NASA should suspend all space missions and focus on Global Warming...

[henslee]

And they should work with think tanks and scientists from around the world to come up with a strategy/solution to move away from fossil fuel.

There.... if I were pres. that's what I would do. It seems so obvious.

[Ohio Joe]

1. Personally, I don't think I would do that

While I think that we should be putting a MUCH larger effort into the global warming issue, I do not think that effort should come at the expense of the space program. There are much worthier things that could do with less money.... say the military.

[henslee]

2. You are right but I just thought shiting those brains over to this looming

problem would be great.

[alittlelark]

3. I'd have to agree - Pluto could have waited...

Let's hope we still have a habitable planet when it starts transmitting the info 20 something yeras from now. Some of the best minds in the world are at NASA, I would like to see them working on the issue of global warming.

[Posteritatis]

8. Yeah, for 200-someodd years until the atmosphere thawed out again...

[dave29]

4. Saturns Moon Titan

has enough Methane to power our planet for eons.

Lets go get it

[BushOut06]

5. Honestly, part of the solution to global warming might lie in space

What might sound like science-fiction today could very well be our salvation in the future, keep that in mind. I think it's very important to understand the processes that occur other planets and moons, and see what lessons we can learn. Besides, pretty soon we are going to have to start colonizing space, whether it's on space stations, the Moon, Mars, etc.

[EST]

6. A big part of the space program has to do with

global warming, already. The emerging flap over the fact that we're too broke to build and orbit the monitoring satellites that were to replace the aging and failing ones currently available is a shocker. By 2012, there will be only two available, one US and one EU (that we cannot interface with.)
The new ones that can track el nino and la nina ocean currents, as well as other capabilities are already 1.3 billion dollars over budget and the future is highly in doubt.

Imagine that-wasted 250 billion dollars on boosh's playing toy soldier cic in Iraq and millions are going to die because we won't be able to predict or track hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis and all the other massive threats to human survival. What a failure. I am so disgusted.

[G_j]

7. Why did NASA kill a climate change project?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x162263

Why did NASA kill a climate change project?
Robert L. Park The New York Times

SUNDAY, JANUARY 15, 2006


COLLEGE PARK, Maryland NASA has quietly terminated the Deep Space Climate Observatory, citing "competing priorities." The news media took little notice. Few Americans, after all, had even heard of the program. But the entire world may come to mourn its passing.

<snip>
The better experiment when it comes to global warming was to be the climate observatory, situated in space at the neutral-gravity point between the Sun and Earth. Called Lagrange 1, or L1, this point is about 1 million miles from Earth. At L1, with a view of the full disk of the Sun in one direction, and a full sunlit Earth in the opposite, the observatory could continuously monitor Earth's energy balance. It was given a poetic name, Triana, after Rodrigo de Triana, the sailor aboard Christopher Columbus' ship who first sighted the New World.

Development began in November 1998 and it was ready for launching three years later. The cost was only about $100 million. For comparison, that is only one-thousandth the cost of the International Space Station, which serves no useful purpose.

Before Triana could be launched, however, there was a presidential election. Many of the industries favored by the new Bush White House were not anxious to have the cause of global warming pinned down. The launching was put on hold.

The disdain of the Bush White House for Triana goes much deeper than just a desire to avoid the truth about global warming. Triana began life in early 1998 as a brainchild of Al Gore, who was then the vice president. Gore, the story goes, woke up one morning wondering if it would be possible to beam a continuous image of the full Earth back from space to inspire people with the need to care for our planet. The 1972 portrait of the full Earth, taken from the Moon, had inspired millions with the fragile beauty of our blue planet. Why not beam the image live into classrooms, allowing students to view weather systems marching around the globe?
<snip>
--------------------------------

[fujiyama]

9. It's not necessary to do that

Research on both should be done. Space exploration plays an important part in learning about global warming as well. NASA's budget has been largely reduced anyways. I agree with another poster regarding the Pentagon budget, which is inflated and ridiculous. That's where some of the money can come from.

[SaveElmer]

10. Space holds the answer...

Study of other planetary atmospheres may hold the key to understanding Global Warming, particularly those of Venus and Mars. Many believe Venus' atmosphere is an extreme example of a runaway greenhouse effect, while the reason Mars did not hold onto a thick atmosphere is also valuable.