Slashdot Mirror
The US Has Destroyed A Critical Sea Ice-Measuring Satellite (scientificamerican.com)
"A key polar satellite used to measure the Arctic ice cap failed a few days ago, leaving the U.S. with only three others, and those have lived well beyond their shelf lives," writes long-time Slashdot reader edibobb. The Guardian reports that all three of the remaining satellites "are all beginning to drift out of their orbits over the poles" and will no longer be operational by 2023. This could put an end to nearly 40 years of uninterrupted data on polar ice, notes the original submission, adding "It seems like there would be a backup satellite, right?
"In fact, there was a backup satellite ready to go." The $58 million satellite was dismantled in 2016 when the Republican-controlled Congress cut its funding. (The Guardian reports that many scientists "say this decision was made for purely ideological reasons.") Now Nature reports: The U.S. military is developing another set of weather satellites...but the one carrying a microwave sensor will not launch before 2022. That means that when the current three aging satellites die, the United States will be without a reliable, long-term source of sea-ice data... For now, the the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center is preparing for those scenarios by incorporating data from Japan's AMSR2 microwave sensor into its sea-ice record. Another, more politically fraught option is to pull in data from the China Meteorological Administration's Fengyun satellite series... Since 2011 Congress has banned NASA scientists from working with Chinese scientists -- but not necessarily from using Chinese data. One final possibility is finding a way to launch the passive-microwave sensor that scientists at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory salvaged from the dismantled DMSP satellite. The sensor currently sits at the Aerospace Corporation in El Segundo, California, where researchers are trying to find a way to get it into orbit.
"In fact, there was a backup satellite ready to go." The $58 million satellite was dismantled in 2016 when the Republican-controlled Congress cut its funding. (The Guardian reports that many scientists "say this decision was made for purely ideological reasons.") Now Nature reports: The U.S. military is developing another set of weather satellites...but the one carrying a microwave sensor will not launch before 2022. That means that when the current three aging satellites die, the United States will be without a reliable, long-term source of sea-ice data... For now, the the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center is preparing for those scenarios by incorporating data from Japan's AMSR2 microwave sensor into its sea-ice record. Another, more politically fraught option is to pull in data from the China Meteorological Administration's Fengyun satellite series... Since 2011 Congress has banned NASA scientists from working with Chinese scientists -- but not necessarily from using Chinese data. One final possibility is finding a way to launch the passive-microwave sensor that scientists at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory salvaged from the dismantled DMSP satellite. The sensor currently sits at the Aerospace Corporation in El Segundo, California, where researchers are trying to find a way to get it into orbit.
The science of climate change is already settled. The only question is how bad will it be. Without data from this satalite we should just assume the worst and raise carbon taxes appropriately. What is the worst the could happen, we accidentally end up with a better world?
So one failed, three more are failing and one had its funding cut. Where's the destroyed one of the headline?
All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
Still, it's a pretty inflammatory and misleading title. While dismantling the satellite may have been shortsighted the article title makes it sound like we blew it up or something like a bunch of drunken hillbillies. In reality its parts were probably just re purposed or put in storage or something.
it literally says it was scrapped.
and that the funding was cut for partisan (ie, GOP science denying) reasons.
the headline isn't inflammatory.
its completely accurate.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
I do.
It's called paying taxes.
I understand that Republicans don't understand the concept, but believe me, it already exists.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The backup one that they dismantled was "destroyed", in the sense that it no longer exists.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
So the existing satellites go out of service in 2023, and the Air Force satellite will go up in 2022.
How does this equate to "we will no longer have the ability to measure sea ice?"
At our office we scrap things all the time. That doesn't mean we destroy it.
Yeah but the US dismantled that satellite, which does mean it destroyed it.
Please learn to read the full article - after the funding was lost, the satellite that was ready to be launched, was scrapped. In the process it was dismantled and some useful parts, salvaged, but the satellite that was to be a replacement for the failing ones, is GONE! DISMANTLED - DISASSEMBLED! In other words destroyed.
When something uses "satellite" and "destroyed" in the same sentence, I think about orbital nukes.
#DeleteFacebook
At our office we scrap things all the time. That doesn't mean we destroy it. We usually put it into storage in case it ever gets revived.
In this particular case, reading the actual article (and not just the summary), the U.S. Congress was annoyed at the money spent on keeping the satellilte in storage, and had it destroyed. So, no, in this case, scrapped did mean destroyed.
Reading the old articles, though, nobody was discussing sea ice, which is just one of the least important things the satellite was to measure-- primarily it was a Defense weather satellite (weather turns out to be very important to the Department of Defence-- particularly to the Navy. Who knew?)
We can't possibly allow the truth to get in the way of a leftist agenda
I scraped equipment (mostly computers) all the time as well. The process generally involved breaking it down to it's base components (talking hard drives, video cards, ram, etc. Not capacitors, resistors, circuit boards) and throwing the parts in a bin/on a shelf somewhere. After a while the bins get thrown out and the stuff on the shelves gets cannibalized for other PCs. Now, could I go back and re-assemble those computers? Sure, but not likely with the original components. That's probably fine for a PC, probably not fine for a satellite. Sounds pretty "destroyed" to me.
Right, because you are always hearing stories about Republicans ending weapons programs because they were mismanaged and over budget.
It's easier to show that you've done the job right if the data is the same. The best strategy is to launch a backup satellite before the old one dies, so you have a window of overlap, and can verify that all the data matches.
This is why so many people don't take global warming seriously. Because its proponents resort to cheap tricks like deliberately choosing a word whose common definition makes the situation sound more dire than what actually happened ("destroy - put an end to the existence of (something) by damaging or attacking it."), when they mean one of its lesser-used definitions.
If you practice deceptions and exaggerations like this too often, eventually people stop believing you even when the emergency is real. And that's exactly what's happened with global warming.
Says they dismantled it, not destroyed it. When I think destroy I think explosives or baseball bats or some other violent end. Not somebody taking something apart.
To me, dismantle is the same as to destroy in this case because both actions cause the satellite to be in the same state -- unusable -- regardless how it becomes the state. If they have the satellite been dismantled, it meant that most if not all parts are now gone. Nobody would keep all parts after dismantled it a year ago. Thus, it is similar to the word destroy because you can't assemble or rebuild again within a normal time frame when all parts have already been ordered and/or delivered.