NASA cancels greenhouse gas monitoring satellite due to cost

Associated Press ^ | November 29, 2022 | Seth Borenstein

[Olog-hai]

NASA is canceling a planned satellite that was going to intensely monitor greenhouse gases over the Americas because it got too costly and complicated.

But the space agency said it will still be watching human-caused carbon pollution but in different ways.

NASA on Tuesday announced that its GeoCarb mission, which was supposed to be a low-cost satellite to monitor carbon dioxide, methane and how plant life changes over North and South America, was being killed because of cost overruns.

When it was announced six years ago, it was supposed to cost $166 million, but the latest NASA figures show costs would balloon to more than $600 million and it was years late, according to NASA Earth Sciences Director Karen St. Germain.

Unlike other satellites that monitor greenhouse gases from low Earth orbit and get different parts of the globe in a big picture, GeoCarb was supposed to be at a much higher altitude of 22,236 miles (35,786 kilometers) from one fixed place in orbit and focus intently on North and South America. That different and further perspective proved too difficult and costly to get done on budget and on time, St. Germain said. …

[dayglored]

So $600M is too much to spend on monitoring greenhouse gas.

But $50B (or whatever it is now) of blackmail payments to Ukraine to keep them from spilling the beans on US admin corruption, that's no problem??

I suspect that somebody realized the satellite would end up providing data showing that Global Warming, Climate Change, and the rest is a pile of poo. So they had to kill it.

[I got the rope]

Lol...they should leave it on. Let them keep adjusting the past temp data to show warming. Ita hilarious.

[bagster]

Maybe we could ask Ukraine to kick us down a few bucks.

I mean, what's more important than the environment, right?

[I got the rope]

Oh I think methane was dropping too.

[Olog-hai]

Ask France, where they’re restarting their coal plants and claiming it’s a “necessary evil”.

[FatherofFive]

https://www.severe-weather.eu/global-weather/snow-extent-northern-hemisphere-highest-56-years-winter-cold-rrc/

Snow Extent in the Northern Hemisphere now Among the Highest in 56 years Increases the Likelihood of Cold Early Winter Forecast both in North America and Europe

[metmom]

And the greenies and climate change alarmists are totally silent about the strongest and most abundant greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, which is almost every where almost all the time and nobody can do a thing about it.

Water vapor.

[Secret Agent Man]

Probably they couldn’t be able to hide its data from people that shows we’re not the problem. Too transparent and data accessible. Monitoring “other ways” lets them control the other ways more closely and limits peoples ability to really see whats going on, or see un-massaged data.

[Fresh Wind]

Yes, it’s a whole lot easier and cheaper to simply make up the data out of whole cloth to support their leftist agenda.

[jonrick46]

So spending $500 million is too much? What if that money proved that the human contribution is insignificant compared to natural forms we can’t control? I would rather spend $500 million on a scientific device than $billions on renewable hardware that does squat.

[SaxxonWoods]

Maybe Greta will pay for it.

[noiseman]

Huh…So if a planet-killing asteroid was headed for the Earth, I suspect we would spend whatever it took to try to deflect or destroy it, because doing nothing would mean certain death. Yet, to try to stop what we are CONSTANTLY told is the existential threat of “climate change” suddenly $600 million is just too much money.

I suspect what someone else posted: They realized that this satellite just might prove that man-made “climate change” is either a lie or not the dire emergency it’s been portrayed as, so they had to kill the satellite.

[Hieronymus]

And the greenies and climate change alarmists are totally silent about the strongest and most abundant greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, which is almost every where almost all the time and nobody can do a thing about it.

Water vapor.

---

Drink more beer?

[Entrepreneur]

I suspect that somebody realized the satellite would end up providing data showing that Global Warming, Climate Change, and the rest is a pile of poo. So they had to kill it.

That's exactly it. Better to rely on measuring stations located near heat sources and then "adjust" other stations' temperature records higher.

[mylife]

since when has cost been an obstacle for nasa?

[spincaster]

The reason is because that would show global warming is a crock .
We can’t have the truth getting out.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

What if that money proved that the human contribution is insignificant compared to natural forms we can’t control?

The Global Warming hypothesis is fragile and not likely to withstand challenge. Global Warming hysteria is invincible and politically useful to those who know how to take advantage of hysteria.

[rlmorel]

That was 100% my first impression.

And I think it is correct.

[sit-rep]

I truly do not understand NASA... They are “The Eye in the Sky” literally!! They have access to how many cameras and telescopes??

People are naturally drawn to the heavens and deep space and with the amount of tech NASA has pointing out there they could create a revenue vein that would fund them completely. But instead we see rarely any new pictures/video and an abundance of fake photoshopped images. It blows my mind.