NASA Launches Satellite To Observe Soil Moisture 25
An anonymous reader sends word that NASA has launched an Earth-observing satellite, which will measure the amount of moisture in soil. "In one of the space agency's bolder projects, a newly launched NASA satellite will monitor western drought and study the moisture, frozen and liquid in Earth's soil. It's true that a satellite can't possibly fix the devastating drought that has been plaguing the American West for the last years. It is also true that it can't possibly change the fact that California has just gone through the driest month in recorded history. But what NASA plans to do is to provide the possibility of understanding the patterns of this extreme weather and, perhaps, foresee how much worse it could actually become. Called the SMAP (Soil Moisture Active Passive Satellite), this new, unmanned project was successfully launched on Saturday atop the United Launch Alliance Delta II Rocket. The launch took place at the California Vandenberg Air Force base at exactly 9:22 AM EST. With the successful launch, NASA just kick started a three year, $916 million mission focused on measuring and forecasting droughts, floods and other possible natural disasters that might come our way in the future."
Hobgoblins did it (Score:1, Insightful)
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
H. L. Mencken
I think it is great that we can expand our understanding of how nature works, but sadly, this will just be another tool for scaring us.
To boldly go where no . . . (Score:1)
Bolder project? It may be a necessary project, it may be a long overdue project, but what is bold about orbiting robotic spacecraft with imaging gear? That it is somehow bold to offend climate-change deniers? That NASA is risking everything in that the Repubs in Congress may zero out their budget over this?
Driest month in recorded history? Driest since Pliny-the-Elder? Since Josephus?
Or since white dudes
Re: (Score:2)
Show me the oral traditional of annual rainfall totals. Or for that matter, show me when Mayans Aztecs or Toltecs were in LA.
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Perhaps recorded history only starts now.. you know, with the satellite...
A different countdown (Score:2)
Cue the Global Warming Denier trolls who infest this place in three...two...one...
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Launch time in summary is wrong (Score:1)
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I wonder how the Mystery Goo is going to behave in that orbit.
Used in conjunction with other sats... (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm excited to see data from this and the atmospheric CO2 satellite which was launched (again) not long ago overlayed. Seeing how CO2 and soil moisture correspond is important for understanding limitations on microbial communities which make up a large part of the global carbon budget. It will be particularly interesting to measure changes to how these correspond over time -- it'd be a great way to get solid data for future modelling and for quantifying changes currently happening.
Also particularly interesting is the ability to monitor changes as a result of permafrost thaw globally. There's currently some discussion whether and where permafrost thaw will be a net C sink or source. Throw in some data from a Leaf Area Index satellite (which is/are also in orbit currently) and you've got some pretty compelling global/landscape data.
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can't possibly fix the devastating drought (Score:1)
No, but desalination can. Get to work dammit! The 'drought' is a fraud. It needn't happen ever again on this planet.
Dupe ? (Score:2)
Sounds like ESAs SMOS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S... [wikipedia.org] ?
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News Flash: ESA and NASA fly similar Earth-observation missions ALL THE TIME.
Odds are good, if NASA is doing it, so is ESA. And they collaborate on mission plans, and share data.
Earth observation is one area of very good international cooperation. Since, after all, it's just one Earth.