DMSP has always been at risk. It started a classified USAF program to hide its budget and development from NASA who had a weather satellite program but was mired in bureaucracy and way behind schedule and capabilities. The military needed a weather satellite to support other programs and created a small bird that worked at very low cost.
Once it became known in the 1970’s and NASA was a participant, it grew to a multi ton 7-meter long vehicle; a mouse the size of an elephant designed by a committee.
NASA’s involvement kept the USAF from launching more birds and by 1979 we had but one and it was limping along.
A newer polar orbiting program was recently canceled after billions were spent because of the same issue of political infighting by NASA.
NASA: Need Another Space Agency, because this one ain’t working.
“NASA: Need Another Space Agency, because this one ain’t working.”
True, I look at it this way:
NASA has spent soo much time and money on global warming, our space exploration, space research/ defense have taken a huge hit, jeopardizing National Security.
If our enemies were to infiltrate NASA, they would undermine it by creating and spending all kinds of money on useless, feckless, hapless wasteful programs that further no space technology or advancement...
...that’s just what we’ve got now.
So any further climate study is a threat to our National Security.
LOL!
My step-brother was the former Director of NASA’s Earth Science Program, and later, the Director of the Mars Program.
I barely knew him, and have not seen him since the 1980s, so I have no personal feelings at stake here.
He's a former Navy pilot, so I'd be very surprised if he had any anti-military bias. Of course, he also had strong institutional feelings about NASA, and he was definitely a “Company Man.”
Final question - is any of the DMSP weather data publicly available, or is it classified?
That data would be a valuable counter-weight to NASA’s algorithms.