The US Has Destroyed A Critical Sea Ice-Measuring Satellite (scientificamerican.com) 283
"A key polar satellite used to measure the Arctic ice cap failed a few days ago, leaving the U.S. with only three others, and those have lived well beyond their shelf lives," writes long-time Slashdot reader edibobb. The Guardian reports that all three of the remaining satellites "are all beginning to drift out of their orbits over the poles" and will no longer be operational by 2023. This could put an end to nearly 40 years of uninterrupted data on polar ice, notes the original submission, adding "It seems like there would be a backup satellite, right?
"In fact, there was a backup satellite ready to go." The $58 million satellite was dismantled in 2016 when the Republican-controlled Congress cut its funding. (The Guardian reports that many scientists "say this decision was made for purely ideological reasons.") Now Nature reports: The U.S. military is developing another set of weather satellites...but the one carrying a microwave sensor will not launch before 2022. That means that when the current three aging satellites die, the United States will be without a reliable, long-term source of sea-ice data... For now, the the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center is preparing for those scenarios by incorporating data from Japan's AMSR2 microwave sensor into its sea-ice record. Another, more politically fraught option is to pull in data from the China Meteorological Administration's Fengyun satellite series... Since 2011 Congress has banned NASA scientists from working with Chinese scientists -- but not necessarily from using Chinese data. One final possibility is finding a way to launch the passive-microwave sensor that scientists at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory salvaged from the dismantled DMSP satellite. The sensor currently sits at the Aerospace Corporation in El Segundo, California, where researchers are trying to find a way to get it into orbit.
"In fact, there was a backup satellite ready to go." The $58 million satellite was dismantled in 2016 when the Republican-controlled Congress cut its funding. (The Guardian reports that many scientists "say this decision was made for purely ideological reasons.") Now Nature reports: The U.S. military is developing another set of weather satellites...but the one carrying a microwave sensor will not launch before 2022. That means that when the current three aging satellites die, the United States will be without a reliable, long-term source of sea-ice data... For now, the the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center is preparing for those scenarios by incorporating data from Japan's AMSR2 microwave sensor into its sea-ice record. Another, more politically fraught option is to pull in data from the China Meteorological Administration's Fengyun satellite series... Since 2011 Congress has banned NASA scientists from working with Chinese scientists -- but not necessarily from using Chinese data. One final possibility is finding a way to launch the passive-microwave sensor that scientists at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory salvaged from the dismantled DMSP satellite. The sensor currently sits at the Aerospace Corporation in El Segundo, California, where researchers are trying to find a way to get it into orbit.
The Science is Settled (Score:5, Insightful)
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What is the worst the could happen, we accidentally end up with a better world?
Go read "The Caryatids", by Bruce Sterling.
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Socialism works...haven't you read 'Red Mars'?
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That article fails to mention that those people will no longer be able to deduct SALT (state and local taxes). Losing the SALT deduction will cost them more than the rate cut gains them so it will net out to a tax increase.
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Why not? If I never see the money because it goes straight to state taxes, why should I have to pay taxes on that money?
I'll have more sympathy for this argument when it gets applied to child support. The tax system is thoroughly broken and puts incentives in the wrong places. Then again, the US in general is too big and needs to be split. The economies and value systems are too different between the left coast and the "flyover" states. Both sides would likely be happier if they can *peacefully* split.
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There is a fine line here, if you push tax rates too high people will simply stop doing more work. Consider a movie star rejecting making another movie. When that happens the government gets nothing.
Or a different movie star is cast in the role, so a not-quite-as-wealthy star gets more money. Thus spreading the income over a larger number of people and the government still gets money.
In fact, they probably end up with more money because the "I'm so taxed I refuse to work" star is probably not going to spend as much of the income as the "I finally get a shot" star. That spending is income to other people, which gets taxed and spent, which is income to other people....
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The dinosaurs weren't killed off by man either. Whether we want to blame ourselves or magic fairies randomly injecting carbon into the atmosphere for shits and giggles, the fact that its affecting our climate is not really in question and if we don't want to see what a desert planet looks like we should start doing something about it.
I mean if you saw a weed growing in your garden do you say to yourself "well a person didn't plant that so I guess the garden's fucked and I may as well just give up!" Of cou
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Intelligent and intellectually dishonest can absolutely go together. Take any lawyer.
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But, you personally don't understand how irrelevant that is. The salient feature of global warming is that there is no plausible suspect other than human activity.
Knowing that a variety of other causes do NOT account for global warming re
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Your friends are not climatologists and have not been seriously looking at the data [edf.org]. Climate change in the last 100 years or so has definitely been caused by Man. The science over this is absolutely settled.
Now the consequences can be debated if you want, but most scientists agree that if mean temperature rise by another 2 degrees centigrade, we are in deep shit.
You are free to be as intellectually dishonest as you want, you are free to believe what you want and argue in whichever direction you want until y
No, he means congress (Score:3)
In the US, government employees — specifically legislators — take money and favors from the oil companies in order to slant fuel production, transport, use and pollution remediation strongly towards them in every way they possibly can.
So yes, it is the government that has been (and continues to go on) driving it here in the USA.
Those days are slowly drawing to a close, though. It's long past time for it to happen. Burning oil is a filthy habit.
T
Destroyed? (Score:2, Insightful)
So one failed, three more are failing and one had its funding cut. Where's the destroyed one of the headline?
Re:Destroyed? (Score:4, Informative)
I assume they're talking about this:
"In fact, there was a backup satellite ready to go." The $58 million satellite was dismantled in 2016 when the Republican-controlled Congress cut its funding."
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The sat is sitting on ice, so to speak, and ready to go.
Re:Destroyed? (Score:5, Informative)
Except that the satellite _WAS_ dismantled and its microwave sensor is now somewhere in south america.
Re:Destroyed? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you practice deceptions and exaggerations like this too often, eventually people stop believing you [wikipedia.org] even when the emergency is real. And that's exactly what's happened with global warming.
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Because its proponents resort to cheap tricks like deliberately choosing a word whose common definition makes the situation sound more dire than what actually happened
I'm sorry, do you need a safe space where you don't have to deal with such language issues?
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And if you don't use hyperbole, people won't have to disbelieve you since they won't be paying attention at all in our current era of "ooh shiny!" sensationalized media.
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This other nonsense
...has nothing to do with satellites.
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Not really, from what I have read the shooter was exiting the church after shooting the parishioners when he was confronted by the citizen toting the rifle. So unless the shooter was planning on going somewhere else to shoot additional people he wasn't stopped from killing anyone. What that citizen did is act as a vigilante.
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Damn you're STUPID.
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Why?
What facts did I get wrong?
Did the armed citizen go into the church and interrupt the shooting?
Was the armed citizen a legally deputized member of law enforcement?
Did the armed citizen take the law into his own hands?
Did I criticize the armed citizen for taking action and acting as a vigilante?
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Actually, no. It was stopped by a citizen without a gun. His guns were safely locked in the trunk of his car when he tackled the shooter.
Too bad; if he'd had one on his person, maybe he could have stopped it a lot sooner.
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That 'shooter' was a driver that was carrying a pellet gun as a bluff.
The shooter in Texas was shot by a civilian as he left the site of his first rampage.
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>> The $58 million satellite was dismantled in 2016
> So what you're saying is that Trump used his Russian-made Temporal Collusion Time Machine to go back to before he was in office, and destroyed it. Please try to get all these details out, OK?
I was hoping that someone else already managed to catch this bit.
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the one that had its funding cut.
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The backup one that they dismantled was "destroyed", in the sense that it no longer exists.
A US centric view (Score:3)
The US are not the only country to put things in space.
Japan, Europe and China also have appropriate satellites, as mentioned in the article. It is not like measurements will stop just because the US lost some satellites. It may make exploitation a bit more difficult because of the differences in design but aggregating data is something that has to be done eventually. Climate science is an international matter.
The US plans to launch new satellites in a few years anyways. So they didn't drop the ball entirely.
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>Japan, Europe and China also have appropriate satellites, as mentioned in the article.
Which seems wasteful to me. Monitoring the planet (for non-military / intelligence reasons) seems like a natural mandate for the UN. (Or maybe a non-political equivalent)
Let scientists around the world decide what needs to be monitored, and use the UN as an umbrella operation to get the required systems in place. Go to RFP and let the country that can meet the specs for the least money (including guaranteed system lif
Re:A US centric view (Score:5, Interesting)
Which seems wasteful to me
It's called redundancy, not just physical satellites, but also redundancy in ideas, technology, and methods of data processing. Also, every big nation launching their own satellites means they can pursue their own ideas, without endless committee meetings. Plus, if there's only one type of satellite, designed by a single party, then there will be even more conspiracies about how the data is manipulated.
I mean, we're talking about $100 million for a satellite that lasts a decade. That's what we pay for a football coach.
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Or maybe a non-political equivalent ...
Research institutions in the EU are non political
and supply the results to any nation that's not in arrears with the UN. ... everyone working in that has signed an international treaty.
Climate research results are distributed free of charge by all research institutes since decades
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If only raw data was distributed, we might be able to figure out which dark smelly place 'the hockey stick' was pulled from.
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They'll make the commission running the satellites into a political show and ruin the whole thing. It'll be like the blinding success of the UN Commission on Civil Rights.
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While other replies to my post have been more informative, yours is the most depressingly and most likely dead-on accurate response.
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People are political animals. Thye like to play politics (and bitch about how the politicians are spoiling everything). If countries were not competing than bureaus within the UN would be and you would have different satellites launched by the FAO, WHO and International Met Buruea.
From people who don't understand govt (Score:3, Informative)
The spin on the story suggests Congress purposely cut funding to that satellite for ideological reasons (in the opinion of 'many' scientists). Go to the link and it becomes clear that the program had been very poorly managed and half a billion had been spent on the satellite PLUS the manager (the Air Force) is already working on follow-on programs.
So really what was the intent of this post? To make it seem like this was part of a Republican anti-science/climate change denial effort?
Actually the story should be: under the previous administration the Air Force was permitted to mismanage a publicly funded project to the tune of +$500 million dollars and finally Congress stopped the pouring of more money in to the project.
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Re:From people who don't understand govt (Score:5, Insightful)
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Quite a few actually, they just spend a crap ton more before they finally can them... http://www.businessinsider.com... [businessinsider.com]
CA-Sat [Re:From people who don't understand govt] (Score:2)
But, will they be ready on time?
As far as the mismanagement claim, the poster who pointed out all the mismanaged military projects that are KEPT hit the ball out of the park.
CA's Governor Brown has threatened have CA launch its own satellites if the Fed gov't flakes on climate research. I wonder how GOP would react? #CASA!
Bad at math? (Score:2, Insightful)
So the existing satellites go out of service in 2023, and the Air Force satellite will go up in 2022.
How does this equate to "we will no longer have the ability to measure sea ice?"
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So the existing satellites go out of service in 2023, and the Air Force satellite will go up in 2022.
That's only 1 year of sensor overlap, which is really short if you want to make sure that the results are close enough that you can seamlessly extend the records.
Also, the 2023 date depends on the satellites not failing for unexpected reasons.
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Euro equivalent flew in 2011. It's just a slow hysteria day.
how did US destroy a satellite? (Score:2, Interesting)
It simply says that the GOP is trying to block launch of replacement (stupid, but not the same as destroying it).
Re:how did US destroy a satellite? (Score:4, Insightful)
Please learn to read the full article - after the funding was lost, the satellite that was ready to be launched, was scrapped. In the process it was dismantled and some useful parts, salvaged, but the satellite that was to be a replacement for the failing ones, is GONE! DISMANTLED - DISASSEMBLED! In other words destroyed.
The free market cure (Score:5, Funny)
No more of these expensive satellites! Free market rules tell us we'll get our weather information from the Weather Channel just like everyone else.
First world problems (Score:2)
First world problems FTW
Worst headline of the day award, right here (Score:3)
Really Slashdot? Headline hardly does justice to the complexity and thought of the issue found within the linked article. 1800s yellow news papers would be proud.
If your spare satellite program is being ran in such an utterly inefficient and wasteful way, there is some real sense to shutting the program down. Especially with alternates coming on-line within a few years.
Ray Spencer comments (Score:4, Informative)
For more information from Ray Spencer....
"But as NASA’s leader of the U.S. Science Team on one of the best satellite instruments developed for monitoring sea ice, I can tell you we will not lose our ability to monitor sea ice.
Admittedly, the premature failure of the Defense Department’s DMSP F17 and F19 satellites has definitely reduced the number of times a day we can measure the polar regions."
http://www.drroyspencer.com/20... [drroyspencer.com]
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And ...
"While climate caterwaulers are ridiculously complaining the Trump administration is blocking new Earth observing satellites from being launched, we find one is on the launch schedule for November 10th.
From NOAA –
The launch of JPSS-1, the first in a series of NOAA’s four next-generation operational polar-orbiting weather satellites that will give scientists the most advanced tools to aid in weather forecasting and earth observations, is scheduled for November 10 at 1:47 a.m. PST from Vand
Re:Destroyed? (Score:5, Informative)
They destroyed the backup one that should have been launched to replace the one that failed.
Re:Destroyed? (Score:5, Informative)
when this could at least be contracted out to someone
It was. Lockheed built the satellite.
Re:Destroyed? (Score:5, Funny)
I know, right? Speaking as another Internet commentator who has no understanding of satellite design, I also assume that there must be a very low cost alternative that would work just as well. I once built a rocket using a soda bottle, baking soda, and vinegar. How hard could it be?
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I'm betting the Chinese version they are talking about using the data from is cheaper than the destroyed US version. So right there is an existent lower-cost alternative.
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The Chinese version is definitely cheaper.
For $39.99 you get a 720p wifi camera with "Cloud Service Available", so obviously they are getting that thing in orbit for next to nothing.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B016F3M7OM [amazon.com]
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I don't think that is argument being put forward.
Re: Destroyed? (Score:2)
His response was entirely snark but you seem to be treating it seriously.
I'm not sure how much knowledge you have of engineering or aerospace science, but people need funding and time to come up with cost saving measures. If Congress had given NASA funding and a directive to shrink their weather satellites, that would have allowed them to still meet the launch date, then it would have happened. Cutting funding for the project entirely is not going to achieve the result you desire. I only briefly wor
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There is another potential reason, though I'm not sure how valid this is. (I can admit when I'm wrong - this is a conjecture.)
The existing satellites have specific instrumentation and procedures for measuring sea ice, and for that reason there is an uninterrupted record. I will presume that the backup satellite, if not of the same design, at least had instrumentation designed to be compatible with that record.
A new, cheaper satellite will likely be somewhat different, both in instrumentation and necessari
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Yeah his post was 100% vapid snark but who knows, he may be able to rub two neurons together and have something intelligent to say. Thank you for replying intelligently.
Yes, I recognize that budget & time are both issues and they are not in a favored research sector by those holding the purse strings at present. However, the large spare satellite no longer exists because it was decided that the $100 Million+ it would have needed to be launched were never going to be funded. The specific instrument they
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When something uses "satellite" and "destroyed" in the same sentence, I think about orbital nukes.
Re:Destroyed? (Score:4, Insightful)
Says they dismantled it, not destroyed it. When I think destroy I think explosives or baseball bats or some other violent end. Not somebody taking something apart.
To me, dismantle is the same as to destroy in this case because both actions cause the satellite to be in the same state -- unusable -- regardless how it becomes the state. If they have the satellite been dismantled, it meant that most if not all parts are now gone. Nobody would keep all parts after dismantled it a year ago. Thus, it is similar to the word destroy because you can't assemble or rebuild again within a normal time frame when all parts have already been ordered and/or delivered.
satellites need fuel to stay in place when it get' (Score:2)
satellites need fuel to stay in place when it get's to low they get moved to the graveyard orbit
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Need fuel to stay in place satellites do. When get too low they do, moved to the graveyard orbit they are.
FTFY
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The headline is talking about the backup satellite that was dismantled...
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Still, it's a pretty inflammatory and misleading title. While dismantling the satellite may have been shortsighted the article title makes it sound like we blew it up or something like a bunch of drunken hillbillies. In reality its parts were probably just re purposed or put in storage or something.
Re:Destroyed? (Score:4, Insightful)
it literally says it was scrapped.
and that the funding was cut for partisan (ie, GOP science denying) reasons.
the headline isn't inflammatory.
its completely accurate.
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the Air Force to have the same set of satellites
Really? The Air Force cares about measuring sea ice? Something tells me they don't have "the same" set of satellites. Even if one of the AF's satellites could be repurposed for NOAA's needs, that would mean the AF no longer has it available for their own use since NOAA would be using it basically 24/7.
Not everything is about zOMG global warming
No, its about money. Why would they spend money to put up a satellite that's just going to help us see that we need stricter pollution controls, which translates to money for big business. Fuck the planet
Re:Destroyed? (Score:5, Insightful)
At our office we scrap things all the time. That doesn't mean we destroy it.
Yeah but the US dismantled that satellite, which does mean it destroyed it.
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The summary references the salvaged sensor off of the "destroyed" satellite. So, no, at least some of the parts still exist. They are in the process of designing and launching replacement satellites - my guess is they will move up the launch date of the one with a microwave sensor if the 3 in orbit all were to fail.
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You can't move up the launch date if you aren't done building and certifying the replacement satellite. You don't just decide one day to build a satellite and then have a satellite ready to go the next.
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I get that. I also get that they have until 2023 to figure out how to take an already-qualified sensor and strap it to an already-qualified satellite.
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If you read about the history of the project, there was more than thousands of man-hours wasted - and far before the project was cancelled. I think they were up to a $500 million overrun before congress cut it.
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Technically, if it wasn't in orbit, then it wasn't a satellite: "In context of spaceflight, a satellite is an artificial object which has been intentionally placed into orbit. Such objects are sometimes called artificial satellites to distinguish them from natural satellites such as Earth's Moon." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite/ [wikipedia.org]
The headline seems inflammatory to me; a more accurate headline would have said something like the US scrapped/dismantled a replacement satellite. The words used strongly
Scrapped means Destroyed. (Score:5, Insightful)
At our office we scrap things all the time. That doesn't mean we destroy it. We usually put it into storage in case it ever gets revived.
In this particular case, reading the actual article (and not just the summary), the U.S. Congress was annoyed at the money spent on keeping the satellilte in storage, and had it destroyed. So, no, in this case, scrapped did mean destroyed.
Reading the old articles, though, nobody was discussing sea ice, which is just one of the least important things the satellite was to measure-- primarily it was a Defense weather satellite (weather turns out to be very important to the Department of Defence-- particularly to the Navy. Who knew?)
Re:Destroyed? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Destroyed is pretty accurate when you dismantle a satellite because you sure as hell can't reassemble it into anything resembling a serviceable satellite. Each of those pieces has to be designed to work together and assembled in a "clean room" to avoid contamination, take it apart and you sure as hell are going to have some contamination that will cause issues in space.
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The US destroyed it?
Actually, according to the summary, it wasn't the US that destroyed it, but specifically Republicans that destroyed it (probably cackling with delight while they enjoyed another helping of boiled puppy).
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Re:Maybe a pro-science country can step up (Score:5, Informative)
Europe launched the Cryosat-2 satellite in 2010.
Problem is that different satellites use different types of sensors, which can make it harder to compare the results from one satellite to the other. And when you calibrate the output from one to match the other, people will blame scientists for "adjusting" the data.
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Scientists shouldn't care about what people think of them, as long as they do their job right.
Re:Maybe a pro-science country can step up (Score:4, Insightful)
It's easier to show that you've done the job right if the data is the same. The best strategy is to launch a backup satellite before the old one dies, so you have a window of overlap, and can verify that all the data matches.
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Seven years of overlapping observations. Not a problem.
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It's a real shame that the US won't place nicely with China in space. Seems unbelievable now but Kennedy had been seriously pursuing doing the moon landings as a joint US-USSR project. Now it's just US paranoia about stolen technology that prevents cooperation with China.
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Just because you're paranoid, it doesn't mean that they're not out to steal your technology.
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Just because you're paranoid, it doesn't mean that they're not out to steal your technology.
OTOH, we may want to position ourselves to steal their technology in the near future.
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If you cant measure it, its not real!
And if you can, then it must be fake, unless it matches ideologies?
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> It's called paying taxes.
This is why a socialist uber-state can't evolve into final stage communism. You end up with precisely this kind of dependence mentality. The average citizen is turned a helpless child.
They're idea of "social responsibility" is completely abdicating any responsibility for whatever social problems they identify. It's someone else's job to solve the problem and pay for it.
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Hilarious. Look up deficit spending and debt monetization. Your unborn grandchildren and the poor are paying for stupid redundant satellite pork programs - your taxes do not.
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If you weren't paying as much tax, or even paying no tax, then you'd have more money you could choose to directly help fund a satellite program like this one, without politicians interfering.
Nice idea, but isn't going to happen.
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Hey, let's all stop paying taxes and everyone pays only for what he needs. I don't need schools. Let that guy with 4 kids pay for that. I'm also healthy, so I don't need no medical care. That's more something for someone who is bedridden and dependent on constant medical attention to pay for. I also don't really see any reason to wage war in some godforsaken land I can't even spell properly with a Latin alphabet, so I guess those carriers should be paid for by people who want them. And I can afford an offro
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Yeah, right, and this will actually work really well because it's absolutely easy to check and verify that my money is used for what I want.
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For example, you could be REQUIRED to pay taxes, but be allowed some degree of say-so in how those taxes were spent.
That's what calls and letters to your elected representatives are for. And your vote, of course. And if you really want to increase your influence, add some campaign donations. Donating a tiny fraction of what you pay in taxes can actually go a very long way toward making your tax money go the directions you want it to. Under the current system you actually have *more* influence on how the budget is spent than if everyone voted directly on budget allocations, because so few voters express their will directl
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LOL... You're so naive. I bet you've never even tried to write an elected representative, and then never gotten a response of any kind. Once that happens then you'll start to understand what a lack of accountability is.
I've written to all of my representatives in at the federal level regularly, for decades, in two states. I nearly always get a response.
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Yes. We're not the greatest country in the world. Yet we seem to be the only country actually capable of actually doing stuff. We're not supposed to be the global police, except when we're expected to be just that.
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Somebody wanted attention for their pet project. /. editor went along with it for one reason or another.
Plot twist: average /.'ers see through the political bullshit, foe the submitter.
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It also makes no sense that the Air Force is in the weather satellite business at all.
Why not? They've got to fly through it.
The Navy has to navigate through it and the Army has to march through it. But the Air Force is generally in charge of Things That Fly.
Weather is important tactically.