Richard Eckman

I thought I remembered a US stamp from then! I used to collect decades ago.

Weird to think that there was a huge fascination with scientific advances during the IGY (the year of my birth). How far we have fallen.

It’s the end of the world.

Is this the NY mayoral primary? It looks like a mess.

I was very reassured to read that the acting director of FEMA is unaware of the term "hurricane season".

Good question. Given that they seem quite pleased to be terminating "BER activities in environmental system sciences, atmospheric system research, earth system modeling, data management, and the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement User Facility", I'm guessing that it may be all of ARM.

Interestingly, SAGE III/ISS and DSCOVR (both slated for cancellation) were launched on Space-X Falcon 9 rockets!

I find the decisions related to Earth science funding in the budget as vengeful, an attempt to erase our knowledge of climate change. I can't recall that functional NASA satellites returning useful data have ever been shut down. This budget has huge impacts across the entire science enterprise.

Yes, the President's NASA budget request document proposes to shut them off. The satellites in the inner ring of the diagram are those already on orbit. I certainly agree that turning off functioning satellites is a waste of sunk costs. Those at the bottom are future missions in development.

I suspect someone may have already done this... I took the current NASA Earth fleet chart of operating and planned Earth observing missions and crossed out those recommended for cancellation in the President's budget request. It's disturbing.

Keith Cowing noted the impact on the NASA workforce that this huge, planned budget reduction would have. So far, NASA has avoided the huge reductions in force that other agencies have endured. This will be a massacre of highly talented people. So much for US preeminence in science...

Thanks for this information. I'd been wondering if we'd seen a replay of the event from 2023.

Very good point. Eight years later, this Congress seems different, more extreme, and less willing to fight their leader and his supporters. I hope you're right, but I worry that they won't put up the fight that we saw last time.

The full President's FY26 budget request for NASA is out.

www.nasa.gov/fy-2026-budg...

Some stand out numbers: the Earth science budget is down by more than 50% compared to FY24. Earth science research is down from $380.6M in FY24 to $189.4M in FY26. SAGE III/ISS and DSCOVR will be shut off.

Impressive interview with very good questions posed to you.

Actually, Heard Island is well known to amateur radio enthusiasts, like me. There have been several activations of the island over the years, often in conjunction with science expeditions. I've never made a contact with the island unfortunately!

"It can't get no worse". After a day of horrific news, I thought of the Beatles song lyric. I figured that maybe we were done for the weekend. Sadly, that lyric doesn't apply here. It just indeed keeps getting worse.

Given recent actions at USGCRP and planned defunding of NASA, NOAA, and other science agencies, I don't see the federal government doing this. I hope that AGU may consider a coordinating role here, perhaps with support from philanthropics that aren't wholly cowed by the present administration.

Increasingly I fear that we are through as a country.

This is even worse than I expected. The US will be relegated to the bottom tier in science research moving forward.

Metric system would likely make MAGA go crazy. It’s far too logical.

Yet another senseless tragedy. I expect to see this happen at NASA in the near future.

I fear you're right. Trump has stated that he wants to send US citizens who commit crimes to El Salvador. It doesn't seem legal to me, but I doubt that will stop him.

I just saw this earlier this evening. It's a tragedy. Having been involved with USGCRP since around 2008, including 2 stints on the federal writing teams for its strategic plans, I'm deeply depressed by the news. We're going to be left with no federally supported climate science in this country.

Coupled with the effective closure of the US Global Change Research Program, early termination of numerous grants at GFDL, elsewhere at Princeton, and other universities, we're going to be left with no federally supported scientific research programs. This is obscene.

Nice idea!

I would have resigned. Well, I sort of did so, retiring from NASA on 20 Jan after 37 years. I couldn’t work for the new administration, but I had no sense just how bad it would get.

You're way too polite.

"Petro relates to underrepresented groups and works to create an inclusive environment." Photo courtesy of NASA/Cory Huston

"I have mentored numerous minorities... and as director, I am committed to leading Kennedy Space Center to have a diverse and inclusive environment where everyone can thrive."
-Janet Petro 2021

KSC Director Janet Petro Reflects on Diversity 🧪
www.enr.com/articles/529...

#Pathetic

Directive by Trump to shut down DEI programs at NASA

“Your papers are not in order, NASA”