Nasa shelves climate satellites

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/06/09/nasa_shelves_climate_satellites/?rss_id=Boston+Globe+--+National+News

Environmental science may suffer

By Beth Daley, Globe Staff | June 9, 2006

NASA is canceling or delaying a number of satellites designed to give scientists critical information on the earth's changing climate and environment.

The space agency has shelved a $200 million satellite mission headed by a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor that was designed to measure soil moisture -- a key factor in helping scientists understand the impact of global warming and predict droughts and floods. The Deep Space Climate Observatory, intended to observe climate factors such as solar radiation, ozone, clouds, and water vapor more comprehensively than existing satellites, also has been canceled.

And in its 2007 budget, NASA proposes significant delays in a global precipitation measuring mission to help with weather predictions, as well as the launch of a satellite designed to increase the timeliness and accuracy of severe weather forecasts and improve climate models.

The changes come as NASA prioritizes its budget to pay for completion of the International Space Station and the return of astronauts to the moon by 2020 -- a goal set by President Bush that promises a more distant and arguably less practical scientific payoff. Ultimately, scientists say, the delays and cancellations could make hurricane predictions less accurate, create gaps in long-term monitoring of weather, and result in less clarity about the earth's hydrological systems, which play an integral part in climate change.

``Today, when the need for information about the planet is more important than ever, this process of building understanding through increasingly powerful observations . . . is at risk of collapse," said Berrien Moore III, director of the Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space at the University of New Hampshire.

Continued...

So let's spend the money on Moonbase Dubya! /sarcasm

It will take many, many years to repair the damage that the Bush adminstration
has inflicted on this country.

god makes the weather so what possible need is there to study it? Just pick up that bible and read, that's all you need to know!

Bush is trying to capture some of that old "JFK magic" by putting an Astronaut back on the moon. I can think of a PERFECT candidate for that mission! It would certainly be a shame if the LEM wasn't able to return to the ship and he'd have to spend the rest of his life as the "man in the moon" though. What am I thinking? He couldn't fulfill his TANG commitment, he'd never be able to discipline himself enough for a lunar launch.

I think it's high time we launched another chimp into space! Sadly, I'm old enough to remember when they DID launch chimps into space. :shrug: Oh well........

I expect that scientists from more enlightened nations will step forward with their own projects to fill the gap. I'm confident in that because filling obviously fillable information gaps is a fairly fundamental program within routine science.

The whole planet is _not_ locked into the cons agenda to use science to support its idiotogical goals. The march of the world's science isn't going back into a box guarded by an office of the inquisition.

:eyes:

Gee. Ya think?

blah blah blah blah blah blah...

the mantra of the religious right.

This is kind of like Cheney outing Valerie Plame and destroying the CIA's ability to monitor Iran for nuclear proliferation.

What would they have Really been using them for?

Especially the precipitation info. Without this, it's going to be VERY difficult to deliver the more precise forecasts which are being demanded by everyone from farmers, city water departments, and fire protection agencies, to hydroelectric power plant managers and insurance companies.

There are already areas on Earth which have only 1 or 2 weather stations to cover an area the size of Texas. I don't care how fancy the models are ... without land or at least satellite-based data, one simply can't expect decent forecasts built on NOTHING.

The ESA or Japan or Russia or China. Or a collaborative effort between countries. These satellites are needed. And if the US won't do it, then a sane country will.

Another step backwards for scientific research in the US.

Except maybe in this case.

would think sattelites doing climate information gathering would be given priority.

warming is real but they do not want us to know. I wonder how much arm twisting there is now to keep the MSM from following this story?

the earth

Russian and China warn of space arms race
STEPHANIE NEBEHAY IN GENEVA

CHINA and Russia yesterday warned that space-based weapons would pose as great a threat as weapons of mass destruction, and called for global negotiations to stop their deployment.

Diplomats said the appeals from the two powers were mainly targeted at the United States, expected by some to leave open the option of putting weaponry in orbit when it issues a new space policy soon.
Advert for Van Gogh print in The Scotsman this Saturday

The United Nations Conference on Disarmament is focusing talks this month on the prospects for launching negotiations on the prevention of an arms race in outer space. The United States and Britain are virtually alone among the forum's 65 member states in opposing the start of the negotiations.

"A world free of outer space weapons is no less important than a world free of the weapons of mass destruction," China's ambassador, Cheng Jingye, told the conference.

.
.
from www.scotsman.com

Of course they won't, because massive corporations hate the Earth.

How many recon satellites are launched just prior to the commencement of hostilities??

Seems Iran just got back burnered.