Triana Mothballed

jessemckinney writes "Apparently, the US congress of last year cut the funding of this great satellite project after it was finished. It will now take millions of dollars (us) to refuel and recalibrate the instruments. Why do politicians have to kill great science projects for their own political vandettas?"

Matter of Priorities

[rkent]

Why do politicians have to kill great science projects for their own political vandettas?"

Who says they did? My understanding of the article is that no funding was actually cut from the Triana project itself -- the satelite is done. In fact,

"NASA is limited by a budget pinch to just six space shuttle flights a year and most of them are being taken up with building the international space station, re-servicing the Hubble Space Telescope and other projects with a higher priority than Triana."

Moan all you want about NASA being underfunded, but this doesn't sound at all like a matter of anyone taking "political revenge" at Al Gore's project. NASA has to prioritize, and they have.

Personally, I question why the space station (a run-down tenement in orbit! whoo hoo!) is more important than this climate-research vessel. But I don't smell a political attack here.

Re:Triana != science

[mz001b]

There was originally no science planned. Only when scrutiny increased to it were some basic instruments added to make the excuse of it being a research tool float.

Granted the science offered by this instrument may be limited, especially when compared with the HST. One question though is how does the science per dollar produced by this compare to the science per dollar of the Internation Space Station?

Re:Gore' satellite was stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

I see.... 120 million on a satelite that can analyze global events for civilians and possibly prove global warming and monitor pollution offenders is too much,

Face it, from a million miles away, it ain't gonna analyze any global events. It's only gonna send back pretty pictures. We already have satellites in sunsynchronous and geosynchronous orbits that are much closer and much better instrumented for measuring (alleged) global warming and monitoring pollution. 120 million for another NOAA weather satellite would be a much better investment.

Re:Triana != science

[Rimbo]

I was definitely no fan of Al Gore, and I do believe the ISS and Hubble are more important for science, and I must also admit that I shared your reaction to this. At first.

But when I was an officer of SEDS (Students for Exploration and Development of Space) at college, we had our sponsor, Dr. Hans Mark, speak to us about some of the goings-on in the space program. And he mentioned that although current interest in the space program was down, "People always love to see the pictures."

Pictures from space are the best marketing NASA (or any space program) has. That's the other reason why Hubble is important. I have the Hubble slashbox, and I find myself changing my wallpaper to whatever's linked to it pretty frequently. :)

It still means it's a political device, but these things are important so that real scientific advancement can continue. So this would have benefitted science, and possibly in more ways than we can know.

As if you had to ask...

[ackthpt]

I heard on the radio this morning (KCBS) that there was a proposal under consideration in the House to mothball two carrier fleets(!) to divert money to Missle Defense. The Joint Chiefs were not amused. I wouldn't be, either. That's the House for you.

Re:Not gonna fly until after 2004...

[Anonymous Coward]

...because those pesky scientists would most likely use it to gather evidence about inconvenient issues like global warming and pollution.

Aren't the current weather satellites better suited to measure global warming and pollution? They're much closer and better instrumented.

Unconscious Gore

[SEWilco]

This is an idea which Gore literally dreamed up. A Google search for "Gore satellite Earth" will show several articles about it -- he dreamed it up at night while asleep. Scientific?

It would require an eight-inch telescope on the satellite, which would be 1.6 million Km from Earth, rather than the 36 thousand Km of geostationary weather satellites. Those existing weather satellites already let us see global weather 24 hours a day.