Environmental Monitoring: Web Articles
The End of Magical Climate Thinking | Foreign Policy
"The Obama administration succumbed, like many others, to a sort of magical climate thinking that promised a painless and even prosperous transition to a low-carbon future with the tools already at hand. The only official within his administration to accurately grasp the technology challenges faced, Energy Secretary Steven Chu, was sidelined at crucial moments. Here is the back story of how the Obama administration dramatically raised and then dashed America's -- and the world's -- hopes that 2009 would be a pivotal year for remaking our collective energy future." This article places blame on both government and green energy advocates for "magical thinking" about what will surely at minimum be a tough, expensive, decades-long slog. The importance of space infrastructure advancements, especially by the private sector, to developing innovative lower-cost solar power and biospheric and climate monitoring systems will be major. Earth and its environment are increasingly understood as one evolving macro-ecosystem traveling through space over eons.
Building up a new market for suborbital spaceflight | The Space Review
"...Space tourism isn’t the only market [suborbital space} vehicles can serve. The same vehicles that can give paying customers the ride of a lifetime can also serve as testbeds for scientific research, technology demonstration, and even education. These potential applications had been largely overshadowed by space tourism in recent years, deemed to be secondary markets—and certainly not as novel or glamorous as space tourism. However, in the last year there has been growing interest in these fields, to the point that one advocate for them believes that they might become bigger markets than even tourism."
Virgin Galactic to Unveil SpaceShipTwo - Commercial Spaceflight Federation
"SpaceShipTwo, intended to carry passengers and scientific payloads into suborbital space, is being unveiled today by Virgin Galactic in Mojave, California. SpaceShipTwo was developed for Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic by the engineering firm Scaled Composites, a team that includes aerospace pioneer Burt Rutan.
This reusable spacecraft will take two pilots and six passengers to space after first being carried aloft by the WhiteKnightTwo carrier aircraft, which has already been undergoing test flights for a year. SpaceShipTwo will conduct flights of passengers and science payloads to space from Spaceport America near Las Cruces, New Mexico.
Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Galactic, stated, “This is truly a momentous day. The team has created not only a world first but also a work of art. The unveil of SS2 takes the Virgin Galactic vision to the next level and continues to provide tangible evidence that this ambitious project is not only moving rapidly, but also making tremendous progress towards our goal of safe commercial operation.”
Commercial Reusable Suborbital Research Program (CRuSR) - Request for Info
"In this Request for Information (RFI), the NASA Ames CRuSR Office is requesting technical and programmatic input to improve the government's understanding of flight opportunities to aid potential science investigators in scoping and designing possible future suborbital investigations. Responses to this RFI are welcome from all interested parties, especially potential providers of suborbital spaceflight services. Suborbital spaceflight service providers should consider accommodation of flight experiments that address any of the science disciplines listed herein."
Orbital super-sensor to observe space weather | R&D Mag
"Launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V launch vehicle, Oct. 18, 2009, the Special Sensor Ultraviolet Limb Imager (SSULI) developed by NRL's Space Science Division and Spacecraft Engineering Department offers a first of its kind technique for remote sensing of the ionosphere and thermosphere from space. "
Robot Armada Could Explore New Worlds | R&D Mag
"An armada of robots may one day fly above the mountain tops of Saturn's moon Titan, cross its vast dunes and sail in its liquid lakes. Wolfgang Fink, visiting associate in physics at the California Institute of Technology, says we are on the brink of a great paradigm shift in planetary exploration, and the next round of robotic explorers will be nothing like what we see today."
The Fall of the Maya: "They Did it to Themselves" | Science@NASA
"For 1200 years, the Maya dominated Central America. At their peak around 900 A.D., Maya cities teemed with more than 2,000 people per square mile -- comparable to modern Los Angeles County. But suddenly, all was quiet. The profound silence testified to one of the greatest demographic disasters in human prehistory -- the demise of the once vibrant Maya society.
So, what happened? Some NASA-funded researchers think they have a pretty good idea. "They did it to themselves," says veteran archeologist Tom Sever. He and his team used computer simulations to reconstruct how the deforestation could have played a role in worsening the drought. They isolated the effects of deforestation using a pair of proven computer climate models: the PSU/NCAR mesoscale atmospheric circulation model, known as MM5, and the Community Climate System Model, or CCSM. The models predict that deforestation could have raised the temperature 3-5 deg F. and caused a drop of 20-3-% in rainfall. There is strong evidence of drought and mass graves were identified suggesting thirst, famine and conflict. NASA-related earth observation technologies helped to solve this long-time mystery.
A Day Without Space: Economic & National Security Ramifications
"Space systems provide significant benefits to American commerce and national security. On October 16, 2008 the George Marshall Institute and the Space Enterprise Council of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce co-hosted a "A Day Without Space" to discuss the implications of losing access to space-borne assets and information for the U.S. economy and national security."
A final discussion on this topic was held on October 1, 2009 but is not yet published. The value of space to our nations competitivensss, security, and planetary health and survival is a very hot topic due to competing priorities for federal funding. This report reminds us of how much space has become an assumed part of our national infrastructure, but it needs sufficient resources to ensure its survivability.
Landsat: A Space Age Water Gauge | NASA
"Water. In the arid Western United States, it seems there's almost never enough of it. But the biggest use of water in the West isn't for drinking. It's for growing food. Agriculture consumes about 90% of the water diverted by humans in western states. As the demand for water increases, the pressures on to make sure every drop counts. It's tricky business gauging how much water farm fields are consuming, let alone how much water is seemingly evaporating into thin air. That's where water specialists Tony Morse, Rick Allen, and Bill Kramber come in. They're taking a long view of the problem - a very long view. They're stuyding farms from space." Commercial applications of valuable global water availability and use data will likely be an increasing opportunity driven by climate change.
NASA Finds Ground Water Loss in North India Due to Human Activity |The Hindu News
"Research was conducted by a team of hydrologists led by Matt Rodell of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Using satellite data they determined that Northern India's underground water is being pumped and consumed by human activities, such as cropland irrigation, and is draining aquifers (1 foot/yr) faster than natural processes can replenish them.
This research, which is based on data from NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites, has been published in the latest issue of Nature. GRACE's two satellites change position in response to variations in the pull of gravity which occurs when there are changes in underground water masses. "