U.S. Satellite Programs in Jeopardy of Collapse

smooth wombat writes "A committee of the National Academy of Sciences, headed by Richard Anthens, has warned that 'the vitality of Earth science and application programs has been placed at substantial risk by a rapidly shrinking budget.' The list of Earth-observing satellite programs affected is a long one and includes satellite programs which observe nearly every aspect of Earth's climate. A delay in launching a replacement satellite or the disabling of a current satellite without a replacement could mean that data necessary to monitor or predict an upcoming event would be severely restricted. For its part NASA says that tight budgets force it to cut funding for all but the most vital programs. 'We simply cannot afford all of the missions that our scientific constituencies would like us to sponsor,' NASA administrator Michael Griffin told members of Congress when he testified before the House Science Committee February 16."

Missions value exaggerated

[amightywind]

science for science's sake has often lead to many of the greatest breakthroughs in science history.

We are talking about observational science here. What great breakthroughs have EOS missions ever produced?

...they're cancelling missions that have immediate and obvious benefits: weather monitoring to try and help avoid natural disasters, studying global warming and suchlike.

It doesn't sound like the GOES weather satellites are effected, just some of the more specific Earth Observing System missions. Strange that the scientists quoted in the article don't make the distinction. The EOS boondoggle has survived for almost 20 years and sucked untold billions out of NASA's budget. It is about time it got called to account. How do these rather specialized space missions help to "avoid natural disasters?". We already have realtime imagery of hurricanes and still people don't get out of the way. Satellites can't predict earthquakes, tsunamis, or volcanic eruptions. As for global warming, I am sure the state of the art will progress without a few extra missions. Government scientists have too much invested in the hysteria to let it go.

Re:Guns or butter? Bush chooses guns.

[elrous0]

Not to mention the costs of the wide variety of perks that we're having to hand out to other countries to either gain their support for the war or to win back their trust. I shudder to think what kind of "incentives" we must be giving to countries like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, etc. to keep their support. Hell, look what the UAE support is already costing us.

The least successful war in U.S. history is probably going to be the costliest too.

-Eric

Re:Guns or butter? Bush chooses guns.

[God'sDuck]

Has anyone raised the point that the current NASA director may actually have some very smart advisors? Six months ago NASA was doing the worst possible thing (economically) but the best for short-term job-security: kowtowing to Congress and saying "Oh yes great leaders we will do more with less." Now, someone had the bright idea, and the balls, to stick it to Congress, and announce cancellation after cancellation -- which doesn't mean the programs will actually *be* cancelled. This could all be a massive game of chicken, in which NASA releases press release after press release hitting constituency after constituency until 51% of congress has people set to be directly harmed by the cuts (lost jobs, lost revenue from satellite services, etc), and actually hands over the cash to save the programs. The director will piss off his bosses and may lose his job, but he'll save his organization.

Re:No, the reasoning is clear

[Anonymous Coward]

So now I'll have to subscribe to some monopoly to get a tornado warning?

I guess it's better to let the private sector take on vital services like this. I'm going to start a wellfare company, a police business, and a judicial corporation. Maybe I could get some pointers from the petrolium, pharmaceutical, and insurance industries about how to be fair, too...

-@

Re:Bush increased NASA funding overall.

[forgotten_my_nick]

Not calling you a liar but can you back up your assertions with some sources? The reason I ask is another 5 point poster has already posted details and appear to be completly opposite to what you are saying.

Re:No, the reasoning is clear

[hey!]

So now I'll have to subscribe to some monopoly to get a tornado warning?

I guess it's better to let the private sector take on vital services like this. I'm going to start a wellfare company, a police business, and a judicial corporation. Maybe I could get some pointers from the petrolium, pharmaceutical, and insurance industries about how to be fair, too...

Well, privatizing every one of these things has some precedent, don't they? So it's not impossible to imagine, at least for some people, that these activities be done entirely by the private sector.

(1) Tornado warnings: there are private weather companies. In fact I'd say that tornado warnings if anything a stronger case for privatization than, say hurricane warnings, as the damage area for tornoadoes is localized, although the risk area is large.

(2) Welfare. At one point time this was the province of private charity, and some would like to be again.

(3) Police. It's called a private security firm. Think also gated communities.

(4) Judicial. It's called mediation. It's not a 100% replacement of course.

This may seem far out, but I've certainly met highly intelligent people who strongly believe that government withdrawal from these areas would be a good thing.

Now, as a liberal my philosophy is that the government should engage broadly in these areas, leaving scope for private enterprise to address market segment needs. So, the government should warn people of tornadoes. But if certain enterprises need greater lead time or higher geographic precision than the public as a whole nees, that's a business opportunity. Likewise, let the state provide care for pregnant drug addicted teens, and the private sector provide care for pregnant drug addicted teens from wealthy families. Let the public sector provide police, but private firms provide 7x24 on-premises monitoring.

Re:Guns or butter? Bush chooses guns.

[grimJester]

That things were bad before the war does not mean the war changed things for the better. I remember looking up life expectancy figures before the war to see if there was any significant difference between Iraq and neighboring Syria and Iran. Life expectancy in Iraq was around two years lower. After reading your post, I checked again.

Accoring to the CIA, the war made no difference; Iraq [cia.gov]- 68.7 years, Iran [cia.gov] - 69.96, Syria [cia.gov] - 70.3.

According to the BBC [bbc.co.uk], "Life expectancy: 57 years (men), 60 years (women) (UN)", or a full ten years lower than the CIA claims. The BBC website claims the UN as source; I haven't checked the UN website.

Score: Saddam 2 years - USA 12 years?

Bush has REARRANGED funding

[alispguru]

It is the head of NASA who makes the budget the way it is.

And the head of NASA reports directly to the President. And NASA is definitely part of the executive branch of the US government. If the President says "jump" to NASA, it responds "How High, Sir?".

If the scientists had been in control, we would have shot the International Space Station and the Shuttle years ago. Together they suck up most of NASA's budget, and return little or nothing in new data.

You are correct, NASA's budget is not being globally cut. However, because most of it is directed towards the ISS and Shuttle, there's not much left for support of small science or new manned vehicle design.

Congress needs to take its lumps for this mess, too. The ISS and Shuttle are popular because they spend money in most of the states.

Re:Too bad that you do not read

[GReaToaK_2000]

Thank you... First time I have thanked an anonymous... SO extra thanks.

You saw exactly what I was pointing out.

No one is thinking about how, when he came into office, he slashed the NASA budget to the BONE.

Then in 2004 mentions, "oh lets do this... Lets go to the moon and Mars, etc. etc." BUT that was all fluff to get voters from the "tech" areana.

And NOW, he is back to the same old same old... The NASA budget is STILL less then the budget it had PRIOR to this President being in office.

Thanks again for "grokking" it. :-D

It's also interesting that someone who posts (ifwm [slashdot.org]) averages less then one on most everything... Hmmm... And ifwm is condemning you for anonymous???

I bet you did the anonymous route to protect some of your karma. OR you have moderator duty.

Re:Guns or butter? Bush chooses guns.

[JerkBoB]

Because your government chose to bomb and invade Irak, killing tens of thousands of people, reducing the country's infrastructures to a state which is worse than during Saddam reign ?

Frankly, I don't think that Americans are in any position to complain.

Where in the fuck did you get the idea that I was happy about that? I am mad as hell that we went there to begin with, dummy. It's not my government. I didn't vote for them. I held my nose and voted for the other guys. So did most of the people in my state and my part of the country.

The Iraqi people don't want us there, no matter how many right-wing cheerleaders post pictures of smiling children. If they did, they'd police themselves and settle the fuck down. After the shrine was blown up the other week, there were Iraqi police running around killing Sunnis. There are Shiite death squads (mostly police and army) who've been operating pretty much out in the open for at least a year.

This is not a civilized place, and the people are not ready for democracy. They don't want it. We can't force it on them. We fucked up. We've wasted money and lives. If the islamic world cared about anything besides hating the West, they'd step in and help Iraq help itself.

The US military does not train peacekeepers! They're trained to bring as much death and destruction to an area as they have to in order to achieve a strategic goal. When the military gets involved, people die. I wish our fucking cowboy-in-chief understood that, or cared. Maybe if most of our government officials hadn't gotten deferments in the last big war (oh, sorry, "police action"), they'd understand that.

For the record, lefties annoy me as much as right-wingers. They're two sides of the same (stupid) coin. People don't fucking think for themselves anymore.

Re:Depleted Uranium Babies and Cluster Bombs

[meringuoid]

You trail in political understanding far behind your European brothers who went through that fascist nightmare of out of control state power in World War II

Don't forget that many Europeans have much more recent memories of out-of-control totalitarianism than that. Several of the EU member states were part of the Soviet bloc. Spain was a Fascist dictatorship until the 1970s - Hitler and Mussolini were removed, but Franco was left in place because he never made a nuisance of himself. I believe Portugal underwent something similar, and Greece was run by a military junta until not so long ago.

And the Americans wonder why we're beginning to get nervous about the way they've been acting. I recall a joke from Not the Nine O'Clock News years ago, suggesting that it was because they intended to make up for having been late for the last two world wars by being bloody punctual this time...

Re:Guns or butter? Bush chooses guns.

[Jeremi]

Actually, this is a pretty clever decision on Bush's part: he saves a bit of cash for more war and tax cuts, and furthers one of his administration's major goals -- propogation of widespread ignorance about the state of Earth's climate -- at the same time.

Of course, I don't see how this jibes with his talk earlier about promoting science, but I suppose that was just empty PR anyway. You don't need fancy satellites to tell you about the world when ID can explain anything for free.

Re:Guns or butter? Bush chooses guns.

[ninjagin]

What's the "PNAC"?

There are some complexities that are getting missed in your assessment.

First, the US can't cut military spending by 90-95%. It's simply ridiculous to suggest. The US has so much infrastructure (both in-country and outside) that there's always a significant outlay of cash required to keep it running. The military's strategic and logistical partnerships with other nations span the globe. US bases overseas are part of the socioeconomic framework of the host countries. As much as American towns and cities resist the closure of bases, so do the communities overseas. In Germany, for example, US military bases provide a lot of economic stability and when these bases are closed (as is happening now in the current re-alignment), the effects are just as devastating as they are for American towns. Barber shops, hardware stores, furniture stores, construction firms, grocers, etc. all take a hit when, say, 20% of the town's population picks up and leaves. Also, the US military must have the best of every kind of system. Part of the problem with being the biggest and the strongest is that you have to maintain that state, which is costly. It's safe to say that the military-industrial complex is simply too large and too powerful, but they would not be that way if the US didn't require the best and most advanced equipment.

What I think you may be driving at is the cost of conflict, which is high in wartime. Regardless of where one stands on the reasons for conflict or their validity, Americans are bearing the overwhelming cost of current wartime activity. It's especially so in Iraq, and perhaps less so in Afghanistan, but that may reflect where the international community sees the greatest need. The US is not the only victim of Islamic terrorism, after all. What may also be adding to the current cost of conflict is that a sizable chunk of that money (~400 billion for Iraq so far) is being spent with contractors like Titan, Khaki, KBR (and other Halliburton subsidiaries), Triple Canopy, etc. Military contracts in wartime are not unusual by themselves, but this is the first war for the US in which the profits of contractors and suppliers have not been restricted and tax cuts have been permitted. Furthermore, the American citizenry has not been asked to sacrifice anything for the effort -- there's no draft, there is no rationing of fuel or foodstuffs, for example. If the revenue gets cut and the costs are magnified, the fiscal problem gets bigger.

The biggest piece of spending, apart from entitlements, goes to service the debt. That piece gets bigger and bigger every year. As it does, other spending gets squeezed out. Entitlements are ripe for squeezing, btw. You can short people on their entitlements, but you can't miss a debt payment.

As for China holding our debt, they're not alone. Lots of nations buy US treasury bonds. What's important to remember is that the US has a very diverse and powerful economy. Even though there is a lot of US paper around, China in particular still finds it wise to peg their curency against the dollar. Yes, there is the risk of interest rate hikes. However, China has no banking system, really -- not in a sense that any western nation would recognize. The national merchant/investment bank is a near-empty building that is staffed by a handful of people who are paid to sit at desks and do nothing. I saw a report on it about a month ago on 60 minutes. (I looked for a link but didn't find one, but you could probably buy the transcript.)

So, yeah the debt's a problem, but it's not quite so dire just yet. In 20 year's time, when the full weight of entitlements are felt and the current trends of the additional debt are played out, then it will be a crisis. Right now, America needs better fiscal leadership. Traditionally, that's been territory claimed by republicans, but it's safe to say that times have changed. I'm not happy with the current situation, either, but I'm optimistic about the prospects for a strong reaction against nonstop spending and war pr

Re:Guns or butter? Bush chooses guns.

[Anonymous Coward]

Because you didn't respect Jimmy Carter when you had him.

Bicches.

Re:Guns or butter? Bush chooses guns.

[MeanSolutions]

PNAC is the Project for a New American Century. They are hawks, think-tanks and move in the shadows normally, but because they have the ear of your current president, they have become bold and don't shy away from the light so much presently. Their manifesto is a cause for concern, whether you are american or not. PNAC argued for invading Iraq two years before 9/11. No wonder the sales of tin-foil hats have shot up.

Okay, so cutting military spending by 90% immediately is not feasible. But cutting military spending so that you have a defence, not an offence, is well feasible, and will save tons of cash. Wars of conquest, as presently in Iraq, are expensive and sap the strength not only of the forces, but also of the people in the conquering nation. It also generates more enemies than is annihilated in the conquest.

As for 'islamic terrorism', while terror can never be excused - no matter who wields it, the individual or the mightiest nation on the planet - the motives behind the actions can be understood. The individual that has lost everything, that sees all they know come under threat by a might they can never compete against, sometimes take action in a way that couch-potatoes watching SuperBowl might never comprehend. Making the ultimate sacrifice to try and gain the freedom of your peers - it was not too many generations ago that a civil war took place in USA, where people made that type sacrifice for exactly the same reasons.

Lastly, any economy, no matter how diverse, can - and will - fall on hard times. Being heavily in debt, with most of that debt owned by a single entity, and being refused credit is a position where ones courage, attitude and honour comes under scrutiny. Time will tell how that test is passed.

Re:Guns or butter? Bush chooses guns.

[stalebread]

These NASA cuts are just the tip of what coming up. Americans have spent way too much money; http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&si d=amz.HoNLRL_0&refer=us [bloomberg.com]

It's interesting that these cuts focus on earth science and the same satellites that keep us informed about climate changes. One of the thorny issues for this administration has been global warming, and this seems like another case of this administration's approach to problems. Rather than fix the problem, they try to make the problem disappear by attacking or dismantling those who publicize it. Remember Abu Ghraib? The administration's immediate response wasn't, "We're sorry, it'll never happen again." No, it was, "Who were those bastards who released the photos - let's get 'em!" How about the reclassification of thousands of declassified documents? Not to mention the recent censorship of NASA publications by a representative from the White House http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11240405/ [msn.com].

This administration's 'problem solving' and our financial situation highlighted in that article makes me feel like American power is crumbling from the inside out. While continuing to bark, we've lost our bite. http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/03/07/us.iran.ap/ index.html [cnn.com]