U.S. fleet of climate satellites is shrinking

By Matt Crenson

updated 8:18 a.m. ET March 6, 2006

Budget cuts and poor management may be jeopardizing the future of our eyes in orbit — America’s fleet of environmental satellites, vital tools for forecasting hurricanes, protecting water supplies and predicting global warming.

“The system of environmental satellites is at risk of collapse,” said Richard Anthes, president of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research. “Every year that goes by without the system being addressed is a problem.”

Anthes chairs a National Academy of Sciences committee that advises the federal government on developing and operating environmental satellites. In a report issued last year, the committee warned that “the vitality of Earth science and application programs has been placed at substantial risk by a rapidly shrinking budget.”

Since that report came out, NASA has chosen to cancel or mothball at least three planned satellites in an effort to save money. Cost overruns have delayed a new generation of weather satellites until at least 2010 and probably 2012, leading a Government Accountability Office official to label the enterprise “a program in crisis.”

Scientists warn that the consequences of neglecting Earth-observing satellites could have more than academic consequences. It is possible that when a big volcano starts rumbling in the Pacific Northwest, a swarm of tornadoes sweeps through Oklahoma or a massive hurricane bears down on New Orleans, the people in harm’s way — and those responsible for their safety — will have a lot less information than they’d like about the impending threat.

“We may be losing something here, something that is good for all of us,” said Francisco P.J. Valero, an atmospheric scientist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego.

Other budget priorities
NASA officials say that tight budgets tie their hands, forcing them to cut all but the most vital programs. The agency’s proposed 2007 budget request contains $2.2 billion for satellites that observe the Earth and sun, compared to $6.2 billion for operating the space shuttle and International Space Station and $4 billion for developing future missions to the moon and Mars.

“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 Feb. 16.

Griffin is faced with the difficult task of balancing the space agency’s science and aeronautics programs against the cost of operating the space station and shuttle, while simultaneously planning the future of human space flight.

“I truly wish that it could be otherwise, but there is only so much money,” Griffin said in his congressional testimony. “We must set priorities.”

The space agency has said that many science programs that have had their budgets slashed or eliminated will be revived if the budgetary situation improves.

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