Nature - US Will Lose 1/3 Of Satellite Coverage Of Earth By 2010 At Current Funding Levels

[hatrack]

A committee of prominent Earth scientists has recommended that the US government fund 17 new Earth-observing missions over the next decade. Without these steps, they say, researchers could be left for years without critical data on climate change. "Gaps in these measurements could be fatal," warns committee co-chair Richard Anthes, president of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado.

The panel urged that roughly US$500 million be restored to NASA's Earth-observing budget, and that several cancelled scientific instruments be reinstated on satellites already in the works — by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and other agencies.

EDIT

The number of earth-observing missions could drop by a third between 2006 and 2010, if funding continues at expected levels. The loss of existing capabilities would leave scientists without data to feed models of climate change — perhaps leaving us unprepared to face future climate shifts. In response, the report recommends restoring several key elements of America's Earth-observing capability, including the boost to NASA, which has been cutting back on Earth-observing missions to make room for other programmes. Some of the recommendations involve flying follow-up versions of current spacecraft, such as the ICESat mission to measure ice-sheet height and the GRACE gravity mission to monitor long-term changes in water distribution.

The panellists also recommended restoring instruments to the multi-agency National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS), currently due to be ready for launch in 2013. Last summer, citing cost overruns, project managers slashed, among other things, instruments that would measure wind direction and sea-surface temperature. But such measurements are critical to understanding and predicting global weather phenomena such as El Niño, the committee says.

EDIT

http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070115/full/070115-5.html

[Kutjara]

1. If you can't see the global warming...

...then there ain't no global warming. It's just the Bush Doctrine at work. Keep your eyes and ears shut and everything's rosy.

[MountainLaurel]

7. Combine that with the closing of EPA libraries

And the massive weeding of materials at the ones still open, and you get even more hiding of data.

[ThomCat]

2. If they can't ignore global warming, they'll prevent everyone

from getting data about it.
x(

[ramapo]

3. Who needs that stinkin' science??

This is just the successful outcome of the 35-year-old denigration of science in favor of ignorance. There are many guilty parties, not the least of which are the general public who pretty much decided space science was a waste once we conquered the moon.

[RaleighNCDUer]

4. This is obviously already happening.

Just look at the arctic ice shelf that broke away a year and a half ago, and we didn't find out about it until last month.

[necso]

5. Here's a related link

NYT.

I support space exploration, manned and unmanned -- but I'm concerned about the allocation (how much, to what) of NASA funding (ie, I'm far from sure it's being properly allocated). (Moreover, understanding the earth/sun and tracking changes there are of greater importance to my mind.)

And I'm concerned that this emphasis on manned missions to Mars and the Moon is really about developing new heavy-lift capability so that the idiots can put "weapons*" (like tungsten-bar launchers) in space.

*: If something doesn't work as a weapon, then maybe it shouldn't be called a weapon.

[kestrel91316]

6. researchers could be left for years without critical data on climate change

Ahem. That would be the point.

They don't want the truth to come out as things go bad. And they don't want people in the future to know anything going on in other parts of the world. They WANT us ignorant and in the dark.

[Nihil]

10. I think that is a large part of it.

> They don't want the truth to come out as things go bad.
> And they don't want people in the future to know anything going on in
> other parts of the world. They WANT us ignorant and in the dark.

That way, there will be less dissent, fewer calls to rein in the excesses,
*far* less preparation for the crunch and a comparatively short period of
bloody tragic panic when it happens.

This also means that the privileged elite will be able to prepare more
easily than if they were being expected to do their duty for their fellow
man (not to mention far cheaper than if they were competing for increasingly
limited resources with the rest of the population). The elite are preparing
their guarded boltholes and will simply lock out the frantic world until the
die-off is largely over.

[Massacure]

8. Doesn't the European Space Agency also do earth monitoring?

[Dead_Parrot]

9. They do...

...as do the Russian, Japanese and Indian agencies: I think France might run a couple outside of the ESA, and I wouldn't be surprised to see the Chinese doing a lot (they are just starting to get involved).

It'll be a lot of extra work to pick up though, and if, say, MODIS dropped out of the sky, we wouldn't see a replacement for a good 10 years - these things take a lot of time.