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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."
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.
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.
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.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
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.
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.
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.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
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.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
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.
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.