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

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: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.