" supports. It does not matter what it is they will work against anything that they think the other side wants to support. They care more about the success of their party than they do the country they swore to serve. The sad thing is that it has gone on long enough that two such groups have formed. We just have a bunch of obstinate dick heads now due to gerrymandering and an absent media.

Re:Important to remember:

[jellomizer]

I think it is the Left that is big on NASA cuts, as NASA is under mostly military spending. The problem is a failure to educate the public about the importance of these areas, If you leave it to average voter they will see NASA as a waste of tax payer money, because the government does nothing to really explain the importance to the general public. It was easy during the Cold war where we can go In Your Face USSR... But now our greatest enemies cannot even get a missile to go a few hundred miles, it seems less of a priority. Why does big business have control much greater then the government... It is easy, they know how to market to the average Joe.

Re:Important to remember:

[YrWrstNtmr]

There is a group of people in the US Congress who just hate anything that the "other side" supports. It does not matter what it is they will work against anything that they think the other side wants to support.

There are 536 people in this 'group'.

Re:Important to remember:

[Ironchew]

The right hates science and it's conclusions, and the problem with these satellites is that they promote science and the conclusions scientists reach.

The right doesn't mind science R&D (i.e. the fraction of research that private companies can get an immediate ROI on.) It's just the pesky fundamental research with no foreseeable application and no quarterly profit that gets them upset; but without the fundamental research, there are no more breakthroughs.

Re:Important to remember:

[Jeng]

Funny, I've always seen it as the "fiscal conservatives" want us to quit "wasting" money in space so instead things have to be billed under the military to get anything done.

Find me a liberal who opposes NASA funding based off of it going to military purposes, cause I think you are full of shit.

Re:Important to remember:

[CanHasDIY]

There are 536 people in this 'group'.

Give or take a handful of independents who are likely fed up the apparent inability of either majority party congresscritters to not act like spoiled fucking children.

Re:Important to remember:

[rickb928]

Actually, 538, one of which doesn't get to do much unless ther'es a tie.

But I get your point. It's such a big problem that we can no nothing about it.

If only aerospace had more profit potential. Then the Government would be much more interested.

Re:Important to remember:

[Grelfer]

That may be so, but very few Republicans these days are fiscal conservatives. Many more are only social conservatives, like Rick Santorum: ready and willing to tell other people how to live their lives.

Corporations, on the other hand, get free rein.

Re:Important to remember:

[Dishevel]

I am a fairly conservative guy with some libertarian leanings.
I love the stuff NASA used to do. I want to see NASA attempting the things that no one else can.
I want to see people become ok with risk.
I also believe in spirituality. Some type of God that I do not understand very well.
I believe that the teachings of Jesus were good.
I think that the temperature of the earth changes. That the climate has and will change.
I believe that at some point the earth will not support humanity and that we need to have permanent space colonies.

The left seems filled with hatred for the right. Truly spiritual christian types do not have a lot of time or room for hate.

Most of the hate I see comes from smelly people that that majored in Womens studies with a minor in Ethiopian tribal art and screaming about having student loan debit and no good prospects for a job.

You want higher education? Get a reasonable loan and work. Study something that can pay. Then take a bath.

Re:Important to remember:

[Anonymous Coward]

It's Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided With the New Politics of Extremism."

Re:Important to remember:

[hey!]

I dunno. The Democrats *did* pass Romney's health care plan.

Re:Important to remember:

[Local ID10T]

I think it is the Left that is big on NASA cuts, as NASA is under mostly military spending.

Odd... If NASA were military, someone would just say it's to fight the TERRORISTS! and it would receive unlimited funding.

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/hqlibrary/ic/faqs.html

Is NASA a part of the Department of Defense?
 
NASA is not a part of the Department of Defense, nor of any other Cabinet-level department. NASA's administrator reports directly to the White House.

Re:Important to remember:

[dkleinsc]

You're not really right about the independents in Congress: Joe Lieberman is probably the ultimate spoiled child. He lost in the Connecticut Democratic primary back in 2006, went whining to the national Democratic leadership, and convinced them to back him rather than the guy who was ostensibly their party's candidate.

The other independent is Bernie Sanders. Like him or not, he definitely sticks to his socialist positions. He's willing to make deals with strange bedfellows though - for instance, he worked with Ron Paul on the Fed audit that uncovered trillions of dollars going to major banks.

Re:Important to remember:

[JackieBrown]

That was on the state side. His plan was not a federal plan.

Re:Important to remember:

[Ironchew]

Truly spiritual christian types do not have a lot of time or room for hate.

You seem to have a lot of room for ad hominem, though. Nice troll.

Re:Important to remember:

[Q-Hack!]

Fiscal conservatives want us to quit wasting money. Space has nothing to do with it other than it is one place that can be cut easily. If you ask most conservatives, we would rather spend money on space exploration than social wellfare programs. Unfortunately, those programs can't be cut without much pain to the folks who need/want to depend on them.

Re:Important to remember:

[artor3]

Bullshit. The Dems wasted a lot of time trying to reach out to the Republicans by supporting their ideas. The individual mandate, end of life counseling (now called death panels), cap and trade, the DREAM act... all of those were Republican ideas that they turned violently against as soon as the Democrats supported them.

The whole reason NASA is even being cut is because the GOP took the country hostage last summer over the debt ceiling. Nevermind that most of the debt comes from the wars they supported and the tax cuts they demanded.

Re:Important to remember:

[MightyYar]

The really sick thing is the first time I remember hearing the mandate as a serious proposal was by some Republicans offering an alternative just after Hillary released her healthcare proposal in the early 90s.

Warped world, that Washington.

Re:Important to remember:

[MightyYar]

It is very difficult to look at the Bush presidency - some of it including control of both houses of congress - and come away with a feeling that the Republicans represent fiscal discipline.

Re:Important to remember:

[pixelpusher220]

Seriously? The LEFT is against NASA? Bush tried to kill the Voyager programs for a measly $4 million/year in savings. The 2 single farthest things we've ever sent into space sending back data we won't be able to reproduce for literally 40 years and he wanted to kill the program for that little bit of savings.

The LEFT is all about funding NASA, the problem is the RIGHT's obstinate blocking of anything related to INVESTMENT in our future. Why don't we have a Shuttle program? Yet give out more than NASA's ENTIRE budget to the oil industry EVERY YEAR?

The LEFT is not the problem.

On a more rational note, gerrymandered districts are a major problem on both sides of the aisle. But that's a more fundamentally broken part of our government.

Re:Important to remember:

[CanHasDIY]

Hence the phrase, "give or take." Also, use of the word "likely."

My avoidance of definites was deliberate.

Re:Important to remember:

[necro81]

as NASA is under mostly military spending

NASA is a civilian agency and does not fall under the auspices of the department of defense. Its budget isn't a part of the Defense budget; it's its own separate line item.

NASA does get some money from the military whenever NASA launches or services DoD hardware, but that's from the DoD side of the ledger, not NASA's.

Re:Important to remember:

[The Grim Reefer]

I think it is the Left that is big on NASA cuts, as NASA is under mostly military spending. The problem is a failure to educate the public about the importance of these areas, If you leave it to average voter they will see NASA as a waste of tax payer money, because the government does nothing to really explain the importance to the general public. It was easy during the Cold war where we can go In Your Face USSR... But now our greatest enemies cannot even get a missile to go a few hundred miles, it seems less of a priority. Why does big business have control much greater then the government... It is easy, they know how to market to the average Joe.

Funny, I've always seen it as the "fiscal conservatives" want us to quit "wasting" money in space so instead things have to be billed under the military to get anything done. Find me a liberal who opposes NASA funding based off of it going to military purposes, cause I think you are full of shit.

It's funny, and sad, that you are both full of shit. The world is not "blue" or "red". "left" or "right". It's somewhere in between, or maybe outside of these stupid simplifications all together. The entire point of the US was for everyone to find some kind of common ground and work together from that starting point. Somehow this has been warped into splitting the country into polar halves and finding the most divisive issues on either side. Followed by screaming these views at each other until someone loses their voice. I can't say I recall much prior to the early 1970's, but the level of discourse is currently worse than I can remember it in my lifetime.

Re:Important to remember:

[doston]

It is worse than that. There is a group of people in the US Congress who just hate anything that the "other side" supports. It does not matter what it is they will work against anything that they think the other side wants to support. They care more about the success of their party than they do the country they swore to serve. The sad thing is that it has gone on long enough that two such groups have formed. We just have a bunch of obstinate dick heads now due to gerrymandering and an absent media.

Close. The media isn't absent, it's just serving its corporate masters which causes the "obstinate dickheads" in the "'two such groups" to pretend to be gerrymandering. Example: You have two friends. Friend A is a close friend and you also do some limited business together, which you like and the extra cash comes in handy. Friend B is a friend and has been there for you, but there's no real advantage to this friend, other than the occasional pat on the back. Friend A and B know each other, but aren't super close. Now, say something comes up and Friend A and B have conflicting opinions and you have to actually please A, but placate B. Well, that's where the gerrymandering comes in...or just not bringing the topic up much (NAFTA?). Friend A is Corporations, Friend B is Voters. Using that formula, you can pretty much predict the outcome of anything. Note: Friend A usually wins, but Friend B actually has all the power, he's just a little schizoid.

Re:Important to remember:

[poity]

From 1991 on, NASA's budget has steadily gone down, through Democratic controlled congresses AND Republican controlled congresses. I think this is more of a reflection of the US becoming lax after the fall of the Soviet Union than some destruction committed by your anti-science boogeyman. Consider that the ISS began in the early mid 1990s and continued to be funded through consecutive Republican majorities from 1995 onwards, one cannot reasonably put all the credit on the LEFT and all the fault on the RIGHT.

Re:Important to remember:

[ArcherB]

Bullshit. The Dems wasted a lot of time trying to reach out to the Republicans by supporting their ideas. The individual mandate, end of life counseling (now called death panels), cap and trade, the DREAM act... all of those were Republican ideas that they turned violently against as soon as the Democrats supported them.

The whole reason NASA is even being cut is because the GOP took the country hostage last summer over the debt ceiling. Nevermind that most of the debt comes from the wars they supported and the tax cuts they demanded.

Sorry, but the $2-3 trillion in war funding over 10 years doesn't make a dent in the $1.5 Trillion added to the deficit every year.

Try again. Your boogie man is a lie.

Re:Important to remember:

[SteveFoerster]

The other independent is Bernie Sanders. Like him or not, he definitely sticks to his socialist positions. He's willing to make deals with strange bedfellows though - for instance, he worked with Ron Paul on the Fed audit that uncovered trillions of dollars going to major banks.

This is not strange to me. Progressives want government to do more and libertarians want government to do less, but neither wants the corporatism that we have today. At least in the short term, progressives and libertarians should be cooperating. Unfortunately, most people in both groups are too busy hating the other side to think this one through.

Re:Important to remember:

[Anonymous Coward]

Truly spiritual Christians tend not to be Republicans.

They tend to be the touchy feely hippies Republicans hate.

Also, most of the hate comes from rednecks and other non-educated morons who's only belief in Christianity extends to "You are suppose to go to Church on Sunday, but only when the wife makes me." and Jesus died so we can have Christmas.

Re:Important to remember:

[ArcherB]

Funny, I've always seen it as the "fiscal conservatives" want us to quit "wasting" money in space so instead things have to be billed under the military to get anything done.

Find me a liberal who opposes NASA funding based off of it going to military purposes, cause I think you are full of shit.

Really? I wonder because it has not been the "fiscal conservatives" in charge of the White House and Congress these past few years. Hell, back in 2006 when Republicans held both houses and the White House, the shuttles were still flying and there was a funded plan to replace them, and the deficit was 1/5 of what it is today.

It makes me wonder, though. If liberals don't oppose NASA, as you say, and I know that conservatives don't oppose NASA, then why the cuts? I think the difference is that conservatives consider NASA more important than, say, social programs, where as liberals think it's more important to fund the social programs. Liberals see social programs as feeding the poor, conservatives see social programs as rewarding the lazy. It's a difference of opinion that we will probably never resolve.

Re:Important to remember:

[ArcherB]

That may be so, but very few Republicans these days are fiscal conservatives. Many more are only social conservatives, like Rick Santorum: ready and willing to tell other people how to live their lives.

Corporations, on the other hand, get free rein.

That's because as soon as a group tries to steer the Republican party to being "fiscal conservatives", they are labeled "racists" by Democrats. Take THIS group for example.

Re:Important to remember:

[Anonymous Coward]

Left, right or center...doesn't really matter anymore. I can't remember the last time anyone in congress proposed any legislation that made sense for the country as a whole. I grew up believing this country was a 'representative republic' more so than a democracy but in either case I don't see how those in Washington can represent the masses.
I no longer vote for people...but against. Sad when you have to choose between a douche and a turd sandwich.

Re:Important to remember:

[Anonymous Coward]

...and, the people in both of these groups are far outnumbered by rest in the pockets of the corporatist/fascist influences, one way or the other.

Re:Important to remember:

[ArcherB]

It is very difficult to look at the Bush presidency - some of it including control of both houses of congress - and come away with a feeling that the Republicans represent fiscal discipline.

Deficits:
FY 2007: $161 billion
FY 2011: $1,300 billion

I don't think it's that difficult. You are just not trying.

Re:Important to remember:

[pixelpusher220]

Exactly. They always take credit for the successes but assign blame for the failures (i.e. Solyndra). Without *some* failures you can't have progress.

Solar is bad has been the mantra of the GOP for a long time. Now they're complaining that China has all the manufacturing of solar panels. Well, uh, if you'd invested in what the ENTIRE WORLD was clamoring for instead of denying global warming we might actually be the leading producer.

And the GOP call themselves the party of 'business' - it's laughable if not so sad and destructive for the country.

Re:Important to remember:

[Anonymous Coward]

If they had toned down the racist rhetoric perhaps they wouldn't have been labeled as racists.

Re:Important to remember:

[rhsanborn]

Maybe not, but $2 Trillion in war spending, plus $2 Trillion in unfunded Bush tax cuts (Funny the republicans didn't think it necessary to pay for the extension of their tax cuts) does make a sizable dent in our national deficit. Here's an interesting article on exactly this topic. Go look at historic trends of deficit spending and it's surprising that republicans are responsible for some of the largest rises in debt.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/ezra-klein-doing-the-math-on-obamas-deficits/2012/01/31/gIQAnRs7fQ_story.html

Re:Important to remember:

[ArcherB]

The LEFT is all about funding NASA, the problem is the RIGHT's obstinate blocking of anything related to INVESTMENT in our future. Why don't we have a Shuttle program? Yet give out more than NASA's ENTIRE budget to the oil industry EVERY YEAR?

Really? Are you serious? When Bush was president and Republicans held both houses, the Shuttles were flying, a replacement was planned and funded (Constellation program), and the James Webb Telescope and Mars exploration programs were secure.

Hell! Obama and the Democratic Congress has us depending on the Russians to do our heavy lifting. About the only thing NASA can do now is put a satellite in low orbit.

Re:Important to remember:

[hey!]

Yeah -- Obamacare is really Romneycare is really Bob Dole's 1993 plan.

People like to say there's no real difference between the Democrats and Republicans, but that's not true. Democrats vote *for* Republican initiatives, Republicans vote against them.

Re:Important to remember:

[bjdevil66]

I would buy this argument if the Dems (or the GOP) were trying to even attempt to balance the budget. That way we could look to the future with hope for stopping fund cuts like these.

Instead, both sides - and 99% of Americans, for that matter - aren't willing to make the sacrifices necessary.

The lower income people who aren't paying a penny in income taxes but getting thousands back each year as Earned Income Credits... (Ask some of them what they do with that money... "It's vacation time, baby!"... GUILTY

The corporations shielding their billions in income overseas... GUILTY

The Dems that won't lower the corporate tax rate and at least get a large chunk of the money being held overseas... GUILTY

The politicians who keep giving the 99% their cash "they deserve" by simply having a pulse... GUILTY

The GOP for invading Iraq without good evidence and dropping a cool trillion plus on it... GUILTY

The Defense Department's never-ending war machine (the amount spent on four or five F-22s - that will never see combat, BTW - would cover the satellite funding difference)... GUILTY

The Dems who do nothing to stop the millions of illegal immigrants from coming here to cut local costs (violent crime, ID theft, social program costs) - possibly because they see a giant block of future, loyal Dem voters - all in the name of "stopping racism", of course - GUILTY

The American public as a whole, for not giving a crap about others, all while lying/cheating/stealing a little more than the day before and saying, "the banks did it - why not us?", and ignoring the imminent destruction of the dollar and/or the American economy... "Just keep the time bomb going somehow, and I don't care how..." GUILTY

It's really sad to watch our American empire slowly dying as it has been for decades now, with us - the American people - doing all the wrong things (or nothing at all) to stop it. We might as well rename our country The Neo Roman Empire (or for you Asimov fans, Trantor)...

The real solution is for people to really start caring about each other again, but anybody talking all "faggy and shit" like that is laughed out of town...

Re:Important to remember:

[ArcherB]

Maybe not, but $2 Trillion in war spending, plus $2 Trillion in unfunded Bush tax cuts (Funny the republicans didn't think it necessary to pay for the extension of their tax cuts) does make a sizable dent in our national deficit. Here's an interesting article on exactly this topic. Go look at historic trends of deficit spending and it's surprising that republicans are responsible for some of the largest rises in debt.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/ezra-klein-doing-the-math-on-obamas-deficits/2012/01/31/gIQAnRs7fQ_story.html

Deficits:
FY 2007: $161 billion (R Congress R Whitehouse)
FY 2011: $1,300 billion (D Congress D Whitehouse)

It should also be noted that the US took in MORE money after the Bush tax cuts than before. This is because the economy boomed and the unemployment rate was under 5% much of the time. You actually get a bigger piece when you take a smaller piece from a large pie than when you take a larger piece from a smaller one.

Re:Important to remember:

[MightyYar]

The really hilarious thing isn't that you cherry-picked data. It's that you linked back to the un-cherry-picked table:

Obama Deficits
FY 2013*: $901 billion
FY 2012*: $1,327 billion
FY 2011: $1,300 billion
FY 2010: $1,293 billion

Bush Deficits
FY 2009: $1,413 billion
FY 2008: $459 billion
FY 2007: $161 billion

Now, I won't ding Bush too badly for the bailout-derived deficit... but of course I'd have to give Obama the same latitude there. Now compare him to Clinton:
Year GDP-US $ billion Federal Deficit-fed $ billion
1990 5800.5 221.03 a
1991 5992.1 269.24 a
1992 6342.3 290.32 a
1993 6667.4 255.05 a
1994 7085.2 203.18 a
1995 7414.7 163.95 a
1996 7838.5 107.43 a
1997 8332.4 21.89 a
1998 8793.5 -69.27 a
1999 9353.5 -125.61 a
2000 9951.5 -236.24 a
2001 10286.2 -128.23 a
2002 10642.3 157.75 a
2003 11142.2 377.59 a
2004 11853.3 412.73 a
2005 12623 318.35 a
2006 13377.2 248.18 a
2007 14028.7 160.71 a
2008 14369.1 458.55 a
2009 13939 1412.69 a
2010 14526.5 1293.49 a
2011 15094 1299.59 a
2012 15601.5 1326.95 b

Legend:
  a - actual reported
  b - budgeted estimate in US fy13 budget

Clinton gets the blame for 1993-2001. His maximum deficit was 255 billion, his first year. His best year was 2000 with a 236 billion surplus. Now look at those Bush years again...

Now to be totally fair, Clinton did benefit from a tax and cost cutting package that cost Bush I his 2nd term. He also had a nice dot-com bubble at the end there.

Of course, Bush inherited an actual surplus and benefited from a much larger housing bubble.

So yeah, Bush cannot claim to be a fiscal conservative. Republicans have zero claim to that title right now.

Re:Important to remember:

[Phelan]

Why not the 2009 budget that included the first TARP passed under Bush?

Or the fact that Bush enacted policies with $5.07 trillion of new cost
With Obama at far under $2 trillion

Re:Important to remember:

[swillden]

It is very difficult to look at the Bush presidency - some of it including control of both houses of congress - and come away with a feeling that the Republicans represent fiscal discipline.

Deficits: FY 2007: $161 billion FY 2011: $1,300 billion

I don't think it's that difficult. You are just not trying.

Wow. That's about as bald an example of fact-picking as I think I've ever seen here. I'm no fan of Obama (or of Bush) -- in fact I've taken to calling them Obushma, because I really can't see much difference between them, but still... here's rest of the list from your link:

FY 2011: $1,300 billion (Obama)
FY 2010: $1,293 billion (Obama)
FY 2009: $1,413 billion (Bush)
FY 2008: $459 billion (Bush)
FY 2007: $161 billion (Bush)

I agree that the Republicans don't represent the voice of fiscal conservatism. AFAICT there is no significant voice of fiscal conservatism in American politics today. If there were, we'd have people discussing how we're going to achieve and maintain a few hundred billion in annual surpluses, to begin paying down the debt.

Re:Important to remember:

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think it's that difficult. You are just not trying.

I would say the one not trying is you, as you are too lazy to cite all the numbers and only cherry picked two

Here's the numbers from the site

(Under Bush)
FY 2007: $161 billion (lower than the $248 billion deficit of Clinton's last year)
FY 2008: $459 billion (298 billion increase from previous year)
FY 2009: $1,413 billion (...)

(Under Obama)
FY 2010: $1,293 billion (lower than Bush's last year)
FY 2011: $1,300 billion (7 billion increase from previous year)
FY 2012/13: leaving them out as they are still ongoing

Re:Important to remember:

[Dishevel]

Hmm.
It is good that you can be racist if it is against whites.
That makes it appropriate I am sure. To get past you racist hatred toward those you do not agree with though I have not seen many Christians pooping on stuff at OWS rallies.

Re:Important to remember:

[Mindcontrolled]

Didn't you get the memo? It is only hate, if it implies the slightest criticism of evangelical fundamentalism or overprivileged white males. Anything else is reasonable criticism, dripping with Christian Love (TM).

Re:Important to remember:

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn I wish I had some mod points. Bravo sir! +1 billion!

Re:Important to remember:

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you...THANK YOU for not changing your units. So many people would have stated.

FY 2007: $161 billion (R Congress R Whitehouse)
FY 2011: $1.3 trillion (D Congress D Whitehouse)

Obviously, the 2011 numbers are smaller.

Re:Important to remember:

[internerdj]

A number of conservatives have vested interest in the space program as well. Alabama, Texas, and Florida are all beneficiaries of a strong federal space program. A NASA employee and friend of mine described it this way: NASA is a lasting legacy program. It is a program to support when a president is considering his legacy in the history of the nation. Practically, that makes it a second term issue for any party.

Re:Important to remember:

[hsbaker]

But the largest deficit spending happens when we have a Republican president and Democrat Congress. I don't know what that means, except that they're all spending too much of our money

Re:Important to remember:

[butchersong]

Not that I am overly pleased with the Republican performance recently but... it was not Republicans who had control of the purse strings in the from 2007 and forward. Democrats controlled both the house and senate.

Re:Important to remember:

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you have any examples? The only racist rhetoric I can recall were the accusations of racism.

Re:Important to remember:

[ArcherB]

The really hilarious thing isn't that you cherry-picked data. It's that you linked back to the un-cherry-picked table:

Obama Deficits
FY 2013*: $901 billion
FY 2012*: $1,327 billion
FY 2011: $1,300 billion
FY 2010: $1,293 billion

Bush Deficits
FY 2009: $1,413 billion
FY 2008: $459 billion
FY 2007: $161 billion

I'm not trying to cherry pick. That's why I linked the whole page.

The key here is who spends the money. It's not the president. Now go back to your data and calculate who was in charge of congress by year. The president means nothing. That's why I chose 2007. 2007 was the last budget passed by a Republican Congress before Pelosi and Reid took over in Jan 2007.

THIS chart is much better as it shows the party in Congress as well as the party that controls the White House. It shows that, at lest over the past 20 years, that Republicans tend to be better stewards of the treasury than Democrats, with some exceptions, of course.

Also, I tend not to look at "projected" deficits of 2012 and 2013.

Of course, Bush inherited an actual surplus and benefited from a much larger housing bubble.

I actually think the surplus was the cause of the increase during the early Bush years. It's hard to say, "We can't afford that. There's no money in the budget." when you are coming off of a surplus. It also doesn't help when congress is evenly split. This is when compromise happens. "We'll fund your pet projects if you fund ours." kinda thing.

Re:Important to remember:

[ArcherB]

Maybe not, but $2 Trillion in war spending, plus $2 Trillion in unfunded Bush tax cuts (Funny the republicans didn't think it necessary to pay for the extension of their tax cuts) does make a sizable dent in our national deficit. Here's an interesting article on exactly this topic. Go look at historic trends of deficit spending and it's surprising that republicans are responsible for some of the largest rises in debt.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/ezra-klein-doing-the-math-on-obamas-deficits/2012/01/31/gIQAnRs7fQ_story.html

Deficits:
FY 2007: $161 billion (R Congress R Whitehouse)
FY 2011: $1,300 billion (D Congress D Whitehouse)

It should also be noted that the US took in MORE money after the Bush tax cuts than before. This is because the economy boomed and the unemployment rate was under 5% much of the time. You actually get a bigger piece when you take a smaller piece from a large pie than when you take a larger piece from a smaller one.

Modded (Score -1, Fact)

Re:Important to remember:

[ArcherB]

Right. I used years where the same party controlled both congress and the White House. 2007 was the last budget year for Republicans. 2011 was the last budget year for Democrats. In 2008 and 2009, Democrats held both houses of Congress and Bush was in the White House. Remember, Congress controls the purse strings.

If I wanted to cherry pick, I would have used the 2012 projection of $1,327 billion.

Re:Important to remember:

[CrackedButter]

Interesting how you think this is a centre vs right issue (there is no left in American) when Neil DeGrasse Tyson knows why and has stated why. A simple video search on Youtube explains the situation you perceive as is. Though you're close.

Re:Important to remember:

[hey!]

Really? Are you serious? When Bush was president and Republicans held both houses, the Shuttles were flying, a replacement was planned and funded (Constellation program), and the James Webb Telescope and Mars exploration programs were secure.

Sure, but all this was accomplished with unrealistic budgeting. Here's what the independent review board studying Constellation had to say:

Since Constellation’s inception, the program has faced a mismatch between funding and program content.

[HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT Plans Committee]

The report goes on to say:

Simply extending existing ambitious programs “to fit the money” is seldom a solution to the
resource dilemma. The impact of fixed costs and technological obsolescence soon overwhelms any such strategy. In the Committee’s travels, it encountered widespread support for this policy of realism—although it is likely that most proponents were thinking of having more money, not less program. Should the latter turn out to be the case, much of that conviction is likely to vanish.

Constellation was architecturally sound, but the program management and planning were a disaster. Constellation was never funded enough to get done on time, and the plans didn't account for having to pick up fixed costs borne by the Shuttle program after that program wound down. In a nutshell, Constellation Program delays were going to be much more costly than the plans suggested, and its funding pretty much guaranteed delays. The story is much the same with the Webb telescope: good idea, lousy financial planning control.

This doesn't mean that Bush was anti-NASA or anti-space exploration. It just means it was more important to them to state an ambitious goal than to actually achieve it. That is manifest by its budgeting. They spent an enormous amount of money to be able to claim they were were making progress, but not enough to actually accomplish something.

Re:Important to remember:

[Hatta]

I'll give you a hint. They aren't honestly social conservatives any more than they are fiscal conservatives. They're fiscal and social conservatives only when it applies to someone else.

Re:Important to remember:

[ArcherB]

But the largest deficit spending happens when we have a Republican president and Democrat Congress. I don't know what that means, except that they're all spending too much of our money

Compromise! Democrats tell a Republican President, "You'll get the money to fund your projects (military, wars, NASA), but only if you sign off on the money we want to fund ours (social programs, unemployment benefits, planned parenthood, NPR)." Republicans tell a Democratic President, "We'll fund your project (interest rate cuts for student loans) with funds we cut from another one of your projects (Obamacare "slush fund")."

Re:Important to remember:

[artor3]

So three trillion doesn't make a dent in fifteen trillion? Maybe we have different definitions of "dent". I'll tell you what... take a 20% pay cut and tell me it's not a dent.

And it's funny that you completely ignored the other half of the equation: the massive tax cuts. Whatsamatter? Don't like the conclusion they lead you to?

Re:Important to remember:

[Anonymous Coward]

The more bullshit you write, the less you'll be taken seriously.

If you removed all the half truths and lies you would be left with only this sentence.

About the only thing NASA can do now is put a satellite in low orbit.

Re:Important to remember:

[Anonymous Coward]

The economy boomed because it was fueled by unsustainable mortgages and credit card debt. And then before that, we had an Internet bubble.

Bush cut taxes and we had a boom. Bush Sr and Clinton raised taxes and we had a boom. Both booms were followed by a bust. IMHO, bumping or lowering the tax rate by a few percent doesn't really affect the economy as much as people claim, and probably a lot less than say the Fed's monetary policy. It does significantly affect government revenues though, all other things being equal (e.g. without a crash or boom).

Re:Important to remember:

[steelfood]

He's willing to make deals with strange bedfellows though

What's wrong with that?

Re:Important to remember:

[steelfood]

Yeah, but spending money to wage war while not raising any taxes to fund it is not exactly sound either, and you're really skirting the point.

Besides, your $2 trillion over 10 years, assuming that it is an accurate number (I've heard bigger numbers), is still nothing to sniff at. At the very least, it would've put us one year and change of deficit less than where we are now.

So the question is, are you supporting fighting a war while cutting taxes? Or are you just nit picking on GP's numbers having nothing else of relevancy to say?

Re:Important to remember:

[shmlco]

"Under current law, CBO projects, budget deficits will drop markedly over the next few years—to $1.1 trillion in 2012, $704 billion in 2013, and $533 billion in 2014."

And that's without letting the Bush tax cuts expire, or raising taxes on the 1%.

Re:Important to remember:

[shmlco]

"It should also be noted that the US took in MORE money after the Bush tax cuts than before."

Like there's a cause and effect? That also happens to be the period during which the financial sector ran amok and banks and mortgage lenders encouraged people to cash in -- and spend -- their home equity.

Re:Important to remember:

[Omestes]

The Dems who do nothing to stop the millions of illegal immigrants from coming here to cut local costs (violent crime, ID theft, social program costs) - possibly because they see a giant block of future, loyal Dem voters - all in the name of "stopping racism", of course - GUILTY

You said some stuff I agree with, and some stuff I don't. This one, though, annoys me.

What the hell have the Republicans done? Building a very expensive, and completely ineffective, wall doesn't count. The Republicans even adopted a very nonsensical policy of "We must keep them all out, before we can do anything about the ones that are here".

Both sides LOVE illegal immigrants. Democrats love the idea of the eternally-forthcoming, yet never coming, wave of Latino liberal voters. Republicans love them because they are an infinite font of cheap labor, which can suppress wages and break unions. No one wants to kill illegal immigration.

our American empire

For some reason this phrase doesn't fill me with the glee I suppose it should.

Re:Important to remember:

[MightyYar]

The key here is who spends the money. It's not the president.

I'm not convinced. Bush pushed Medicare expansion very heavily. He pushed the Iraq War very heavily. The across-the-board tax cuts were his. In short, his programs and policies cost a lot of money, and he (or congress) did not make any of the offsetting cuts now demanded by the Tea Party. Interestingly, the Tea Party never would have happened without Bush's spending. Or the spending under Bush, if you prefer more congressional blame.

Bush also went for big government. He expanded the federal government into local education. He created the Dept. of Homeland Security. And of course there was the Medicare expansion that I mentioned earlier.

Very odd for a supposedly "conservative" President.

Re:Important to remember:

[Anonymous Coward]

What makes you think 99% are in favor of your ideas? The Tea Party has an order of magnitude more members than OWS. Nobody speaks for 99% of Americans, quit pretending you do.

Re:Important to remember:

[russotto]

This is not strange to me. Progressives want government to do more and libertarians want government to do less, but neither wants the corporatism that we have today. At least in the short term, progressives and libertarians should be cooperating. Unfortunately, most people in both groups are too busy hating the other side to think this one through.

Progressives see libertarians as either Republicans or anarchists, and libertarians see Progressives as big-government people who don't realize they've already won.

Re:Important to remember:

[chrismcb]

I would buy this argument if the Dems (or the GOP) were trying to even attempt to balance the budget. That way we could look to the future with hope for stopping fund cuts like these.

Instead, both sides - and 99% of Americans, for that matter - aren't willing to make the sacrifices necessary.

Last week there was someone collecting signatures at the local grocery store "Make it harder for them to raise taxes." Uhmmm WHY????

Re:Important to remember:

[pixelpusher220]

Uh, which party likes to 'spend' money again, and which created the worst deficits in history? That would be the Dems in the former and the GOP in the later.

Tax and Spend liberals is used like an epithet by the GOP yet it's actually called fiscal responsibility. The GOP spend like drunken sailors on tax cuts which only serve to increase the debt and make the rich richer and the rest of us holding the bag.

Literally HALF of the debt under Obama is Bush anyway, since we were losing a trillion dollars a year on 2009, in 3 years that's 3 trillion of the 6 trillion increase. So under Bush, we went from 4 trillion in debt (and a SURPLUS budget), again mostly by GOP priorities with some Democratic help, to 13 billion assuming the 1 trillion a year deficits he created and left for us since 2009.

I agree that both parties have a hand in cuts, but you can't with a straight face say that the Dems are the ones who would initiate and implement cuts when they are routinely tarred as the people who spend too much. Granted they don't have the spine to call the GOP corporatists what they are so they are culpable in that regard, but both parties spend. One does it with tax cuts and the other does it with investments in the country; i.e. stimulus that actually creates jobs.

Re:Important to remember:

[Darth Snowshoe]

This, a million times this. The authors here are not some group of crunchy, kumbayaa-strumming hemp-skirt wearing lefties; they are straight out of right-wing "think-tanks" so one would assume their opinions would have some degree of relevance to the workings of the Republican party.

Re:Important to remember:

[Darth Snowshoe]

I'd like to overlook all of the political arguments on this thread, but this statement "About the only thing NASA can do now is put a satellite in low orbit" is simply false, either intentionally so or misinformed. I don't know why such sentiment keeps appearing here at Slashdot of all places. Let's take a look at the recent record;

Kepler - increases by something like an order of magnitude the number of known exoplanets. Way into extended mission time now.
Spirit and Opportunity rovers - nominal thirty day mission, they've now been operating on Mars' service for over eight years.
New Horizons - on its way to be the first spacecraft to visit Pluto and (potentially) other Kuiper Belt objects
MESSENGER - first spacecraft to orbit Mercury, been there for over a year now.
NEAR Shoemaker - orbits and lands on asteroid 433 Eros (a first?)
Cassini - discovers open liquid lakes and oceans on Titan, cryovolcanoes on Enceladus, new dynamics in Saturn's rings, and on and on. A freaking awesome mission.
Hubble - still working, still doing real science. 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics (dark energy, expansion of the universe is accelerating) largely done using Hubble data.
STEREO - just captured incidental images of a new Nova. Returning new data on the Sun every day.
JUNO - on it's way to Jupiter, first solar powered mission to that planet.
Mars Science Laboratory - over budget, yes, but on its way to Mars, and by far the most sophisticated robot ever to be sent to another planet.

Keep in mind that space is hard. Let's take a look at what other space programs have been up to lately -

    - JAXA's Akatsuki-Venus mission failed to enter orbit around Venus last year
    - Russia's Phobos-Grunt mission to Martian satellites failed to even escape Earth's orbit
    - Russia's resupply mission to ISS exploded less than six minutes after takeoff (August 2011)
    - ESA's Mars Express mission lost it's Beagle-2 lander (crashed? nobody knows)
    - Cassini's Huygens probe (ESA) had a fair number of problems, including, at one point, its spinning in the opposite to intended direction during descent
    - India's Chandrayaan lunar probe operated for 312 days before failing, rather than its nominal 2-year mission (probably for thermal reasons)

For the record, other current NASA missions up for extensions include EPOXI, GRAIL, MRO, Mars Odyssey Orbiter, and LRO.

Yes I'm cherry-picking a bit here, but overlooking dozens of other functioning programs also. It's not my job to document all this - but before posting snide little "NASA's not good for anything anymore" comments, maybe do a minimal amount of search.

Re:Important to remember:

[Cyberax]

And? Care to mention that inconsequential 2008 economic fiasco that CAUSED this 1300 billions of deficit? No? Yeah, fact cherry-picking is fun.

Re:Important to remember:

[Cyberax]

Would it help if someone gives you keys to elevator while you're already falling off the Empire State Building? By the time Democrats got control of the Congress it was too late to do anything. By the same token, dotcom crash happened during the Bush II era, but it can't be blamed on him - there simply was not time for him to do anything.

Re:Important to remember:

[swillden]

Ah, that does make more sense than looking just at the White House.

However, I stand by my assertion that neither party represents fiscal responsibility. Somewhat different degrees of fiscal irresponsibility, perhaps.

Re:Important to remember:

[cthulhu11]

More specifically, Libertarians want government to do less *for everyone but themselves*. They're much like Republicans in this respect.

Re:Important to remember:

[SteveFoerster]

I've hung around libertarians for twenty years, and that's false for all the ones I can remember.

Re:Important to remember:

[cthulhu11]

It's very true for the two that I know personally. Smaller government blah blah blah. So you don't want roads? Oh yeah I want them smooth as glass. So you don't want water safety? Law enforcement? Oh yeah I want those. What don't you want, then? Umm...

Re:Important to remember:

[bjdevil66]

Both sides LOVE illegal immigrants ... Republicans love them because they are an infinite font of cheap labor, which can suppress wages and break unions. No one wants to kill illegal immigration.

This is a belated response - sorry. That's a great point about the GOP and the cheap labor pool that I didn't think to add. I agree 100%.

A perfect example

[ThatsNotPudding]

of Short-Sightedness.

The anti-science crowd will soon be racking up an impressive body count - including their own voting-against-their-own-interest constituencies in hurricane and tornado country.

Re:A perfect example

[Anonymous Coward]

of Short-Sightedness.

The anti-science crowd will soon be racking up an impressive body count - including their own voting-against-their-own-interest constituencies in hurricane and tornado country.

Wouldn't the bulk of such voters (stupid, short-sighted, Bible-thumping, penny-pinching bean counters) sort of be dead due to hurricanes and tornadoes before they realized what was going on and could vote for The Other Guy(tm)?

Hey, wait, that's the entire plan! Those In Power(tm) are projecting that the stupids will gain intelligence in time, so they're going to make sure they're all dead before they can vote for The Other Guy(tm)! The long con! Brilliant!

Re:A perfect example

[TubeSteak]

A perfect example of Short-Sightedness.

No doubt the free market will step in and launch satellites that are better, faster, and cheaper.
But you'll have to pay for it.

But there's a silver lining to this cloud!.
At least people will stop blaming the government for not predicting hurricanes and tornados!

Re:A perfect example

[necro81]

A perfect example of Short-Sightedness

Well, if you lose your observational capacity, it's a perfect example of non-sightedness.

Re:A perfect example

[Anonymous Coward]

Invent bogus excuse and "in the name of security" make DHS & TSA responsible for satellites. There would be no lack of funding then. Science we hate, security we love.

Re:A perfect example

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not saying that satellites have nothing to do with predicting tornado outbreaks, but really as someone who has always lived in tornado "alley" it doesn't affect day to day lives any more then earthquakes do on the west coast I'd imagine. It affects how homes are built in some places, but it's not like a tornado watch gets issued and we all flee to a different area or take cover in a bomb shelter. Radar and spotters are still what is used to issue tornado warnings (sound sirens, break into TV programming) on those thunderstorms, and those are issued in a county or part of a county basis.

Tornadoes are awesome, and deadly, but they are small parts of small usually pretty fast moving storms. They don't cause nearly the death and destruction of something like a few days of torrential rain and flooding. So, not really worried about it, and no you won't see death tolls rise in tornado country for any reason other than bad luck on a powerful storm's path which isn't something satellites are used to track anyways.

Re:A perfect example

[Anonymous Coward]

What a total dunce. Your buddy the Big O, cut NASA, blame him. The only good thing to come of this is, maybe the global warming scam will slow down a bit.

Re:A perfect example

[Anonymous Coward]

Has obie found a way to blame his three-plus years of inaction on this (even with TWO years of OWNING BOTH houses of congress) on GWB yet?

Re:A perfect example

[peragrin]

oh yes they will.

Remember the gubermint is responsible for anything the devil, muslims, terrorists didn't do.

When we can't predict hurricanes any more there will be a big push blaming obama since he signed the bill even though republicans wrote it to launch more in a hurry at twice^H^H^H three times the price.

remember also current Republicans will never take any kind of responsibility ever. It is always some one else's fault.

Correction....

[Lumpy]

Public and Scientific earth viewing satellites are dwindling. The military has plenty of money to launch all they need.

Re:Correction....

[Ironchew]

It's still worrying that civilian instruments in space are dwindling. Sure, the military-industrial complex has Congress in their pocket, but science is not a top priority for military satellites.

Re:Correction....

[chill]

You must've missed the article the other day where the Secretary of Defense called Climate Change a threat to national security.

http://www.rttnews.com/1877434/climate-change-a-threat-to-national-security-panetta.aspx?type=usp

Re:Correction....

[Hatta]

It's even more worrying that civilian instruments are declining with respect to militarism. If it were just cutbacks across the board that caused this, it would be unfortunate. But what we actually see indicates a (continuing) shift in priorities. Military spending is more important to the powers that run the US than scientific spending. Notably, supremacy of the military and disdain for intellectuals are both defining characteristics of fascist states.

Re:Correction....

[IDtheTarget]

Public and Scientific earth viewing satellites are dwindling. The military has plenty of money to launch all they need.

Actually, that's incorrect. We (I'm a Signal Officer in the Army National Guard that just returned from a deployment to Afghanistan) have several communications systems that use civilian satellites.

So your statement would more correctly read: The military has plenty of money to rent time on civilian satellites.

To head off the inevitable "it's not secure!", we use NSA-provided end-to-end encryption for all of our tactical communications, especially those going over civilian networks. Including satellites.

Re:Correction....

[Anonymous Coward]

OPSEC, dog...

Re:Correction....

[fahrbot-bot]

Military spending is more important to the powers that run the US than scientific spending.

Military spending has a much higher profit and waste margin.

Re:Correction....

[ArhcAngel]

civilian instruments in space are dwindling

Are you sure about that?

Re:Correction....

[QuantumRiff]

Did he reveal privileged information? They use satellites to transmit data? Perhaps some people think Navy Destroyers tow a really, really long fiber optic cable, or use a very, very big speaker to transmit through the ocean?

Re:Correction....

[Anonymous Coward]

The military has perfected consumerism. Buy it with the intention of eventually wrecking it...eventually wreck it...but some more.

Re:Correction....

[dave420]

Yes. There's a massive difference between actual long-term science projects (such as weather monitoring, climate recording, etc., which cost many millions to get into space) and some hobbyist PCB in a rapidly-decaying orbit with relatively-useless instrumentation. Please don't confuse the two.

Re:Correction....

[tlhIngan]

You must've missed the article the other day where the Secretary of Defense called Climate Change a threat to national security.

Which is true because you'll have nations fighting over resources, especially water.

Thing is though, it's the secretary of defense - so this would be a call for increased military spending. Climate change is real, the only debate is how much of an effect humans are causing (from none to a lot). Climate change deniers are simply stating it's changing not because of human activity, so full steam ahead to higher profits (unfortunately - that's all it seems to boil down to - deny climate change because dammit, I want my yacht!).

Of course, we soon won't know how much of the change is happening at all, just we better go and arm ourselves.

Re:Correction....

[necro81]

I'm enthusiastic about kicksat, but you are entirely naive if you think that a bunch of kicksats will replace the capabilities of a $1bn Earth-observing platform. It's not just about having something in orbit; it's about the quality of the instruments. The cameras, spectrometers, etc. in the Earth-orbiting fleet are all multi-million dollar, one-off, high-precision instruments. Amateurs can't duplicate that capability.

Re:Correction....

[RogL]

Did he reveal privileged information? They use satellites to transmit data? Perhaps some people think Navy Destroyers tow a really, really long fiber optic cable, or use a very, very big speaker to transmit through the ocean?

The volume-control for those very, very big speakers goes to 11.

Re:Correction....

[Lumpy]

Oh crap, Now we will have a war on climate?

Get ready for special licenses to breathe.

"Sir you are breathing in a public breathing zone without a license... please put your hands and feet in the circles."

Re:Correction....

[Lumpy]

and they dont tow a cable, they use 802.11 wifi, that is why a carrier group is so big, they have to leave a ship every 4 miles to keep connectivity going.

Re:Correction....

[Anonymous Coward]

Fighting nations for water? More like states increasing the battle over water rights. Those Great Lakes are tasty targets for Nevada and California!

Re:Correction....

[Neon Aardvark]

And military spending is obviously less important to the powers that be than social welfare:

http://macromon.wordpress.com/2011/05/25/chart-of-the-day-u-s-federal-spending/

Re:Correction....

[Solandri]

Public and Scientific earth viewing satellites are dwindling. The military has plenty of money to launch all they need.

*Poof* You have your wish. The military budget is now zero. And we still have a $610 billion budget deficit.

Can we please stop derailing any budget/financing debate with the misguided notion that everything can be fixed by cutting military spending? The problem is that the government spends way, way more than it takes in, period. Military spending is just a part of the problem, not the sole problem. It's not even the main problem if you believe the CBO reports (heresy, I know). Medicare and Medicaid are.

Re:Correction....

[neBelcnU]

Lumpy owes me a keyboard. But wait, what's this? Reports and even some command-and-control via semaphore from London to the coast of Spain? Yep, Admiral Lord Nelson's victory at Trafalgar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Trafalgar) was known back home almost immediately, IIRC. ("The Price of Admiralty" by John Keegan.) Ships stationed at line-of-site the entire way.

Re:Correction....

[Omestes]

Wow, strawman! Where did he ever say "I want to cut all military spending to zero"?

Yes, Medicaid/care are big, bigger than the military... But my metric when it comes to cutting is to cut first from those with less social benefit, and last from those with greater social benefit. I fail to see how our current size military really helps anyone as much as Medicare/aid. And before you start grabbing up more straw, I think we DO need a military, and probably one bigger on average, per capita, than most of the rest of the world. I think we have TOO much military, though, and it is far, far too wasteful as well. Talk to some engineer types in the military, and ask them about costs.

If I was the budget slashing god for a day, I'd cut 90% of agricultural subsidies, and most other costs that only wield happy corporations (oil companies would HATE me, for instance). Then I'd close corporate tax loopholes. Then, I'd hit the military... and only after than would I hit anything that effects a single actual American citizen.

No Problem

[Anne_Nonymous]

We'll just outsource it all to India and China.

Re:No Problem

[BackwardPawn]

So when Al Roker says: "And now for your local forcast," I'll get the forcast for Mumbai. How helpful.

Re:No Problem

[Anonymous Coward]

and yet it will be no more inaccurate.

Re:No Problem

[Beardo the Bearded]

"Hello, have you tried turning the weather off, then back on again?"

Re:No Problem

[hey!]

Nah. "We" don't have to do anything. If monitoring climate change is important, the free market will do a better job at it than government.

Re:No Problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Amen Brother - It's the American way

Re:No Problem

[Anonymous Coward]

This is already done.

My brother-in-law has a degree in meterology. But in many non-major cities, radio and TV stations do not have their own weather personnel.

Instead they contact out to a service that gives them a timeslot with a real-life weatherperson for a few minutes.

It's much more efficient as that person can then do the next timeslot for another station, and continue on for a few timezones.

Re:No Problem

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Well, the US has already outsourced manned space flight to Russia, so why not?

And if workers are cheaper in India and China, maybe soldiers are, too? We've already seen this done in Afghanistan and Iraq with private security contractors. The UK has done this for a long time with their Ghurkas.

Outsource defense, as well. How do you say Blackwater in Chinese and Hindi?

Re:No Problem

[AHuxley]

Don't worry about the weather. Food is cheaper from China, Australia, Brazil, Russia, the EU, Africa ....
If prime US farmland is flooded, turns to dust, print some export cash and buy up the years short fall.

Re:No Problem

[sydneyfong]

Are you one of those "economists" who really believe the free market is rational and able to see beyond the next financial quarter?

Re:No Problem

[hey!]

Are you one of those "economists" who really believe the free market is rational and able to see beyond the next financial quarter?

No.

Re:No Problem

[Anonymous Coward]

"Hello, have you tried turning the weather off, then back on again?"

I did . Once. A lightning bolt struck me when I was performing a rain dance. Apparently, Mother Nature does like mere mortals attempting to play with the weather switches. Is that smell my hair still smoldering after 35 years?

Re:No Problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, all the victims of climate change will hop in their time machine and go back a hundred years or so to the present day to sue us. The financial costs of reparations to currently nonexistant future victims will surely make companies in the present respect the environment!

Like it or not

[Anonymous Coward]

A growing percentage of our GDP is going to taking care of senior citizens.
A growing percentage of our GDP is going to health care.
A growing percentage of our GDP is going to the military.

Either find ways to spend less on the above, increase income dramatically or deal with decreasing other services. Fourth option is a combinationation of the first three. I see no other choices.

Re:Like it or not

[Anonymous Coward]

A growing percentage of our GDP is going to Wall Street billionaires.
A growing percentage of our GDP is going to the super wealthy.
A growing percentage of our GDP is going to big bankers.
A growing percentage of our GDP is going to military contractors.
A growing percentage of our GDP is going to maintaining certain industries failed business models.

Either find a way to make everyone play by the same rules, or expect repercussions from the serfs.

Re:Like it or not

[Kenja]

Sorry, just not true.

http://www.econdataus.com/outgdp04.html

Re:Like it or not

[fiannaFailMan]

A growing percentage of our GDP is going to taking care of senior citizens.
A growing percentage of our GDP is going to health care.
A growing percentage of our GDP is going to the military.

Either find ways to spend less on the above, increase income dramatically or deal with decreasing other services. Fourth option is a combinationation of the first three. I see no other choices.

Stick it on the credit card. Easy!

Re:Like it or not

[ArhcAngel]

A growing percentage of our GDP is going to taking care of senior citizens.
A growing percentage of our GDP is going to health care.
A growing percentage of our GDP is going to the military.

Either find ways to spend less on the above, increase income dramatically or deal with decreasing other services. Fourth option is a combinationation of the first three. I see no other choices.

You've done most of the heavy lifting for me so thank you for that. My solution would address all three issues you cited simultaneously.

Reinstate the draft for anyone over 65 and put them on the front lines of any major conflicts.

Many will see the humor...many more will be appalled at the notion...but the truly "touched" will be marketing this to their representative.

Re:Like it or not

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are the Medicare and 'health' series separated? If they were combined, as they should be, the line would show the dramatic climb the parent claims regarding 'health care.'

The parent is wrong about the military. As the graph shows it has been trending down for half a century. You wouldn't know that listening to the malcontents on the left, however.

Re:Like it or not

[tekrat]

People with brains, and a sharp sense of reality.

Re:Like it or not

[JackieBrown]

Why are the Medicare and 'health' series separated? If they were combined, as they should be, the line would show the dramatic climb the parent claims regarding 'health care.'

The parent is wrong about the military. As the graph shows it has been trending down for half a century. You wouldn't know that listening to the malcontents on the left, however.

So that the chart could reflect the point the poster wanted to make.

Re:Like it or not

[Anonymous Coward]

No, military spending is NOT trending down. They just hide the numbers in appropriation bills for ongoing conflicts and in medical care for veterans.

Re:Like it or not

[Kohath]

According to these charts, the world ended in 2008.

Re:Like it or not

[pixelpusher220]

Single payer government run health care solves the first 2.
(cue the 'free marketards' - you have infinitely more control over government than you do a private corporation) The third is easy enough if we get off oil and don't have to be the worlds policeman nearly as much.

Yet the GOP is adamant against both things...

Re:Like it or not

[Omestes]

A growing percentage of our GDP is going to taking care of senior citizens.
A growing percentage of our GDP is going to health care.

How is your Baby Boom going now?

There really is nothing we can do about these two, and both of them will increase. Unless we want to just dump all of our parents and grandparents in the streets and let them cope for themselves, or let them die of preventable diseases in over crowded, third-world-esque hospital wards, we have to just grin and bear it. Or, perhaps, find some other solution (cough, public health care, cough), which keeps some humanitarian values.

Also, our health care is down right embarrassing... What the hell are we paying for? Perhaps we could learn from the rest of the developed world... Oh wait, that would be anti-American (we are #1! To admit that someone else might be smarter would mean we aren't #1 anymore.)

Re:Like it or not

[Anonymous Coward]

Shill accounts from the poster.

Re:Like it or not

[Anonymous Coward]

Either find a way to make everyone play by the same rules, or expect repercussions from the serfs.

They do. That's why, as you said,

A growing percentage of our GDP is going to military contractors.

Simple solution

[wcrowe]

This is a simple problem to solve. All they have to do is label the satellites as "anti-terrorist", or something like that, and they'll get all the funding they need.

Re:Simple solution

[crazyjj]

Congressman: So this satellite...

NASA: The "A-TOP" Anti-Terrorist Observation Platform, sir.

Congressman: It says it's for observing terrorists, but it looks like it's for monitoring the weather...

NASA: It's for monitoring terrorist efforts to use the weather as a weapon, sir.

Congressman: They can do that?!?

NASA: They're very clever, sir.

Re:Simple solution

[Anonymous Coward]

So you assume that the average congressman can tell the difference between a weather satelite and a high-tech spy device? You might be overestimating them...

Re:Simple solution

[Anonymous Coward]

That's brilliant. An anti-Talibansat.

Or how about labelling bad weather as terrorist activity? It would have to be closely monitored. We could come up with a color-code scheme, maybe something in the pastels.

Re:Simple solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Cool, "god" is officially on the terrorist watch list.

Re:Simple solution

[steelfood]

The sad part is, this might actually describe how it will happen.

A perfect storm!

[Jhon]

This is the perfect tin-foil-hat scenario!

The "Global Warming Alarmists" will say it's a plot to prevent the study of of anthropogenic climate change by the "Deniers" and prove just how bad it is.

And the "Deniers" will say it's a plot to keep the "Alarmists" evil lie from coming to light.

Pass the popcorn!

Re:A perfect storm!

[i kan reed]

The "Global Warming Alarmists" will say it's a plot to prevent the study of of anthropogenic climate change by the "Deniers" and prove just how bad it is.

No, I don't think they will. It might be a side-effect of anti-science zealotry in general, but I don't think there's a compelling need to allege a conspiracy to explain this happening.
The argument you present from the other side also seems implausible, as the satellite data has been some of the most damning. On the other hand, who am I to guess at the motives and behaviors of a group I am not part of.

Re:A perfect storm!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, great. We'll be able to pop that popcorn without an artificial heat source.

Re:A perfect storm!

[pixelpusher220]

I've actually been waiting for some anti-GW people to attack the facilities that store the ice cores. If those cores are lost, we lose thousands of years of data that can't be easily replaced.

Re:A perfect storm!

[Jhon]

Or maybe the "alarmists" will attack the facilities -- PRETENDING to be the "anti-GW" people!

TIN FOIL HAT FOR YOU!

Re:A perfect storm!

[russotto]

I've actually been waiting for some anti-GW people to attack the facilities that store the ice cores. If those cores are lost, we lose thousands of years of data that can't be easily replaced.

It's not the anti-GW people who would attack the ice cores. The ice core data shows that CO2 lags warming.

The answer is to CUT TAXES

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Cut Taxes
2. ????
3. Jesus Comes

Re:The answer is to CUT TAXES

[crazyjj]

Jesus will only come back if you also end all corporate regulation. It's in Revelations somewhere.

Re:The answer is to CUT TAXES

[mhajicek]

I noticed there's no profit in that.

Re:The answer is to CUT TAXES

[Anonymous Coward]

Too funny. My kingdom for a mod point.

Re:The answer is to CUT TAXES

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Cut Taxes
2. Legalize Prostitution
3. Jesus Comes

Re:The answer is to CUT TAXES

[inode_buddha]

Not your kingdom. God's kingdom. And yes, a mod point.

Re:The answer is to CUT TAXES

[Anonymous Coward]

But rather.. a Prophet?

Re:The answer is to CUT TAXES

[Anonymous Coward]

Profit, prophet, what's the difference?

Re:The answer is to CUT TAXES

[Anonymous Coward]

4. ????
5. Profit.

Re:The answer is to CUT TAXES

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh there's plenty of profit in Jesus.

Re:The answer is to CUT TAXES

[Anonymous Coward]

Jesus is a profit.

Adam Smith

[ThatsNotPudding]

Perhaps the GOP-dominated Congress will soon suggest the Miracle of the Market place for all weather satellites. Not only hire them to build and launch, give them a sweet no-bid contract to run the service (behind a paywall, of course). Hey, it's worked so well for the Prison-Industrial complex, right?

In the interest of corporate profits, the Invisible Hand is now the Invisible Middle Finger.

Re:Adam Smith

[Jhon]

"Perhaps the GOP-dominated Congress will soon suggest"...

Congress has been DNC dominated from what? 2008 until 2010? STRONGLY dominated? And the GOP had slight majorities before then... This report is from 2007 with just a recent update...

Your dig at the GOP just doesn't sound reasonable...

Re:Adam Smith

[NatasRevol]

Yeah, but the Dems bow down to any 'nuclear' reaction by the GOP. So it's the GOPs fault!

Re:Adam Smith

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not your fathers GOP anymore. The Tea Party folks insisted on cuts, and they got them, including funding for tsunami warning systems and weather programs. This days before the Japan quake and tsunami, as I recall.

Shipping, airlines, agriculture, the military, all depend on accurate weather forecasting.

We'd have never made it to the moon if these guys had been around back then, and if they have their way, we'll soon be losing passenger planes, cargo ships, and wars.

Re:Adam Smith

[coinreturn]

"Perhaps the GOP-dominated Congress will soon suggest"...

Congress has been DNC dominated from what? 2008 until 2010? STRONGLY dominated? And the GOP had slight majorities before then... This report is from 2007 with just a recent update...

Your dig at the GOP just doesn't sound reasonable...

That depends on your definition of "domination." The time period you list did include a majority of Dems; however the filibuster allows the minority party to dominate anyway.

Re:Adam Smith

[Anonymous Coward]

WOW, when Obama proposes cuts to NASA and Congress agree to them, it's the Republicans' fault and none of Obama's. I get it man!

Re:Adam Smith

[Anonymous Coward]

The Budget of the United States Government is the President's proposal to the U.S. Congress which recommends funding levels for the next fiscal year

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget
President proposes, Congress passes, not the other way around.

TPers can be obstructionist dicks, but in the case of the budget cut the first move was made by the President.

Re:Adam Smith

[pixelpusher220]

You're argument is that the Dems have had control of congress for 2 years out of 12 means it wasn't GOP controlled?

The only difference is the Dems when in the minority didn't pull what the GOP has done since 2010. They allowed votes on controversial issues except for a few judges they opposed. The GOP on the other hand has issued more filibusters in the last 2 years than the previous 30 years COMBINED.

If Harry Reid had the balls to change the rules in 2010 this wouldn't have happened and we'd be a damn sight better off now. But Reid has proven to be one of the most ineffectual Senate Leaders in history.

Combine that with a GOP who open admitted they top priority was stopping Obama. Not actually helping the country, just stopping anything the President and the Dems wanted. Patriots my ass. Treason is a bit strong, but anti-American seems good enough for me.

Re:Adam Smith

[ErikZ]

Wow, you're going to have a nervous breakdown when our finance system hits the wall.

We needed about a trillion dollars in cuts, got 3 billion.

3 billion off of the hundreds of billions in NEW spending.

A day will come, pretty soon now, where no one will lend us any more money.

If it makes you feel better, you can blame the Tea Party for that too.

Makes sense

[msobkow]

After all, the money to pay for F-22s that have never flown a combat mission and cost a year's salary to fly for an hour was FAR more important than trivial things like weather forecasting.

But just you wait and see what gets cut to pay for the F-35s!

Re:Makes sense

[crazyjj]

Don't knock the F-22. It's a great plane--as long as the person flying it doesn't need oxygen, anyway.

Re:Makes sense

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a great workaround for the oxygen anomaly. Hook the friggin' pilot into an oxygen tank! No, that's too simple of a fix! Shit needs to cost serious money..

Re:Makes sense

[Anonymous Coward]

Would you rather we go find people to shoot with it? The best wars are the ones never fought.

Re:Makes sense

[drinkypoo]

Here's a great workaround for the oxygen anomaly. Hook the friggin' pilot into an oxygen tank! No, that's too simple of a fix! Shit needs to cost serious money..

That's a great idea. Maybe you can help them figure out where to put it; you can be the test pilot for the new system, and we can ram the oxygen tank straight up your ass.

short on detail

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't be surprised if 6 new sats designed and launched between now and then could actually do the job of the 18 mission the TFA mentions . TFA was long on hype and short on details.

 

Re:short on detail

[Anonymous Coward]

6 new sats while probably can get more detailed information about an area, definitely can not cover the same amount of area as 22 can. I bet many of these sats are in Geostationary orbit by need for constant updates in info meaning you just can't drop the number of sats so drastically.

Re:short on detail

[fremsley471]

Apologies for the acronyms/abbreviations.

There have been several short-falls in capability, there will be many more in the future. Landsat is dead, the follow-on mission is a decade late and produces the same swath width as its illustrious, but 30 year old, predecessors. NPOESS, and its DoD ghost DWSS, are both dead. JPSS doesn't have the same capabilities as those planned on NPOESS or have existed on the DMSP for 25 years or more.

Oceans- Seawifs, the ocean colour satellite from a private company, is dead. Aqua and Terra are getting very old and with ESA's Envisat dead, their MODISs are pretty much the only ocean colour instruments. Where are the US's civilian SARs? Assuming the military have a load, the US haven't launched a civilian one since Seasat in 1978 (it's assumed it saw too much).

Satellites have developed; the early C21st saw an unprecedented increase in environmental monitoring quantity and quality. However, these variables could get very bad, very quickly, through the loss of only a few, already very old, satellites.

Big deal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Commercialize this service and let there be a fiduciary value applied to the data and sell it. I am 100% for outsourcing the federal gov to private corporations as much as possible.

Funding? No

[Lawrence_Bird]

This is a perfect example of wasted funding. Tens of billions wasted on ISS. More on manned mars extravaganzas. More on developing their own heavy lift capacity (for what I don't know) instead of letting industry figure it out. NASA has and has had more than enough funding.

Re:Funding? No

[jheath314]

Much like the early voyages of discovery that put America on the map were a waste, right? Why waste money on exploration when there are petty tribal wars to be fought?

NASA's budget is a rounding error compared to the military's budget, and yet I would put "landing a man on the moon" far higher than "My Lai" on the list of things America can be proud of. If exploration of space is a waste, then count me and millions of others as an ardent supporter of that kind of waste.

Re:Funding? No

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup. Now that companies have their own satellites it would make more sense to privatise weather stuff. NASA is there for the long term research that is too risky for the corporate sector. You know, Mars missions, Moon missions in '69, that kind of thing.

Re:Funding? No

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, spending money on one of the nation's biggest technology incubators is a poor use of taxpayer dollars.

State funding for scientific research is something that should only happen in "communist" China and Socialist Europe. I'm sure private industry will step in as soon as the heavy hand of the state stops meddling in the highly competitive weather satellite markets.

Our government should get back to doing the things it does best, like telling citizens what to do with their bodies.

Re:Funding? No

[Anonymous Coward]

$10s of billions?

That's a long weekend in Iraq.

Re:Funding? No

[Anonymous Coward]

How wasted can it be? I mean even you find it valuable and are using it right this very moment to post on the Internet.

If you truly didn't value it, you wouldn't be taking advantage of the results, and thus would not be spewing your drivel on a website right now.

So basically you are a liar and a hypocrite from your actions alone, not to mention all the other horrible things you are by the words you used to lie about your opinions.

Either stop being a hypocrite and get offline permanently, or stop lying to everyone and claiming the spending is wasteful while utilizing the results of that spending.

Re:Funding? No

[Anonymous Coward]

Much like the early voyages of discovery that put America on the map were a waste, right? Why waste money on exploration when there are petty tribal wars to be fought?

NASA's budget is a rounding error compared to the military's budget, and yet I would put "landing a man on the moon" far higher than "My Lai" on the list of things America can be proud of. If exploration of space is a waste, then count me and millions of others as an ardent supporter of that kind of waste.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA#Annual_budget.2C_1958-2012

Yea so ... it wasn't a rounding error when we were rolling out Apollo.

Re:Funding? No

[Lawrence_Bird]

Replying to a few comments at one time

First, ISS cost, per wikipedia: "As of 2010 NASA budgeted $58.7 billion for the station from 1985 to 2015, or $72.4 billion in 2010 dollars. The cost is $150 billion including 36 shuttle flights at $1.4 billion each, Russia's $12 billion ISS budget, Europe's $5 billion, Japan's $5 billion, and Canada's $2 billion. Assuming 20,000 person-days of use from 2000 to 2015 by two to six-person crews, each person-day would cost $7.5 million, about 60% less than the $19.6 million per person-day on Skylab"

Hardly trivial and with little to show for it with no major scientific or technological breakthroughs.

As to 'technological incubator' - there is nothing which has been done in the space program which would not otherwise have happened here on planet earth. Did the very large outlays on the Apollo program speed up the delivery of some? Perhaps. Could all the money have gone to other things with a positive effect on the lives of US citizens? Probably. Then again most of you probably were not alive in the 60s and 70s to remember just how great things were back then.

As to the 'exploration' argument for wasting trillions to try to do manned Mars missions.. pardon the pun, but what plannet are you on? Exploring the Earth had immediate benefit to people on Earth. Not just in terms of scientific understanding of our surroundings but also in material gain (ie, getting new and more resources found in the then unexplored Earth.) None of that holds for Mars. A man on Mars is the equivalent of climbing Everest or skiing a double diamond - you did it because you wanted to and could, not because it advanced your life or anyone elses.

It's only natural...

[harvey the nerd]

It's only natural that as regulations, unnecessary wars, and spending for giveaways rise, less money is available for other purposes.
It's only natural that as repeatedly denied, government funded science scandals occur, the public loses faith in government funded science
It's only natural that as government spying increases, people lose interesting funding anything global with surveillence.

Basically, we're f&*$#d.

Re:It's only natural...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's only natural to see Tom Jones Cry --
when he hears what you've done to his song

Re:It's only natural...

[dyingtolive]

I think you're thinking of "It's not unusual".

obtroll is ob

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does the Secretary of Defense hate 'murika ?!!!

Oh, that's right, because 'murikans are stooooopid. How else can you get them to consistently vote against their own self interest?

I find this curious

[funkylovemonkey]

While I've heard a lot about how NASA is undergoing drastic spending cuts, I haven't found any hard numbers for it. In fact, a cursory look at wikipedia and NASA's own published budget shows the opposite; NASA's current budget is actually historically above average. It is certainly higher then it was for most of the 1990s and 1980s. In fact according to wikipedia the average budget of NASA has been 15 billion, and yet it sits at around 17 billion today, actually increasing from 15 billion to 17 billion in 2007 and maintaining that level of spending for the foreseeable future. This seems to be backed up by NASA's own numbers (http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/622643main_FY%2013%20Budget%20Presentation.pdf). So my question is, what are we really talking about here? What am I missing? They only way that NASA is getting less funding right now is if you take it as a percentage of Federal spending in general, but that's more a sign that Federal spending has ballooned the last ten years rather then NASA not being funded. Is there really a NASA budget crisis, and if so why are they having time operating despite ending the fairly expensive shuttle program and despite receiving more money then they have historically since the space race?

Re:I find this curious

[jkflying]

How do the numbers look accounting for inflation?

Re:I find this curious

[Nyeerrmm]

The problem isn't the NASA budget as a whole, which as you point out is doing all right by historical standards, particularly given the larger budget situation within the government. The talk of cuts has more to do with allocations within NASA.

Specifically, SLS (the new heavy-lift to nowhere rocket) and James Webb Space Telescope are eating everyone else's lunch. Planetary Science and Commercial Cargo/Crew development, along with Earth Science, are the programs suffering from this.

SLS is the real tragedy, because its 2+ billion/year funding is so senseless. NASA can't build it to meet the congress-specified requirements within the congress-specified funding, and doesn't know what they would do with it if they could build it -- it would be capable of launching very rarely and at an excessive cost. The only people who want the thing built are the lawmakers, thus its nickname, the Senate Launch System. Amusingly, its been described as a 'backup' to commercial development, which they want to cut from $800M/year down to $450M/year to pay for it, and require NASA to pick a winner now (which the government is notoriously bad at). The money is a complete waste because it will certainly be cancelled by a new congress long before it ever gets anywhere near being built.

The other killer thats causing budget cuts across the science division is James Webb, the next big space telescope. This one isn't quite as depressing because at least its likely to be useful when completed, but its been incredibly mismanaged as the costs have ballooned from less than $2B to more than $8B. In order to keep it alive, much of the rest of the science division has suffered.

Ultimately, when they speak of 'budget cuts' for NASA, its cuts for internal programs, and the blame can be laid largely on micro-management by Congress.

Re:I find this curious

[Ambitwistor]

The problem with JWST isn't just NASA mismanagement. It's also Congress dribbling out inadequate funds to just finish the project, which makes completion costs spiral as they have to keep capabilities idle, therefore providing Congress with further justification to withhold funds.

Re:I find this curious

[Ambitwistor]

Although maybe that's what you meant by "micro-management"?

Re:AC In Danger of Losing First-Posting Capability

[Beardo the Bearded]

We don't need no fancy satellites -- I bet they were dreamed up by some liberal thinker at a UNIVERSITY.

Jesus and the Bible tell us everything we need to know about climate changes, and that's that the world is going to burn. Judgment Day is approaching and those who aren't saved are going to burn to death forever.

USA! USA! USA!

I think we have identified the problem

[overshoot]

The U.S. relies on this network of satellites for ...climate change data

'Nuff said.

They don't need that much

[CAIMLAS]

It's been demonstrated that the cost of launching small shiny objects into space has dropped drastically. The Mars rovers (Opportunity and Spirit) continued operational cost has cost under a billion dollars total (and that's including the projected 5th mission for them).

Yet, they were launched in 2003 - before Xprize, before UAVs and the many long-run high altitude planes/UAVs, and a myriad of other advancements. They weren't just a payload and delivery system, they were multiple payloads with multiple delivery systems.

Considering an amateur can go from nothing to a satellite in space for a fairly paltry sum (under $100k), and you can build some fairly impressive optics and com gear for a lot less than you could 10 years ago. There is absolutely no reason it should cost as much today to do the same thing we were doing 10 years ago. Moores Law applies here too. Just as a sysadmin today is expected to be able to do what would have been considered be absurdly complex/expansive things 10 years ago, a developer is expected to have more 'resulting output' than 10 years ago due to better tools, and so on. I mean, shit.

I can build a UAV for under $500 with a more capable, diverse 'monitoring' pattern than the first generation of prototype UAVs made by the big military contractors (post-Gulf War, early aughts) now, and look where the actual military UAVs are: they look like something out of a Cyberdyne future.

Re:They don't need that much

[ColdWetDog]

YOU aren't Boeing / Lockheed / Northrup-Grumman , et. al.

THEY need lots of money for this sort of thing. Government regulations, security, terrorism and all that.

YOU shut the fuck up. THEY will protect America!

Re:They don't need that much

[JWW]

Ironically, UAV's are another option for Earth Observation.

The only problem is the (well deserved) very bad rap they get for being used for surveillance. i.e. how do you tell a climate monitoring drone from a big brother drone?

But, they can pair up quite nicely with satellite's to enhance our gathering of Earth Science data.

Re:They don't need that much

[necro81]

There's a lot of essential data that UAVs can't collect, because it requires viewing through the entire atmosphere, or exo-atmospheric observations of the sun.

Re:They don't need that much

[necro81]

Considering an amateur can go from nothing to a satellite in space for a fairly paltry sum (under $100k), and you can build some fairly impressive optics and com gear for a lot less than you could 10 years ago. There is absolutely no reason it should cost as much today to do the same thing we were doing 10 years ago. Moores Law applies here too

Moore's law applies to integrated circuits. Although satellites use plenty of chips, the cost of ICs isn't the major driver of something like an observation platform. The biggest driver is launch cost. The earth-observing satellites aren't big and heavy because their designers are lazy and unaware of current technology; they are big and heavy because there's no getting around it. Being big and heavy, it costs tens of millions of dollars to launch them. The $100k you mention won't barely be enough to get a laptop with some solar panels into orbit.

Designing and building the satellite itself is probably the second biggest driver, because it takes a lot of highly skilled people, specialized facilities, uncommon expertise, and boatloads of testing to create a satellite that can operate reliably and produce accurate and useful data for a decade or longer. Next, there are the direct costs of the instruments themselves, which for an earth observing satellite run a few million apiece, because they are all custom, high-precision, and fairly esoteric.

The third major driver is the cost of operations once it is actually launched. In order for the satellite to be of any use, you need people monitoring and operating the satellite continuously. You'll also need an infrastructure to communicate with it, then gather, process, and disseminate the huge volumes of data it produces. What is the cost of a few dozen skilled, full-time employees working for a decade?

Capable, reliable satellites are just plain expensive, and no amount of DIY gumption will change that anytime soon. If there were cheaper ways to do it, the companies that are dropping a billion dollars on a new communications satellite would probably have found it by now. The only way it's going to get cheaper is by dropping launch costs. Once you don't have to worry about blowing a $50 million rocket launch, you can afford perhaps to make the satellite less robust and long-lived.

Re:They don't need that much

[CAIMLAS]

Launch costs are incredibly low. That was my point. A two-stage launch (high altitude plane ferry followed by boost rockets) is very cheap nowadays.

If technology isn't the primary expense, there seems to be no point in not reusing old designs which have served their role well for a decade or more already. Outfit those designs with new electronics packages and launch them.

As for operational costs: like I said before, the cost for doing this stuff is a lot less than it used to be, because integration and consolidation has resulted in many more effective tools, new techniques, and so on. You don't need a room full of mainframes today: the computational power in those mainframes is in your phone today. So, you need less equipment and fewer people to maintain it.

I didn't say it should be free, or 100k. I just said that they should be able to do a lot more today with less budget than they did a decade ago. There's a huge difference.

Re:AC In Danger of Losing First-Posting Capability

[rekees]

Jesus will save us, stop worrying.

Geometry

[overshoot]

I wouldn't be surprised if 6 new sats designed and launched between now and then could actually do the job of the 18 mission the TFA mentions .

The number of satellites required is more a function of geometry than technology: In close, there's only so much surface visible and only so much area covered per day. Farther out, there's more area covered (albeit at lower resolution) but less per day goes under the eye.

Barring SF-novel grade technology that can count pubic hairs from the orbit of Uranus, there's only so much that you can do to counter those constraints.

Re:Geometry

[Anonymous Coward]

Fair enough, and good reminder. I just figure 6 might be enough to cover most of the globe once every 24 hours (assuming one could cram in everything needed in one sat), but perhaps not.

Not surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

War is orders of magnitude more profitable than science.

Oops, did I just imply that government is a business with a goal of profit, the exact opposite of what they claim? You're god damn right I did.

Re:Not surprising

[Hatta]

On an aggregate level, R&D has a much better ROI than war. The problem is that the profits from an investment in basic science are realized by society as a whole, instead of the individuals involved in doing or funding the research.

E.T. = Extra Terrorists

[rodrigoandrade]

Maybe if NASA said they can use them to track terrorists, they could divert some funding from the DoD.

Re:E.T. = Extra Terrorists

[dkleinsc]

In all seriousness, Paul Krugman among others have theorized that a credible threat of extra-terrestrial invasion would in fact do wonders for the world:
1. We'd stop focusing on hating other people, and start focusing on hating those evil aliens. It would go a long way towards making peace on earth possible.
2. World governments which are currently acting mostly as a brake on the economy would start employing absolutely everybody to design and build new weapons designed to stop the invasion. Think along the lines of what the US did in WWII only about 25 times as massive.

Re:E.T. = Extra Terrorists

[Anonymous Coward]

We don't need aliens. We've already been invaded by Krugmans and their minions who act pretty much as financially evil aliens.

Re:E.T. = Extra Terrorists

[Anonymous Coward]

Ozymandias did just that in Watchmen.
We need to get Alan Moore working on government reforms.

Also, although it would probably unite people from around the world, I'm not comfortable with the notion that we can only work together through violence and not from growing the fuck up. I mean what does it say about the human race? We can only be tolerant of others if we both hate the same thing?

Then what happens if alien race is defeated? Back to the old ways we go, except now people are cutting each other throats to get at the alien tech for personal gain.

Panem et circenses

[arth1]

It's the decline of the holy roman empire 2.0
The US is rapidly becoming a has-been, and at this point it may be irreversible. The tea-party and other opportunists wanting bread and circus are just a symptom of the decline, not the cause.
Once people are more interested in preserving what they have and not risk wasting anything than taking a risk at investing in the future, then the decline has already started.

Re:Panem et circenses

[kwoff]

The Holy Roman Empire was a German empire "from 962 to 1806 in Central Europe". The decline of the (western, not Holy) Roman Empire (which you're presumably referring to with the phrase "panem et circenses") "occurred over a period of four centuries, culminating on September 4, 476".

Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you really think this is by accident? "Starving the Beast" is the conservative methodology for killing things they don't like. Got satellites all up in God's face doing elitist science stuff like providing data to scientists who insist on saying blasphemous things like humans are changing the climate or polluting the oceans? Well, there's an easy fix for that; kill the funding. The Republicans want this outcome. Why do people not see this?

Re:NASA isn't NASA any longer

[coinreturn]

Apparently everyone forgot that NASA doesn't exist any longer. It's now MASO - Muslim Aeronautics and Space Outreach. How could we forget that? It's what our Dear Leader decreed after all.

Massive flamebait. My god what happened to you as a child?

Re:AC In Danger of Losing First-Posting Capability

[Anonymous Coward]

Jesus will save us, stop worrying.

Not all of you. Read your bible.

Who needs a satellite?

[rainer_d]

We can just install WeatherPro on the iPhone! Right?

As low as six

[Stormtrooper42]

As low as six

OK, but how many satellites are really needed, at the minimum? 6? 8? 10?

War on (Some) Drugs Budget is ~$25B

[Anonymous Coward]

the budget for the War on (some) Drugs is about 25 Billion this year. We should just re-purpose all of that.

Those are just the U.S. Government satellites

[Animats]

Those are just the U.S. Government satellites. They're ignoring WorldView-1, WorldView-2, GeoEye-1, RapidEye 1 through 5, Spot 2,4, and 5, EROS A and B... This is an area in which the private sector is doing quite well.

Re:Those are just the U.S. Government satellites

[Xeth]

No, it's not. Every single one of those satellites is visible, maybe with some near IR. I couldn't see a single one that can observe wavelengths longer than 1 um. That makes sense for commercial satellites, but it's not even close to sufficient for climate science.

Not sure how this works

[argStyopa]

Reading the comments:

Obama proposes budget.
Nasa takes a hit.

Fault = republicans?

Re:Not sure how this works

[Genda]

Here's a bit if information for you... THERE IS NO PUNCH and THERE IS NO JUDY!!!

There are only hands up sock puppets and they move and make noise, For just a moment look a little deeper at the hand moving the puppets. All that drama, and all that buzz, is there to distract you from the folks who make the plans, pay the media, spin the spin doctors and feed you your daily serving of opinions. If you think for a moment there are Democrats and Republicans outside of the greater context of "Wholly Owed Subsidiary of American Corporations", you haven't been watching the play for a while now. Obama does what he's told to do. Just like everyone else in D.C. Obama cuts NASA spending, because there're no taxes to pay for it, because the Republicans refuse to budge on taxes while at the same time push up spending on their own interests (or play at addressing the deficit by suggesting we let 20 million poor people starve to death.) Its all there to get you all het up and pissed at somebody. There's outrage enough for every man, woman and child. Have you not asked the question where is all the money? Who's got the money and what happened to our society? See those kind of questions lead to ugly ideas, and folks with the real wealth, are deeply concerned that you not notice that they have all the wealth. That would be very bad for them. So they've paid for this really exciting soap opera, "Days of our Government". Please enjoy, but really, don't take it too serious, that would be silly.

Re:Not sure how this works

[Anonymous Coward]

Warning, we've got a tinfoil hatter here. Not believing what your government tells you is as unamerican as questioning what happened on Sept 11, 2001 or even implying that the government lied about what happened. Tinfoil hatter.

Re:Not sure how this works

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, because the democrats would certainly have cranked up the science budget.

Face it... both of the USA's parties hate society, and hate science. Enjoy the next few decades, I'm sure it'll be quite entertaining for the rest of the world to watch.

Austerity fad's dismal legacy

[Anonymous Coward]

The victims of austerity hypnosis are causing damage that will haunt us for decades. Long after we've realized there was no reason to be stampeded into starvation we'll be scrambling to restore what should have been part of a continuum but was shattered for no reason other than gullibility.

They are short of satellites because...

[ctrl-alt-canc]

...they let them slip on the floor. If only they could be a little more careful...

That's because...

[Genda]

Hey America! So Sorry!!! Nobody had the heart to say... the money is all gone. We print more, but now it doesn't mean anything any more. The several hundred people at the top of the economic pyramid own everything, have all the money, and are now confronted with how to keep the whole damn thing going without actually putting any real amount of wealth back in the system. So until they all get together this summer in the Hamptons, and figure out what they're willing to fund, new satellites are not on the menu. Come back this fall for an updated budget.

unfunded mandates

[oneiros27]

In general, the 'we're going to the Moon, and then to Mars' was the start of it ... Added the stuff that NASA had to do, but no money to pay for it, so other departments got canibalized.

There was a lot of press about the folks in Florida who lost their jobs after the last shuttle lanuch ... but nothing about the people who were let go years before because their discipline had cuts so that the shuttle could continue going up past its planned life without any funding to pay for it.

And for JWST, there was a bit of a flap back in September ... search for 'james webb space telescope controversy' in your preferred search engine.

Finger-pointing is The Answer!

[Kohath]

Obviously, finger-pointing is the answer. Just look at nearly every comment on this news story. The consensus solution for NASA's problems is clearly finger-pointing and trying to find someone to blame.

Religion-haters are sure it's the fault of the religionists. Military-haters aren't sure whose fault it is, but did they mention they hate the military? Ditto for the banker-haters and the millionaire-haters. Leftists are sure it's the fault of the right. Rightists are sure it's the fault of the left. The "use Science as a wedge issue" crowd are sure it's because of the War on Science (tm). No one has mentioned the War on Women (tm) yet, so I guess NASA doesn't poll well with women.

Here's an alternate idea -- NASA isn't getting funded for three reasons:

1. NASA doesn't have very many votes to sell
2. There's a lot less uncommitted money in the GDP. The money that is there is already over-committed to retirement spending, health-care spending, and repayment of debt. Investments in the future are hard to justify because ROIs are down.
3. The US no longer has a culture that can unify. On anything. Ever. So all government spending is either for "our side" or "their side", never for the common good. This leads some (including me) to the conclusion that very little money should be spent by government -- until the culture swings back to where we can unify on some things again.

Re:Finger-pointing is The Answer!

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop

Please stop selling the notion that all sides have a legitimate claim.
"Religionists", conservatives, and company are fucking insane. Full stop. A brief, cursory whif of reality proves they are way off the deep end. The notion that their culture of dangerous ignorance and greed has a place in society is among the most egregious of fallacies we have today.

There is no "Unification" with crazy. We've tried compromising, and they only get more crazy. We can't get anything done because one side is wrong, and it needs to be ended.

Re:Finger-pointing is The Answer!

[Kohath]

Stop

Please stop selling the notion that all sides have a legitimate claim.

I'm not saying that all sides have a legitimate claim.

"Religionists", conservatives, and company are fucking insane. Full stop. A brief, cursory whif of reality proves they are way off the deep end. The notion that their culture of dangerous ignorance and greed has a place in society is among the most egregious of fallacies we have today.

There is no "Unification" with crazy. We've tried compromising, and they only get more crazy. We can't get anything done because one side is wrong, and it needs to be ended.

If you think you can live without them, then stop taking their money to fund your pet projects and government giveaways.

Re:NASA isn't NASA any longer

[butchersong]

He's talking about NASA administrator Charles Bolden's comments in 2010 that Obama charged him as his “foremost” mission to improve relations in the Muslim world. I am no fan of the pres but even I have to assume that Bolden was talking out of his ass and whatever Obama said to him was taken out of context.

Sure people may die from later storm warnings but

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure people may die from later storm warnings and plane crashes but rest assured that if somebody downloads a song on the other side of the planet, the occupational government will be there in force! And if some granny with cancer has medical marijuana the occupational government will have a SWAT team there to shoot her dog and tazer her!

And after all, that's why we pay taxes!

Do we really NEED new satellites?

[triffid_98]

I mean, I'm all for increasing NASA funding, but can't we just reuse our old outdated black-ops surveillance satellites now that the CIA has launched shiny new ones? It should be simple enough to turn down the resolution and turn off the ASAT weapons systems. I mean, that's just a firmware update right?

This sounds like a job for...

[sdguero]

SpaceX!

Military Contractors built these satellites

[Koreantoast]

I would point out however that the people who make Earth-Observing Satellites are also the very military contractors that you blame for taking money away from these programs. They build the buses, the optics, electronics and launch vehicles that put these satellites into orbit, and these companies are in fact pretty desperately looking for money to keep their currently under-capacity satellite factories busy. The real problem is that the US elected leadership runs on a four year cycle that does not deal well with projects that go beyond a four or even two year cycle. So I wouldn't pin the blame on them for starving this program... unless you believe that the satellite industry is a failed business model.

Re:NASA isn't NASA any longer

[coinreturn]

He's talking about NASA administrator Charles Bolden's comments in 2010 that Obama charged him as his “foremost” mission to improve relations in the Muslim world. I am no fan of the pres but even I have to assume that Bolden was talking out of his ass and whatever Obama said to him was taken out of context.

Yes, but to repeat that BS is trolling and flamebait.

space science is bunk

[gelfling]

So say the hippies, greens and liberals as well as all the RonPaulBots. I say why not. We're not a knowledge country anymore, haven't been for years. We're a sell insurance to each other country now.

Embrace The Suck.

Down to SIX Satellites?

[DeeEff]

Sure sounds like GLONASS in the 90's to me.

I swear though, if I lose GPS and have to rely on COMPASS, I'm gonna march down there myself and beat Republicans until I've painted the White House Red.

Re:AC In Danger of Losing First-Posting Capability

[ksemlerK]

Jesus will worry us, stop saving.

Who's on first

[jasnw]

A basic problem is that there's no strong constituency for earth environment monitoring from space. Anyone who thinks NASA is in this business is just fooling themselves. NASA is in the research and metal-bending business - build new satellite to do new things. All the space-is-the-place supporters are in this camp. The agency who has the responsibility for routine monitoring, but utterly lacks in both political clout and cojones, is NOAA. Aside from a vocal constituency, the other things missing is a coherent plan for: what monitoring is needed, what space assets are needing to do this long-term monitoring, and how we're going to pay for it. Given that politicians can't see beyond the next election I don't see this being fixed.

As for an earlier post about the military launching everything they need, this is a laugher when it comes to environment monitoring. The DOD needs environment monitoring at least as much as the civilian side of things, yet they have not real plans for weather satellites beyond the two remaining DMSP weather satellites sitting in nitrogen cans awaiting launch. When those guys go, and they're old technology, that's it for a long while.

Who cares, we'll just lease

[bryan1945]

We'll just buy the info from other countries at $3 billion a year. 'Cause the US government is just that stupid. (Either party)

Stupid People

[Anonymous Coward]

If we weren't spending 90% of our taxes by putting them back into the "keep stupid people stupid by doing everything for them" fund, then we could actually start making some technological, aeronautical, aerospacial, microscopic etc. advancements.

This is not the change you're looking for...

[Julz]

Move along... If you can't see it then it can't be happening. Keep sucking that black gold. Spewing that hot air. Throw up your glowing energy. Let it drift and fall over us all. "I see said the blind man to the deaf dog."

Old worlders can help: just phone ESA

[Zoxed]

Fear not: I am sure those old-worlders, with their evil state subsidies of Science, including EO, will share their data ;-)

Re:AC In Danger of Losing First-Posting Capability

[Anonymous Coward]

We don't need no fancy satellites -- I bet they were dreamed up by some liberal thinker at a UNIVERSITY.

Jesus and the Bible tell us everything we need to know about climate changes, and that's that the world is going to burn. Judgment Day is approaching and those who aren't saved are going to burn to death forever.

USA! USA! USA!

I wonder if 2000 years ago there were individuals who said similar things, more like:
"We don't need no fancy aquaducts -- I bet they were dreamed up by some liberal thinker in GREECE. Jesus and the Bible tell us everything we need to know about drought, and that's that the world is going to burn. Judgement Day is approaching and those who aren't saved are going to burn to death forever.

ROME! ROME! ROME!"

Maybe thinking the end of the world was just around the corner is what ended Rome and will end the USA. No need for investments for the future when there will be no tomorrow.

Re:AC In Danger of Losing First-Posting Capability

[Stratus311]

What the hell man, I read that whole post in Bill Cosby's voice! Now everything I read is in Bill Cosby's voice!!

Re:AC In Danger of Losing First-Posting Capability

[Coren22]

Well, a hurricane did just hit Mass recently, but I guess it missed the Hamptons, Cape Cod and New York...

Re:AC In Danger of Losing First-Posting Capability

[JBaustian]

So, in 2007 the National Research Council recommended that annual spending on these satellites should be increased from $1.5 billion to $2.0 billion... but this never happened.

Which political party controlled both houses of Congress in 2007, and 2008, and 2009, and 2010? And still controls the Senate?

So, which party of slack-jawed yokels should be blamed for this deficiency?