In Case You Missed This... 'The Lost Satellite' Gore/Cheney/NASA/NOAA... Unbelievable...

[WillyT]

The Lost Satellite
Nearly a decade ago, NASA built an Earth-monitoring satellite that could have observed global warming in action. Then the agency stashed it in a warehouse in Maryland, where it remains to this day.
By Bill Donahue
Posted 03.10.2011 at 1:26 pm



<snip>

It all began so hopefully. Al Gore proposed the satellite in 1998, at the National Innovation Summit at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Gazing skyward from the podium, the vice president described a spacecraft that would travel a full million miles from Earth to a gravity-neutral spot known as the L1 Lagrangian point, where it would remain fixed in place, facing the sunlit half of our planet. It would stream back to NASA video of our spherical home, and the footage would be broadcast continuously over the Web.

Not only would the satellite provide “a clearer view of our world,” Gore promised, but it would also offer “tremendous scientific value” by carrying into space two instruments built to study climate change: EPIC, a polychromatic imaging camera made to measure cloud reflectivity and atmospheric levels of aerosols, ozone and water vapor; and NISTAR, a radiometer. NISTAR was especially important: Out in deep space, it would do something that scientists are still unable to do today directly and continuously monitor the Earth’s albedo, or the amount of solar energy that our planet reflects into space versus the amount it absorbs.

And...

But in 2001, just a few months after the inauguration of George W. Bush, Triana’s launch plan was quietly put on hold. “We were preparing to transport it to the launch site when we heard,” Rosanova says. Instead, they wheeled the $100-million satellite into storage.

The mission entered a state of bureaucratic limbo. Around 2003, NASA renamed Triana the Deep Space Climate Observatory, or DSCOVR, but the satellite remained on the ground. During the Bush administration, it became politically vulnerable, largely because of its association with Gore. Dick Armey, then a Republican congressman from Texas, said of the satellite, “This idea supposedly came from a dream. Well, I once dreamed I caught a 10-foot bass. But I didn’t call up the Fish and Wildlife Service and ask them to spend $30 million to make sure it happened.” Despite the protests of independent scientists (including Paul Crutzen, an atmospheric chemist and Nobel Laureate who wrote in a 2006 letter that “it would be a major waste of scientific effort and opportunity to discard such a meaningful mission”), NASA delayed the launch indefinitely.

And...

It has never become entirely clear why the satellite had ended up here. In his 2009 book Our Choice, Gore wrote, “The Bush Cheney administration canceled the launch within days of taking office on January 20, 2001, and forced NASA to put the satellite into storage.” Warren Wiscombe, a senior physical scientist at NASA, blames a Bush-era “hostility” to earth science at NASA. “As to who ordered the axing of the mission,” he says, “we’ll never know, but the word we got was that Dick Cheney was behind it.”

<snip>

Much More: http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2011-03/lost-satellite

:argh:

:wtf:

:nuke:

[wuushew]

1. K&R

:kick:

[PhillySane]

2. Why the fuck doesn't Obama take a 100 million dollar satellite

out of storage and do some fucking thing with it! Ask yourselves? Demand it!

[Johonny]

5. probably nothing to do with it

probably just junk now. Very expensive junk.

[PhillySane]

7. I don't think so

[WillyT]

9. Not Really...

At Goddard, I met with Joe Burt, the lean and ebullient project leader for DSCOVR. Burt told me that in late 2009, a team of 15 technicians and engineers uncrated DSCOVR and found it in “outstanding” condition. “The propulsion tank hasn’t lost a fraction of pressure after being put away for years,” he says. “Everything mechanical on the satellite is working well. It’s ready to go.” He added that the two earth-science instruments built for DSCOVR—EPIC and NISTAR—have recently undergone a $2-million refurbishment. “They’re in fine shape,” he says. “They’re changing a couple of wavelengths on the filter. With different filters, you can see different things—different aerosols, different clouds. But it’s not a big deal. Changing the filters is kind of like putting on a different pair of sunglasses.” Burt says now that NASA has done the refurbishing, it could fly the satellite to L1, as soon as 2014—if NOAA and the Air Force, which is interested in the effects of solar weather on its technology, provide the approximately $125 million to pay for the launch.

Same article.

:shrug:

[Johonny]

38. It's what is said in that paragraph that makes me worried

could be ok, could be junk. Really depends what is the meaning of several offhand statements in that paragraph.

[demwing]

48. "Could be junk"??? WHUH?

Tell us how the following could be misunderstood as "could be junk":

"engineers uncrated DSCOVR and found it in “outstanding” condition."

“The propulsion tank hasn’t lost a fraction of pressure after being put away for years,”

“Everything mechanical on the satellite is working well. It’s ready to go.”

The only thing that needed to be refurbished was an optical filter, and only because technology had advanced and the filters could be upgraded.

[PavePusher]

72. Something doesn't pass the smell test.

Aerospace vehicles don't get put in long-term storage with pressurised propulsion systems.

The reporter either misunderstood something quite badly, or someone's pulling a fast one.

[cartach]

73. The answer is

Dick Armey - first class slimeball.

[Dawning Red]

83. Well, the operating system *was* Windows 98!

:)

[tosh]

65. K&R for this reply!!

[The Wielding Truth]

69. Bill gates has the money to send it up. It would mean so much to our future.

[caseymoz]

81. I'm thinking that the probe wouldn't be for sale, for some reason.

But yes, he might try.

[The Wielding Truth]

87. I bet the teabaggers in congress would sell it.

[caseymoz]

90. There aren't enough tea-baggers in Congress

More than that, I think it's an executive decision if Congress won't allot the money to launch it. Somehow I don't think Obama will sell it, either.

[Poll_Blind]

12. I'm pretty sure they don't make them out of ham. If it can stand the rigors of...

...being exposed to space, one would kind of imagine it doesn't go moldy if you store it for a while.

PB

[Toucano]

29. ROFL!

Where are the DUzys when you need them!

HAM!

:rofl:

[Ikonoklast]

44. It took the failure of in the early sixties of PORK-3 for NASA to realize that, though.

It was made out of bacon, but after investigating the disaster, they extrapolated the results and banned using any more smoked pork meat products as the basic architecture for building any more satellites.


They're all basically tofu now.

[demwing]

49. Now you've done it

And the tin foil hatters will conspire together to show that the move away from pork based satellite components is proof that a Jewish cabal runs NASA.

[Ikonoklast]

51. It has been posited that there is a Vegan secret society running things behind the scene at NASA.

The five top-secret SPaM satellite missions of the mid-eighties all ended in catastrophic failure, very odd coincidence, don't you think?

There are those that just can't (or WON'T) put two and two together.

Don't accuse me of being the first one to throw out the word 'sabotage' here, many others have insinuated it over the years, I'm just the only one willing to say it out loud.

I'm not afraid of them leaf-eaters and their goon squads.

[demwing]

64. Oh God no!

I Googled "Vegan Space Jews" and the first hit was this:

Bayit Ve'gan: A Community of Vegans and Jews Living in Brooklyn ...
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2257779664

Google NASA and Brooklyn, and you'll find that on 4/28/07, the NASA "Picture if the Day" was of Brooklyn!
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=7905



and in the text accompanying that picture, NASA reports the following:

The original name for Brooklyn, Breukelen, means “broken land”

ACK!

BUT WAIT - ALSO on 4/28, the same day in history (just 218 years ago), the Infamous "Mutiny on the Bounty" occurred!
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/mutiny-on-the-hms-bounty

Someone needs to ask the question: Is there a conspiracy of Vegan Jews controlling NASA that are sending secret signals to their covert community in Brooklyn to begin a national mutiny designed to break our Homeland into pieces?

I NEED TO CONNECT THE PIECES!!! BRING ME THE CHALKBOARD OF GLENN BECK!!!

[Ikonoklast]

67. You're as good as dead.

By posting that you've signed your own death warrant.

[skyounkin]

54. No. The thing was built to survive in space.

It can survive for a long time in "favorable" conditions here on Earth.

[Johonny]

74. pretty much

It is really hard to know. You really have to be on the review teams of said project and hear both pro and cons and risk blah, blah, blah... Ham statements on the internet ARE FUNNY. I like a good joke as much as anyone here :) Someone at NASA hasn't been willing to assume risk on this thing for a while now. We can guess it is a vast conspiracy or we might guess maybe it has elevated risks not written about in a popular press article. Do I know? Nope.

[drm604]

86. The thing was built to withstand the stresses of launch

and the temperature extremes and radiation of space. Why would sitting in a warehouse turn it into junk?

[rucky]

34. We need to move forward.

:rofl:

[spanone]

63. why the fuck don't you write and tell him it's there.

[jobycom]

82. Why would he waste money on science that doesn't blow people up and shit?

Where's the fun factor? There are Final Four brackets needing completion, man! Good God, get some perspective.

[LaurenG]

3. With my tin foil hat nearby I have to ask why? Were they afraid that we'd see/learn something?

The Cheney/Bush administration was awfully secretive and creepy.

[WillyT]

17. Exactly !!! - Spot On !!!

"Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!"



"And Oz never did give nothing to the Tin Man... That he didn't, didn't already have..."

:hi:

[JHB]

35. Chalk it to two things...

1) It had "Al Gore cooties" all over it, much like the anti-terrorism report that the ChenBushies ignored and set up their own... which they never actually got around to, and we all know what happened next, because real terrorists just don't operate on Dick Cheney's timetable; and

2) Hey, all that "global warming" business was just a left-wing ideological boondoggle by those fanatical tree-hugging-Gaia-worshiping atheist/pagan scientists, so of course whatever came back from the satellite would just be propaganda for them. So the Bushies said "Not on our dime. (We have better things to do with our dimes (billions and billions of them): pay off our supporters with tax breaks and fat no-bid contracts.)"

[Enthusiast]

36. Spot on assessment.

Hell, in the late 1990s Gore even proposed strengthening airline cockpit doors for security purposes. I remember a particular Limbaugh show where he railed against Gore's proposal because it would have cost $300 dollars to to retrofit each airline. With the implementation of these reinforced doors 9/11 might have actually been prevented or compromised. Of course then 9/11 wouldn't have served the grand purpose that it did. Can you say vast right wing conspiracy?

[okieinpain]

39. I remember that, but you never hear anything about it any more. I'm

also unable to find that clip of the 8 repug senators at saddam's birthday party telling him that he had nothing to worry about except the liberal media.

[abqmufc]

52. This is the President who didn't open an email from EPA for 3 years....

The email stated climate change is a reality. President Bush's logic was 'if I don't open the email it doesn't become part of the public record, and thus the email is void.'

The man used to logic if I don't open the email it doesn't exist.

http://cleanskies.tv/articles/epa-releases-bush-era-endangerment-e-mail.html

[Canuckistanian]

4. I remember conservatives mocked the satellite at the time

They called it "Al Gore's Screen-saver"

[WillyT]

6. I Remember That Too...

They don't WANT evidence of Global Warming/Climate Change.

Ruins their fossil fuel orgy.

:shrug:

:hi:

[Canuckistanian]

15. If they were intellectually honest

They'd ENCOURAGE the deployment of the satellite. Because it might PROVE that Global Warming is a myth.

BUT they knew it would provide data to support global warming. So it had to go. Fast.

[Nevernose]

23. Good point, but if they were intellectually honest...

...they wouldn't be conservatives in the first place. Their "political philosophy" is largely a bunch of imaginary bullshit specifically designed to confuse and obfuscate the truth, even from themselves: the truth that they're simply greedy, selfish, cowardly, and/or religiously fanatical (and, all too often, just plain dumb). Seriously, can you name a single conservative policy that doesn't originate from one of the negative traits in that list?

[Enthusiast]

37. LOL!

Right on!

[Canuckistanian]

91. That reply should be made into an OP

That was awesome.

[Trailrider1951]

8. Good God, that photo looks like the ending shot of "Raiders of the Lost Ark"

Lost again! Why do we indulge in such madness?

[WillyT]

13. Poetic License For The Article...

It was intended to.

Actually...

Standing in a small, carpeted nook, I was able to look through a small observation window into a high-ceilinged, white-walled clean room where a white metal crate was shoved into a corner, beneath a stairwell. DSCOVR sat inside. A green tube supplied the box with a steady feed of nitrogen, to minimize contaminants. It looked to me like forgotten hardware—last year’s cellphone gathering dust in a desk drawer.

:hi:

[northoftheborder]

10. What a waste. Of money, of the technical expertise, of the opportunity to learn....

.....about our planet.


Cheney/Bush x( x( x( x( x( x( x( x( x(

:banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :thumbsdown: :thumbsdown: :thumbsdown: :thumbsdown: :thumbsdown: :thumbsdown: :thumbsdown: :thumbsdown: :thumbsdown: :thumbsdown: :thumbsdown: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :argh: :argh: :argh: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

[Auntie Bush]

60. [phone]

[Poll_Blind]

11. Every day starts with thinking I've seen it all in this country- and then something like this.

Damn.

PB

[supernova]

14. Can we launch it now?

A real shame (crime) crashcart mothballed it but can we not launch it now?

[WillyT]

16. Read The Entire Article... Yes, They Can... But They Want To "Repurpose It"...

:shrug:

[GreatCaesarsGhost]

18. Seems to be very difficult to study the climate from space.

March 2011

Article:
NASA's Lost Glory Satellite: Why It Failed and Why It Matters

NASA's Earth-observing satellite, called Glory, launched this morning (March 4), but within minutes, scientists realized the rocket would not make it into orbit. The failed launch has implications for the study of Earth's climate and the changes that are shifting it.

Glory launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, on a Taurus XL rocket. The nose cone of the rocket covering the satellite failed to separate, making it too heavy and too slow to achieve
orbit.

http://www.space.com/11030-nasa-glory-climate-satellite-failure.html


February 2009

rticle:
NASA Climate Satellite Crashes in Ocean After Launch Failure

NASA?s Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO), a new satellite dedicated to mapping Earth?s carbon dioxide levels, crashed into the ocean near Antarctica just after launch early Tuesday when a shroud designed to protect the spacecraft accidentally doomed its mission.

The glitch occurred just minutes after the $273.4 million spacecraft blasted off at 4:55 a.m. EST (0955 GMT) atop a Taurus XL rocket that launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

http://www.space.com/3355-nasa-climate-satellite-crashes-ocean-launch-failure.html

[WillyT]

19. Yeah... Curious That...

:shrug:

[MsPithy]

46. Thanks!

I was just thinking, if they launched it, it would probably "mysteriously" crash or blow up, or something, anyway. The corporations that benefit from the world not knowing the facts about climate change will stop at nothing.

[14thColony]

53. Wouldn't it be a lot easier...

to just pressure the government to pack the satellite up and put it in a warehouse somewhere to collect dust instead of going through all the trouble to sabotage the launch? Like, for instance, DSCOVR?

[MsPithy]

57. Easy for Cheney, yes.

I think the building and the launching of these satellites is so mind-numbingly complex, that there are only about a billion ways to sabotage them, and get away with it. Please refer to comment #18. Maybe if all three climate change-studying satellites "mysteriously" crashed, someone might pay attention.

[14thColony]

59. Yes, read that

And of course if all climate-change satellites crash and burn that would be statistically suspicious to say the least. But "two out of how many?" is the question. Two out of two might be a conspiracy. Two out of twenty might be a higher-than-average success rate.

[upi402]

20. We should all know what time it is

Time to end corporatism before it's too late - either party -media included.

[abelenkpe]

85. + 1000

Gotta do that before anything else really.

[elehhhhna]

21. AND THIS is why half-dead bastards can't be allowed to make ANY decisions which may affect ANYONE's

EVER.

[WhiteTara]

22. Oh, the world as it could have been.

I am still sad that we took the turn down the path we're on.

[progressoid]

24. Maybe if we re-named it the anti-terrorism satellite it would get some attention.

[Rage for Order]

25. We could have launched it between 2008 - 2010 when we had majorities + presidency

Why didn't that happen?

[WillyT]

26. Our Party Was Bought And Paid For ???

:shrug:

[Rage for Order]

27. Now, now...don't be so cynical

:evilgrin:

[okieinpain]

40. maybe because there was a full blown global recession going on

maybe not. I know it's all president obama's fault.

[Ikonoklast]

45. Years to schedule.

Launches do not happen overnight, it takes a very long time to get everything in order, and other scheduled projects would then need to be bumped...


Orbital insertion is extremely precise, unless you want to smash into something already there.

The Russians did that a few times.

So did we, I think.

[Rage for Order]

55. If it takes years to schedule a satellite launch then NASA sucks

I could see 6 months, but years? Even if it does take years, so what? Why not authorize the funding for the launch in March 2009 for an anticipated launch date of September 2010? That would provide for 1.5 years of planning. The bottom line is if we considered it to be a priority we would have found a way to get it done.

[glinda]

28. K&R n/t

[tex-wyo-dem]

30. Yeah, Dick Armey (& Chainee for that matter)...

Gore was a dreamer, but while you were dreaming of fucking bass, Gore was dreaming of a project for higher human understanding of our planet. You (both) are unconscionable, corporatist, criminal fools that should never have been allowed anywhere near the halls of power...just, please, fuck off.

[snot]

31. K&R'd

[myrna minx]

32. K&R n/t

[lunatica]

33. But I bet he has the latest scientific technology pumping blood through his veins

The two Big Dicks strike again. Cheney and Armey.

[Swampguana]

41. All I remember from bush and cheney

was "they have weapons of mass destruction!"

[Plucketeer]

42. I suggest we gut this satellite

stuff Bush - Chainee - and Armey into it and send them up to L1. Let them spend their final years telling us what they see from on high.

[Snoutport]

43. launch the satellite!

[pintobean]

47. We've started a climate research satellite collection

at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. I think it would be cheaper to put them them there via ship, rather than rocket.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=glory-observatory-crash

[Triana]

50. This is where my DU user name came from. n/t

[Roy Rolling]

56. SOLUTION:

Rename it "Climate Change Denier 2011" and launch it with a private company formed by Cheney, et al.

[Blue Owl]

58. Dick wants to take us all down with him

Also, the Lost Ark is probably somewhere in that warehouse by the looks of it...

[JohnnyRingo]

61. The rocket that was lost two weeks ago was hoisting a climate research satellite.

I'm surprised there were np conspiracy theories abounding over that. The satellite's goal was to research whether or not climate change was man made or a natural climate abberation


I'm not a conspiracy theorist myself, but all the fingerprints were there for the failed launch to be held to deeper scrutiny. After all, who produced all the hardware systems and components for the rocket? From GE to Morton Thiacol, the manufacturers read like a who's who list of corporate polluters.

[Beam Me Up]

62. bush cheney et al are lizard alien allies. their aim is

to transform our atmosphere into something toxic to us but beneficial to life on the home planet

of course i'm kidding but they might as well be.

[on point]

66. Problem is bigger. Funding cut for 2 satellites, launch failure for 2 more - Conspiracy anyone?

I an beginning to think this is a cabal at work in a conspiracy to deny the info needed for climate science.

Bush Regime cut the funding for two climate study satellite. Then the two satellites that NASA tried to launch recently have failed to gain orbit due to unknown problems in launch vehicles, launched from military site (Vandenberg, CA).

All in all it has helped to deny the acquisition of info and to demonstrate the loss of ice etc.

Anyone else have evidence of strange doings that might indicate a conspiracy by the deniers?

[caseymoz]

80. The wealthy and corporations know climate change is real.

This shows it. It isn't global warming denial, it's the global warming cover-up. See my post below.

[Enthusiast]

89. Thank you for clarifying that.

They do know. That is what makes it so sad.

[SpiralHawk]

68. Republicons are so anti-life

so corruptly anti-ethics.

Ptoooey.

[orbitalman]

70. Obama's really missing the boat on this. n/t

[Marnie]

71. Kind of like what is happening to Manning

Put someting or some body into cold storage till they deteriorate to thepoint that they no longer can function and then drop them into a dark hole somewhere and loose track move on.

Its the Bush/Obama doctrine of dealing with prisoners who are guilty enough to execute and of disliked programs.

The very definition of leadership.

[xocet]

75. Amazing...n/t

[penndragon69]

76. But Jesus says...

" There is no such thing as Global Warming, so bury it
in a warehouse and forget about it".
And that's all that the reFUGS needed to kill it.

[ThoughtCriminal]

77. Maybe they don't want us snooping around L1

It's where the cloaked alien mother ship from whatever planet these people come from is parked.

[penndragon69]

78. The same shit happened to the super conducting, super collider.

The electronics were all built,tested and ready for assembly, then refugs jammed it into a warehouse
because digging of the donut hole in texas went over budget.
Forget about the 1000's of paying customers 'and millions spent on the equipment' who had already reserved time on it to do their
experiments with, now it rots in storage along with all the advanced SETI detectors
that were also mothballed.
RefugniCONS are great at spending money,but they SUCK at science.

[xocet]

88. Sadly...some Democrats also helped on that...

Rep. Jim Slattery (D-KS) was happy to help kill the SSC:

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=kGAgAAAAIBAJ&sjid=umUFAAAAIBAJ&dq=cost%20overrun%20ssc&pg=3808%2C4981568

http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=S000477

I went to the SSC to see what it was like last November. The buildings are overgrown with weeds; some windows are broken out; and some doors are partially open. The police came by three times to see what I was doing. I explained that I was just taking photos of the outside. Apparently, according to them, copper thieves have stolen $1 to $2 million dollars of copper wire from the abandoned facility.

At least, the LHC is up and running at CERN.

[caseymoz]

79. See? Corporations & the wealthy know climate change is happening

They know human beings are responsible for it. This shows it. This probe was practically already paid for, and if climate change wasn't happening as they believed, this would have demonstrated that. Now, there are some who are "true disbelievers" who believe the lies among them, but for the most part, the wealthy know very well climate change is happening. They're covering it up and denying to the rest of us.

And how could they not know? They have far more resources and can consult with far more scientists than we can. That's right, this isn't climate change denial, it's the climate change cover-up.

So, why would they be leading us into disaster? Maybe they don't think the whole world would be uninhabitable. Maybe it's so they can gain as much wealth, buy up the places in the world (while they're still on the market) that are still habitable, make them into fortresses protected by mercenaries, and cut the rest of us loose to live in the mess they created. Like Atlas Shrugged, but even meaner, and less moral.

That's what I suspect. It's why there's a drive to gather so much wealth now, and they're resisting any call to equalize the wealth. When things collapse, they'll be the nobility and we'll be the, mostly dead, peasants, and people like Cheney and Armey know that's the plan.

Now, these are just suspicions, but I had these suspicions before I heard this story. This story just supports them.

[Warren DeMontague]

84. Bush and the GOP hated it because Al Gore's name was attached to it, plus it would have provided

more evidence that the Earth isn't flat.