This is a laundry list of some of the problems that
observational oceanographers (of which I count myself one-
got my PhD from WHOI and MIT in 1999) have to put up with,
just to give people an idea of the odd and difficult things
oceanographers have to put up with:
1. The aforementioned pressure issue. earth's sfc ->space = -1atm.
earth's sfc -> Ocean depths \approx 500 atm. Electronics packages
are commonly flooded with a non-conducting, incompressible (relative to air)
oil so that their containers don't implode. Makes working on
them a real challenge.
2. It transmits electromagnetic energy very poorly. For the same reason
it is difficult to communicate with submarines, it is difficult to
communicate with instrumentation in the ocean. That's why projects
like the Martha's Vineyard deployment, Rutger's LEO-15, etc are
so cool- they bother to actually hard-wire lots of stuff in so that
you can get the data back in real time.
3. It's very conductive and corrosive. Not only a problem for
instruments you place in the water, which have to be superbly grounded,
but for any laptop/etc you have on board. Everything is suffused with
salt spray by the end of a cruise.
4. It's a physically difficult medium to work with. More oceanographers
than not are susceptible to seasickness (myself included). Moored
instruments (instruments held in place with an anchor to collect time series)
have to be very well moored if you want them to be there when you get back.
5. Some of the signals we're interested in are very small. Standard
instrument errors for temperature measurements, for instance, tend
to be on the order of 1mC. This takes very sensitive electronics and
frequent calibration.
6. It's big. The ocean is a big place, relative to the speed a research
vessel can move. For some (not me- I'm a coastal oceanographer) the
first two weeks of a cruise might consist of just getting there.
Doesn't sound like much, but then figure you're paying ~$35k/day for the
boat...
Aside from these, let me just say that I'm pleased to see oceaographic
topics pop up on/. every now and then. It's a fascinating field with
some really cool engineering and scientific challenges. Although
the WHOI deployment will be used to answer some interesting scientific
issues, it's main role as I see it right now is as an engineering testbed.
There are tons of things to work out before we can do this at any
sort of larger scale.
I'll concede, if you're planning for the apocalypse, spending money on the oceans is a bit moot. Is this why we study space? We study both because they are intrinsically interesting.
In addition, the oceans play a major role in the climate, provide food for a fair chunk of the world's population, play an important role in defense, shipping, and recreation, and are responsible for many natural disasters.
Since no other "flatlanders" seemed to have checked in, I'll just say this: as far as science programs in the US go, NASA is spectacularly well funded. Over $12 Billion a year, and going up. We spend a relatively paltry $250 Million exploring our own oceans, certainly as interesting as outer space, and potentially far more important in both the short and long run. I'm sure scientinsts from many other fields could chime in with their own dire statistics.
Hold on. What's that you say about "oceans of liquid ethane"? I guess I have some instruments I'd like to deploy there. I just have to check if they work submerged in ethane (they work submerged in saltwater...)
jay- College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences, OSU
Before everybody starts kvetching about the satate of NASA funding (oops! too late!) it's worth noting that the FY2001 budget that Clinton submitted to congress calls for a 6% increase in NASA funding (compared to a 1.5% increase in the total budget). I realize that this still has to pass congress but it's a sign of confidence and a good starting point. This brings NASA's annual funding into the neighborhood of $13 Billion.
Also, recent successes by NASA, such as the Eros asteroid study and the earth mapping mission (which could have and maybe should have been done unmanned) have attracted a lot of positive press.
As far as the retrieval of instruments- usually it cannot be done. The ocean floor is littered with very expensive oceanographic instruments because once you're in water deeper than a few hundred meters there's not much you can do. In addition, not all instruments are tethered- free fall instruments play an important role, as do moored instruments, which sometimes sink, and even the ones on tethers occasionally decide they'd rather be somewhere else. Of course, if the missing object is a Soviet Sub, often certain gov't agencies are willing to fork over the dough to retrieve it. However, for a $100k instrument package, it's just not worth it. Remember, not only is it very hard to find a lost instrument, it's usually almost impossible to find it in the first place.
Also remember that oceanographers deal with up to 600 atmospheres of pressure (as opposed to 0), in addition to being in an environment (like space) that is not kind to sensitive electronics (i.e. salt water).
For what it's worth- the new oceanographic ships- the Atlantis and the Revelle- the most advanced ships in the fleet- cost ~$50 million each. And we haven't sunk any yet...
As far as free time on subs, etc.- yes, the oceanographic community benefits greatly from this, but I guarantee that scientists that get free time on military subs are doing something the navy is VERY interested in.
jay austin Center for Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences Oregon State University
Like most research scientists, oceanographers are almost entirely funded by the government. This includes myself. I am currently funded by a consortium of government agencies including NSF (National Science foundation) the ONR (Office of Naval Research) and NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration).
that $220 Million from the NSF represents on the order of about 50% of all research oceanographic funding in the United States. As I mentioned, we get some money from ONR (a lot less now that the cold war is over), from NOAA (as long as Congress doesn't abolish them), and to a much smaller extent, from the DOE, and local and state governments. In addition, Satellite technology plays a great role in modern oceanography, placing scatterometers, altimeters, and cameras in space (note that unmanned, earth-bound satellites are cheap compared to manned or extra-planetary work). So some money for oceanographic research actually comes from NASA (NASA has a $1.5 Billion "earth sciences" budget (FY2000)!). So I don't knock the contributions that they make, at least under some circumstances.
As far as benefit the benefits of ocean research: the ocean is a tremendously important part of the earth's climate system, the carbon cycle, and the biosphere. Making life on earth livable requires a great understanding of it, as well as our space environment. I feel that funding it at such a low level compared to space sciences ($2.2 Billion) or human exploration ($5.6 Billion!) is very short-sighted.
The answer is: the Oceanographic community. Oceanographers explore everything from the violent coastal ocean to the abyssal depths, deploying precision instruments in a high-pressure, corrosive, electromagnetically opaque environment. And they do it for a whole lot less than NASA does. And they have a much higher success rate. And it could be argued that the oceans are a whole lot more relevant to the survival of life on earth than is space.
(for FY2000: NASA: $12.5 Billion NSF ocean sciences: $220 Million- which is not to say Oceanography does not benefit from NASA, the military, etc, but I think the point is clear)
Jay Austin Center for Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences Oregon State University
The other really cool thing about fission propulsion is that it would give us an actual motivation to leave the planet, after a few of them failed and ruined the biosphere...
Re:Use ISO Time and Date formats!
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Happy Odd Day!
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· Score: 1
Yearday is a lot less ambiguous, and makes processing of time series much easier than pesky months and days. Today is yd 323, which is, ironically, odd.
Slashdot Mirror
This is a laundry list of some of the problems that
/. every now and then. It's a fascinating field with
observational oceanographers (of which I count myself one-
got my PhD from WHOI and MIT in 1999) have to put up with,
just to give people an idea of the odd and difficult things
oceanographers have to put up with:
1. The aforementioned pressure issue. earth's sfc ->space = -1atm.
earth's sfc -> Ocean depths \approx 500 atm. Electronics packages
are commonly flooded with a non-conducting, incompressible (relative to air)
oil so that their containers don't implode. Makes working on
them a real challenge.
2. It transmits electromagnetic energy very poorly. For the same reason
it is difficult to communicate with submarines, it is difficult to
communicate with instrumentation in the ocean. That's why projects
like the Martha's Vineyard deployment, Rutger's LEO-15, etc are
so cool- they bother to actually hard-wire lots of stuff in so that
you can get the data back in real time.
3. It's very conductive and corrosive. Not only a problem for
instruments you place in the water, which have to be superbly grounded,
but for any laptop/etc you have on board. Everything is suffused with
salt spray by the end of a cruise.
4. It's a physically difficult medium to work with. More oceanographers
than not are susceptible to seasickness (myself included). Moored
instruments (instruments held in place with an anchor to collect time series)
have to be very well moored if you want them to be there when you get back.
5. Some of the signals we're interested in are very small. Standard
instrument errors for temperature measurements, for instance, tend
to be on the order of 1mC. This takes very sensitive electronics and
frequent calibration.
6. It's big. The ocean is a big place, relative to the speed a research
vessel can move. For some (not me- I'm a coastal oceanographer) the
first two weeks of a cruise might consist of just getting there.
Doesn't sound like much, but then figure you're paying ~$35k/day for the
boat...
Aside from these, let me just say that I'm pleased to see oceaographic
topics pop up on
some really cool engineering and scientific challenges. Although
the WHOI deployment will be used to answer some interesting scientific
issues, it's main role as I see it right now is as an engineering testbed.
There are tons of things to work out before we can do this at any
sort of larger scale.
I'll concede, if you're planning for the apocalypse, spending money on the
oceans is a bit moot. Is this why we study space? We study both because they are intrinsically interesting.
In addition, the oceans play a major role in the climate, provide food for a fair chunk of the world's population, play an important role in defense, shipping, and recreation, and are responsible for many natural disasters.
But yes, useless come the apocalypse.
jay-
Since no other "flatlanders" seemed to have checked in,
I'll just say this: as far as science programs in the US
go, NASA is spectacularly well funded. Over $12 Billion
a year, and going up. We spend a relatively paltry $250
Million exploring our own oceans, certainly as interesting
as outer space, and potentially far more important in
both the short and long run. I'm sure scientinsts from
many other fields could chime in with their own dire statistics.
Hold on. What's that you say about "oceans of liquid ethane"?
I guess I have some instruments I'd like to deploy there.
I just have to check if they work submerged in ethane
(they work submerged in saltwater...)
jay-
College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences, OSU
Before everybody starts kvetching about the satate of NASA funding (oops! too late!) it's worth noting that the FY2001 budget that Clinton submitted to congress calls for a 6% increase in NASA funding (compared to a 1.5% increase in the total budget). I realize that this still has to pass congress but it's a sign of confidence and a good starting point. This brings NASA's annual funding into the neighborhood of $13 Billion.
Also, recent successes by NASA, such as the Eros asteroid study and the earth mapping mission (which could have and maybe should have been done unmanned) have attracted a lot of positive press.
As far as the retrieval of instruments- usually it cannot be done.
The ocean floor is littered with very expensive oceanographic
instruments because once you're in water deeper than a few
hundred meters there's not much you can do. In addition, not
all instruments are tethered- free fall instruments play an
important role, as do moored instruments, which sometimes
sink, and even the ones on tethers occasionally decide
they'd rather be somewhere else. Of course, if the
missing object is a Soviet Sub, often certain gov't agencies
are willing to fork over the dough to retrieve it. However,
for a $100k instrument package, it's just not worth it. Remember,
not only is it very hard to find a lost instrument, it's
usually almost impossible to find it in the first place.
Also remember that oceanographers deal with up to 600 atmospheres
of pressure (as opposed to 0), in addition to being in an
environment (like space) that is not kind to sensitive
electronics (i.e. salt water).
For what it's worth- the new oceanographic ships- the Atlantis and the
Revelle- the most advanced ships in the fleet- cost ~$50 million
each. And we haven't sunk any yet...
As far as free time on subs, etc.- yes, the oceanographic community
benefits greatly from this, but I guarantee that scientists that get
free time on military subs are doing something the navy is VERY
interested in.
jay austin
Center for Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences
Oregon State University
Like most research scientists, oceanographers are almost
entirely funded by the government. This includes myself.
I am currently funded by a consortium of government agencies
including NSF (National Science foundation) the ONR (Office of
Naval Research) and NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration).
that $220 Million from the NSF represents on the order of about 50%
of all research oceanographic funding in the United States. As I mentioned,
we get some money from ONR (a lot less now that the cold war is over),
from NOAA (as long as Congress doesn't abolish them),
and to a much smaller extent, from the DOE, and local and state
governments. In addition, Satellite technology plays a great role
in modern oceanography, placing scatterometers, altimeters, and
cameras in space (note that unmanned, earth-bound satellites are
cheap compared to manned or extra-planetary work). So some
money for oceanographic research actually comes from NASA
(NASA has a $1.5 Billion "earth sciences" budget (FY2000)!).
So I don't knock the contributions that they make, at least under
some circumstances.
As far as benefit the benefits of ocean research: the ocean is a
tremendously important part of the earth's climate system, the
carbon cycle, and the biosphere. Making life on earth livable
requires a great understanding of it, as well as our space
environment. I feel that funding it at such a low level compared to
space sciences ($2.2 Billion) or human exploration ($5.6 Billion!)
is very short-sighted.
The answer is: the Oceanographic community. Oceanographers explore everything from the violent coastal ocean to the abyssal depths, deploying precision instruments in a high-pressure, corrosive, electromagnetically opaque environment. And they do it for a whole lot less than NASA does. And they have a much higher success rate. And it could be argued that the oceans are a whole lot more relevant to the survival of life on earth than is space.
(for FY2000: NASA: $12.5 Billion
NSF ocean sciences: $220 Million-
which is not to say Oceanography does not benefit
from NASA, the military, etc, but I think the point is clear)
Jay Austin
Center for Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences
Oregon State University
The other really cool thing about fission propulsion is that it would give us an actual motivation to leave the planet, after a few of them failed and ruined the biosphere...
Yearday is a lot less ambiguous, and makes processing of time series much easier than pesky months and days. Today is yd 323, which is, ironically, odd.