PieFed.caGOP may finally succeed in unrelenting quest to kill two NASA climate satellites
arstechnica.com/space/2025/09/gop-may-finally-s…
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BigBenis
MarshezezzYeah that really serves the people. I’m sure our tax money will then go to oil companies in the aftermath
I read this article does a really bad summarization to me as someone who has not been tracking these satellites.
I had to go look at the wiki for the OCO's. Turns out that OCO-2 & OCO-3 are in orbit and operating.
So as I understand this, Trump is not killing the launch of new Sat, but cutting off data collection on existing Sat launches. Further the reason these two SATs are so important is that although there are other Carbon Observers, they don't have the resolution these two do.
Overall, it's an entire waste of money to have built and spent something over a billion dollars, just to cut off the data that Oil companies don't want. (Or at least that's the perception.)
The article could have done a better job bottom lining this.
CatoblepasSatellites don’t just hang out in orbit, they need frequent adjustments or they’ll crash into the earth. So they’re not just turning them off and we can turn them back on later. Although as I understand it, one can be linked to the ISS in a nonfunctional state to be used later. But if they get turned off, at minimum one is crashing and burning.
Absolutely, having worked in remote existence I'm well aware of how much support and maintenance it takes to keep up equipment and collect the data.
The article wasn't clear that Trump was trying to cut the collection & analysis from the headline and several paragraphs in. Initial impression were that we had more orbiters in line for launch that were being scrapped half built... Also tragic, but having working orbiters makes budget inertia slightly more likely to win against a cut.
Several budget cuts have been overturned by lawsuit and although they take months, the orbiters can probably be left in a reduced budget or even maybe limbo for that period while still being recoverable (IMO).
I hope you’re right, because chucking them into the ocean is criminal.
PearlHave we tried transferring them to the department of war to monitor “foreign terraforming projects”
This so neatly sums up the blithering insanity of the right - if the data counters their preferred view and cannot be discredited, then they have no choice but to.... hide the data.
Christ, I read Satellites as Scientists, and ..didn't question it at all.
Holy shit me too.
Glad to see I wasn't the only one.
Same. 😬
Calling it now. They'll scuttle these satellites, and the next day SpaceX will unveil a plan for their own, private weather satellite network that the US government will suddenly have money to pay up for. But it won't ever be accessible to plebs...
And the data coming off it will have temperature drift
It will be adjusted for accuracy before its data is published
"Accuracy"
Conservatives ruin everything.
Regressives, as I like to call them.
Doomsday Cult disables satellites to reduce forewarning of hurricanes
Unexpected results at 12
Yeah, the amount of "unprecedented" and "unforeseen" climate disasters that will populate the media will make me lose what little hair I have left on my head.
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