US Facing 40% Loss Of Instrumentation On Climate, Weather Satellites By 2010 - Miami Herald

[hatrack]

Scientists soon will lose access to crucial information that helps them better understand and predict everything from hurricanes and earthquakes to global warming and environmental decay, according to a candid and sobering report by prestigious experts. As wide gaps develop in the ability of scientists to analyze natural phenomena, Floridians -- particularly vulnerable to hurricanes, rising sea levels and environmental changes affecting fisheries and farmers -- could be especially affected.

''It's a train wreck,'' said Otis Brown, dean of the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science and a member of the National Academy of Science's panel that issued the report earlier this month. ''When you hope for the best, this is about the worst you could imagine in terms of things going awry,'' he said.

Among the reasons for this reversal of scientific fortunes: sharp budget cuts, ill-advised technological compromises, and a botched partnership between the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, according to the report.

And the setbacks come at an inopportune time. NOAA recently reported that last year was the warmest on record in the United States, and a major study scheduled for release Friday by an international group of scientists is expected to amplify the developing crisis of global warming.

EDIT

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/nation/16563084.htm

[phantom power]

1. All part of our slide toward 3rd-world status.

[havocmom]

2. And the dark ages

Access to libraries and data cut. Schools not teaching science well for fear of law suits over religion. Plagues and rumors of plagues...

Dark Ages for the masses. Only the guys in the castles get any knowledge and that will only be used against the masses.

[YankeyMCC]

3. k n r

[kestrel91316]

4. This new Dark Ages is really going to get ugly. We have a LOT

farther to fall............

:cry:

I am so sad. I was alive to see this nation rise to greatness and then waste it all for the sake of corporate profits and personal gain by the privileged. We went to THE MOON! We created computers! We flew areound the world like it was child's play! And now we are going to let it all fade into memory and go back to scratching in the dirt and life expectancies of 40 and high infant mortality and ignorance and disease..............because we are such shortsighted fools.

Who needs satellites for information when we have the BIBLE to tell us what to do and how to think?!?

I HATE the people who want to send us back to darkness!!!!!!!!!!!

[bananas]

5. Triana waits in cold storage

Maybe it will be launched after Bush is gone.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2001/010715-sat.htm

THE ORLANDO SENTINEL July 15, 2001
POLITICS PUTS $100 MILLION SATELLITE ON ICE
Melissa Harris, Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- NASA has spent almost $100 million in taxpayer money to build a satellite that is headed for a storage bin in Maryland.

Triana was scheduled for a November flight into space, where it would measure ozone in the Earth's atmosphere while also beaming round-the-clock photos of Earth to the Internet.

But now, some fear it may never fly.

The cause of the costly hibernation: presidential politics and conflicting views -- many of them partisan -- about Triana's scientific worth.

<snip>

[Greyskye]

6. K & R

As someone who remembers the 1st moon landing, I have only one response to this: :puke: