NASA Slashing Observations of Earth

mattnyc99 points us to a new report by the National Research Council warning that, by 2010, the number of NASA's Earth-observing missions will drop dramatically, and the number of operating sensors and instruments on NASA spacecraft will decrease by 40 percent. The report says, "The United States' extraordinary foundation of global observations is at great risk." Popular Mechanics asks an MIT professor what it all means. From these accounts it is clear that the Bush administration's priorities on a Mars mission and a moon base are partly to blame for the de-emphasizing of earth science. Neither article quite says that some responsibility must fall to the administration's footdragging on global warming.

Re:I wonder...

[__aaclcg7560]

Actually, it was Clinton who signed the treaty and Bush withdrew Clinton's signature [bard.edu] that killed the treaty. I think the problem with the American perspective has always been "where's the free lunch" instead of making mutual sacrifices to make the world a better place. Global warming is not something that the United States or the World can do alone to solve.

Slashdoublespeak

[Keebler71]

First, the NASA science budget is increasing [nasa.gov], not decreasing as the article would make you think... it just isn't increasing as fast it had been promised.

Second, the NASA budget is essentially fixed. There are 4 directorates within NASA:

• Aeronautics (conventional aircraft-related research)
• Science (satellites and probes)
• Space Operations (funding to maintain shuttle and station)
• Exploration
  • COTS (Funding commercial space to provide space transportation capability (non-exploratory)
  • Constellation (Ares/Orion/LSAM - the vehicles that will both replace shuttle as well as comprise the lunar architecture)

The problem is that over the next couple years, the Exploration budget starts ramping up as the development costs begin to really add up in advance of a 2014 first (crewed) flight. Meanwhile, until the shuttle is retired in 2010, the SOMD budget must remain relatively constant since the cost of operating the shuttle fleet doesn't dip until its retirement. So what are your choices?

• A) Cut shuttle off early and leave ISS unfinished and have an 6-7 gap in manned space flight?
• B) Delay Exploration development until the shuttle is retired (similar gap in manned space flight since you are just pushing development to the right)?
• C) Or do you delay science missions for only a few years until NASA is "over the hump years" (2008-2010) in which they are trying to maintain old vehicles and develop new ones?

If you ask me - the obvious solution is:

D) Increase NASA funding to maintain all of the above until Ares/Orion enters an operations phase.

Keep in mind - the NASA budget is about half of one percent of the federal budget...

Note: you can mock the lunar outpost and Mars missions all you want - but those costs aren't even in the budget yet (and won't be for some 10 years or more) and are not driving this "problem" despite the misleading claims in the article.

Re:Slashdoublespeak

[robsimmon]

First, the NASA science budget is increasing, not decreasing as the article would make you think... it just isn't increasing as fast it had been promised.

You do realize the 2007 NASA budget was never passed?

Re:I wonder...

[Mike Rubits]

Now you're just propping up straw men by mentioning Kenya. China and Russia both have space programs. Many more countries are able to launch satellites. You are very quick to resort to insults and being condescending (was it really necessary to start your post with "Um"? I didn't really think so) rather than discussing the facts. As you seem to now insinuate Earth observation is "pointless shit" I can't quite understand what you're even trying to argue.

Re:I wonder...

[RenderSeven]

Bullshit. Your reference is to an uncited student paper. From Wikipedia:

On July 25, 1997, before the Kyoto Protocol was finalized (although it had been fully negotiated, and a penultimate draft was finished), the U.S. Senate unanimously passed by a 95-0 vote the Byrd-Hagel Resolution (S. Res. 98),[40] which stated the sense of the Senate was that the United States should not be a signatory to any protocol that did not include binding targets and timetables for developing as well as industrialized nations or "would result in serious harm to the economy of the United States". On November 12, 1998, Vice President Al Gore symbolically signed the protocol. Both Gore and Senator Joseph Lieberman indicated that the protocol would not be acted upon in the Senate until there was participation by the developing nations.[41] The Clinton Administration never submitted the protocol to the Senate for ratification.

So Al Gore signed it as a gesture while stating he wouldnt act on it, and Congress voted unanimously to reject it (in possibly the first and last time Dems and Repubs ever agreed on anything). Its OK, you can still hate Bush for other shit.

Re:I wonder...

[OiToTheWorld]

actually the US puts the most CO2 into the atmosphere out of anyone (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CO2_emission)

Re:A huge waste of taxpayers money?

[RockClimbingFool]

You sir know jack shit. You want to save the world on NASA's 16 billion a year? Why don't you try to some other pot...

Maybe defense at 537 billion.

How about Health and human services at 687 billion? There is oodles of waste there.

Here is a breakdown of the US budget taken from the treasury departments website http://www.fms.treas.gov/mts/index.html [treas.gov]

Budget Outlays

Legislative Branch 4,463

Judicial Branch 6,382

Department of Agriculture 88,296

Department of Commerce 6,673

Department of Defense-Military 537,308

Department of Education 66,623

Department of Energy 21,583

Department of Health and Human Services 687,946

Department of Homeland Security 49,302

Department of Housing and Urban Development 45,891

Department of the Interior 9,952

Department of Justice 24,643

Department of Labor 50,218

Department of State 15,225

Department of Transportation 65,928

Department of the Treasury:

Interest on Treasury debt securities (gross) 440,627

Other 58,626

Department of Veterans Affairs 74,032

Corps of Engineers 7,758

Other Defense Civil Programs 47,540

Environmental Protection Agency 7,875

Executive Office of the President 3,644

General Services Administration 881

International Assistance Program 17,246

National Aeronautics and Space Administration 16,350

National Science Foundation 5,837

Office of Personnel Management 67,428

Small Business Administration 1,433

Social Security Administration 621,979

Other independent agencies 22,295

That is a total of 3 trillion, which gives NASA a wopping 0.5% of the US budget. During Apollo, it was at 6%. That is quite a difference.

NASA still does amazing work, but its kind of hard to make everything work when Congress will not give them the budget they were told to plan to. Something gets cut when they don't get money they were supposed to.

"Clinton was right in refusing to sign Kyoto" !?

[patio11]

He was right until he signed (technically, directed the United States to sign) the stupid thing (http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1997/12/11/kyoto/) , knowing that he wouldn't be there when the Senate said "Hah, this is crazy, no way we're ratifying this" (Gore actually put pen to paper on the document in 1997, after the Senate had passed a 95-0 resolution saying "Notice: we won't ratify anything that harms American competitiveness versus developing nations.") Dubya did the right thing and said "This is inimical to our interests and both parties in the Senate have said they will not ratify it. Accordingly, I'm not going to support it." He was roundly criticized both at home (by Democrats who had no intention of screwing over their own union workers by destroying US industry to make the targets) and abroad (largely by Europeans who proceeded to miss the quotas they had agreed to anyhow).

Kyoto was one of the most cynical maneuvers in the history of environmental politics, which has no shortage of them to compare to. The main supporters either were not affected by it (China, India), would have felt no effects (Russia, because they got to compare their emissions against the old Soviet Union prior to the collapse of the economy -- economic collapse being the ONLY way to make the targets set out!), or just plain lied through their teeth on their intention to go through with the cuts (you know how many European nations hit their targets after four years? Well, there was that economic stalwart Romania. Everyone else said "Uhh... Well... You were going to actually MEASURE pollution? Umm.... DUBYA MADE US DO IT!")

Re:I wonder...

[wall0159]

You're confounding two issues:

1) global climate change
2) global trade

and you're wrong, too:

"the worst offenders get a free pass"

The USA and Australia _are_ the worst offenders, and neither are signing Kyoto.

Re:I wonder...

[1u3hr]

Why the hell would we ratify Kyoto? It basically gives India and China a free pass (giving a competitive advantage to countries who are very serious competitors to us), and only slows the increase of CO2 (as opposed to keeping levels the same, or reducing it).

Of course, you can't lose an economic advantage just because you might SAVE THE FUCKING WORLD. Next quarter's stock prices are the only measure of the right thing to do.

And you're in a much better position to pressure China and India to sign on if you're already in compliance. Meanwhile, the US is still far and away the world's greatest producer of greenhouse gases. Not to mention the fact that much Chinsse industry is produced to order for US customers.

Re:Bandwagon posts are just annoying

[Jeppe Salvesen]

Oh yeah?

Here's something for ya: Empirical evidence. You know, we have a good record of atmospheric composition and temperatures for the past 50-60-70 years.

Somebody tested various models on historical data. You know where you started, you know what happened, and you know the outcome.

Good enough for you?

They tried it [bbc.co.uk]. More here [ucsd.edu].

If you take this data and combine it with a decade of earlier results, the debate about whether or not there is a global warming signal here and now is over at least for rational people.

But, feel free to post any good rebuttals on this study if you indeed know more than I do.

It isn't that Liberals are ignorant

[Nymz]

It isn't that Liberals are ignorant.
It's just that they know so much that isn't so. - Ronald Reagan

Re:I wonder...

[togoso]

"Everyone sane realizes that global warming is happening"

Do you beleive that GW is a natural thing, or human? I say this because I'm interested in the whole debate but yet find very little evidence to suggest that the Earth is behaving anythin other than naturally... We have just come out of a "little ice age", centred around the middle ages. The warming of the climate then allowed humans to spread. Eventually the Earth will find a balance and it will go cold again.

Have a read of this. Sparked my interest:
http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p36.htm [oism.org]

The Nero generation

[TapeCutter]

"It [Kyoto] was basically a bill that punishes the first world for pollution, while the worst offenders get a free pass."

The way I see it, by refusing to sign "the worst offenders" have given themselves a "free pass" at the expense of everyone else.

First up, Kyoto was never intended to be a silver bullet, it has a use by date of 2012 and was intended to get everyone on board and "level the playing field". As a prototype GHG treaty it was eventually accepted by virtually all nations, the only two dissenters (that still matter) are Australia and the US.

Second, although China may surpass the US one day, (either in total or per capita output), currently the US consumes 25% of global fossil fuels and has 3% of global population and where I live (Australia) has a similar per capita ratio.

Third, the developed world is "developed" due largely to the advantage we have gained over the 20th centry by burning FF's and in doing so we have used up a large chunk of the climates finite ability to "cope" with the extra CO2 (by "cope" I mean provide a habitat able to support humans and thier civilizations indefinitely).

Fourth, China, India, ect, have not burnt FF's in large amounts until recently and understandably demand some form of compensation in any "first cut" treaty to account for the capacity the developed world has already used (ie: in their eyes, "leveling the playing field").

Fifth, The claims of the US & Oz governments that they "will meet their Kyoto obligations anyway" is creative accounting at best, but I prefer to call it a lie.

AGW is a global problem that urgently requires a global treaty, in much the same way as atmospheric N-tests did in the 60's & 70's (BTW: the scientists had a rough time back then also, eg: Marsden from CSIRO who found plutonium spread throughout the atmosphere). I don't pretend to have the political answers but we won't get an answer until all parties come to the table in good faith, since that is unlikely we are probably doomed to be remembered as the Nero generation, that is if there is anyone left to remember.

I wouldn't mind this (myopic/insightfull?) "ruin the economy" meme as much had the US & Oz used economic models that were anywhere near the strength of the much maligned climate models, instead they used classic Friedman models and the associated basic assumptions that resources are infinite and pollution is sombody else's problem.

Take a close look at this "coventional" wisdom (well "conventional" to >3% of mankind) that Kyoto would "ruin the economy", what it really boils down to is: "it would ruining the fossil fuel market". I can only assume it will do this in much the same way as the ozone treaty ruined the CFC market, lead controls have ruined the paint and gasoline markets, and the atmospheric N-Test ban ruined the US military.

Global treaties to ensure global corporations and nation states at least attempt to preserve "the commons" is not some half-arsed socialist plot, it's plain common sense not to shit in ones own nest.

Re:How many sensors DO you need for THAT?

[Anonymous Coward]

> It seems to me that for global warming all you need are the temperatures everywhere.
Great idea, just explain to me how you get the temperature at 8km height without a satellite? Or 30km? This is important information for understanding what is happening.

> You just need to take the temperatures from all those meteorology stations all over the world, take an average, plot it.
No. Part of the question is the attribution to a reason, which current consensus puts on greenhouse gases.

> And even if you need data from meteo satellites, why do you need NASA there? By now there are enough sensors up there to forecast the weather
And this study warns that there will be less of these sensors. Also, note that you need different satellites for weather forecasting and climate change detection.

> Forecasting then just feeds that into a model and tries to predict what will happen tomorrow
If you just observe, how are you able to develop a model? You do not know the processes

Re:no wonder

[b00le]

Commerical remote sensing is quite distinct from the kind of Earth Observation TFA is talking about. The commercial business concentrates for the most part on very high resolution imagery, 1 metre pixel size or less -- optical for now, radar too in the near future -- while the kind of science data offered by the Landsat programme, for example, or ESA's ERS/Envisat [eurimage.com], has limited commercial value (much of it is available free or at nominal cost to qualified researchers -- or anyone who knows where to look). With Landsat 7 ailing, and Landsat 5 older than most Slashdot contributors, the U.S.'s failure to ensure a Landsat continuity mission after 35 years of uninterrupted data is idiotic, and hopes that this continuity mission can be fobbed off on commercial operators even more so. A useful analogy would be high-energy physics research, or astronomy -- these are pure science and cannot show any immediate commercial return. Meanwhile the Bush administration ties up funds for dumb stunts like the Moon base or a manned mission to Mars, projects with a very poor scientific rationale and such limited feasibility that a non-gambling man like myself would happily bet they will never come to fruition.

Re:I wonder...

[zacronos]

Actually, wouldn't CO2 per person be a better metric than total CO2 per country, at least in some ways? I'm not saying that makes the numbers OK, just that a measure of the room for improvement in each country would probably be better served by per person data.

Re: nice troll, smitty

[Qzukk]

Here's the actual press release that appears to talk about the canyon policy. [peer.org] Reading through it, it looks like there's a bit of misunderstanding on who exactly is saying or not saying what (I don't think selling a creationist book means that if you ask a tour guide they have to tell you the canyon is 6000 years old). They do have links to letters and responses though, you can read them yourself. Other sources [newscientist.com] picked up their press release but don't mention anything about a ban on telling people how old the canyon is.

Do tour guides at the Grand Canyon take orders directly from the Federal Government

Why, as a matter of fact, they do. It's a national park, ruled by the National Park Service.

much less the Presidential Administration?

Mary Bomar, current director of the Park Service, was appointed by Bush and confirmed October 2006 [nytimes.com].

Obfuscation is annoying

[mdsolar]

You seem to be mixing different climate forcing mechanisms to end up in confusion. I don't think you can point to evidence for CO2 concentrations of 8000 ppmv in the post Cambrian history of the Earth regardless of the ice covering. Cyclic glaciation may well be related to orbital dynamics, and it seems silly to bring this into a discussion about the relationship between the CO2 concentration and surface temperatures unless one is doing so to control for this seperate forcing. CO2 provides increased infrared opacity in the atmosphere which traps heat, warming the surface. This is pretty simple. Humans are mixing the biological and geological carbon cycles is a new way that increases the atmospheric CO2 concentration. This is pretty simple too. What we are doing is changing the climate.