WASHINGTON — A new National Research Council report says that budget shortfalls, cost-estimate growth, launch failures, and changes in mission design and scope have left U.S. earth observation systems in a more precarious position than they were five years ago. The report cautions that the nation's earth observing system is beginning a rapid decline in capability, as long-running missions end and key new missions are delayed, lost, or cancelled.
"The projected loss of observing capability will have profound consequences on science and society, from weather forecasting to responding to natural hazards," said Dennis Hartmann, professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Washington, Seattle, and chair of the committee that wrote the report. "Our ability to measure and understand changes in Earth's climate and life support systems will also degrade."
The report comes five years after the Research Council published "Earth Science and Applications From Space: National Imperatives for the Next Decade and Beyond," a decadal survey that generated consensus recommendations from the earth and environmental science and applications community for a renewed program of earth observations. The new report finds that although NASA responded favorably and aggressively to the decadal survey, the required budget was not achieved, greatly slowing progress. Changes in program scope without commensurate funding, directed by the Office of Management and Budget and by Congress, also slowed progress. A further impediment, the report says, is the absence of a highly reliable and affordable medium-class launch capability.
Despite these challenges, NASA has been successful in launching some of the missions in development when the survey report was published. It has also made notable progress in establishing the "Venture-class" program, as recommended in the decadal survey. The suborbital program and the airborne science program are additional areas where significant progress is being made. In accord with the decadal survey's recommendations, NASA also aggressively pursued international partnerships to mitigate shortfalls and stretch resources.
In the near term, the report concludes, budgets for NASA's earth science program will remain inadequate to meet pressing national needs. Therefore the agency should focus on two necessary actions: defining and implementing a cost-constrained approach to mission development, and identifying and empowering a cross-mission earth system science and engineering team to advise on the execution of decadal survey missions.
The report also reviews the state of NOAA's satellite earth observation program, an integral part of the decadal survey's overall strategy and tied to the success of NASA's program. Budget shortfalls and cost overruns in NOAA's next generation of polar environmental satellites account for the slow rate of progress. An interagency framework, recommended in the decadal survey to assist NASA and NOAA in optimizing resources, has yet to be realized. This framework is even more crucial now that both agencies face fiscal constraints, and its importance is reiterated in the present report.
The study was sponsored by NASA. The National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, and National Research Council make up the National Academies. They are private, nonprofit institutions that provide science, technology, and health policy advice under a congressional charter. The National Research Council is the principal operating agency of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering. For more information, visit http://national-academies.org. A committee roster follows.
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Pre-publication copies of Earth Science and Applications from Space: A Midterm Assessment of NASA's Implementation of the Decadal Survey are available from the National Academies Press; tel. 202-334-3313 or 1-800-624-6242 or on the Internet at http://www.nap.edu. Reporters may obtain a copy from the Office of News and Public Information (contacts listed above).
NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL
Division on Engineering and Physical Sciences
Space Studies Board
Committee on the Assessment of NASA's Earth Science Programs
Dennis L. Hartmann (chair)
Professor
Department of Atmospheric Sciences
University of Washington
Seattle
Mark R. Abbott
Dean and Professor
College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences
Oregon State University
Corvallis
Richard A. Anthes
President Emeritus
University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
Boulder, Colo.
Philip E. Ardanuy
Chief Scientist and Director, Remote Sensing Applications
Raytheon Intelligence and Information Systems
Sterling, Va.
Stacey Boland
Senior Systems Engineer and Observatory System Engineer for OCO-2
Earth Mission Concepts
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Pasadena, Calif.
Antonio J. Busalacchi Jr.
Director, Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center, and Professor
Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science
University of Maryland
College Park
Anny Cazenave1
Senior Scientist
Laboratoire d'Etudes en Geophysique et Oceanographie Spatiales
Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales
Toulouse, France
Ruth S. DeFries1
Professor
Department of Ecology, Evolution,
and Environmental Biology
Columbia University
New York City
Lee-Lueng Fu2
JPL Fellow
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Pasadena, Calif.
Bradford H. Hager
Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Earth Sciences
Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and
Planetary Sciences
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge
Hung-Lung Allen Huang
Distinguished Scientist
Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies
Space Science Engineering Center
University of Wisconsin
Madison
Anthony C. Janetos
Director
Joint Global Change Research Institute
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory/University of Maryland
College Park, Md.
Dennis P. Lettenmaier2
Robert and Irene Sylvester Professor of Civil
and Environmental Engineering
University of Washington
Seattle
Jennifer A. Logan
Senior Research Fellow
School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
Harvard University
Cambridge, Mass.
Molly Macauley
Vice President for Research and Senior Fellow
Energy and Natural Resources Division
Resources for the Future
Washington, D.C.
Anne W. Nolin
Associate Professor
Department of Geosciences
Oregon State University
Corvallis
Joyce E. Penner
Ralph J. Cicerone Distinguished Professor of
Atmospheric Science and Associate Chair
Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic, and Space Sciences
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor
Michael J. Prather
Fred Kavli Chair and Professor
Department of Earth System Science
University of California
Irvine
David S. Schimel
Chief Science Officer and Principal Investigator
National Ecological Observatory Network Inc.
Boulder, Colo.
William F. Townsend
Independent Aerospace Consultant
Annapolis, Md.
Thomas H. Vonder Haar2
Director Emeritus
Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere; and
University Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Science
College of Engineering
Colorado State University
Fort Collins
STAFF
Arthur A. Charo
Study Director
Lewis Groswald
Research Associate
1 Member, National Academy of Sciences
2 Member, National Academy of Engineering