Trump Plans to Scrap NASA's Earth Science Program

BENGALURU: Donald Trump’s plans to strip NASA’s Earth Science program of funding has taken everyone by surprise. "We see NASA in an exploration role, in deep space research," Bob Walker, Senior Advisor to President-Elect Donald Trump, told the Guardian's Oliver Milman. "Earth-centric science is better placed at other agencies where it is their prime mission."

But the fact remains that Earth Science goes well beyond climate changes and includes everything from the health of the oceans to the threat of devastating solar storms in the upper atmosphere. The academia world has been in a state of shock at this announcement, and many noted that cutting Earth Science would mark a radical change in NASA’s mission that they have carried out successfully for nearly six decades.  

"If you go to the Space Act that founded NASA in 1958 and then was amended under President Reagan in 1985, the very first responsibility ascribed to NASA is to understand the Earth and the atmosphere," said Waleed Abdalati, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, as reported by Business Insider.

So far, NASA has carried out its work with remarkable finesse and now they are unsure about the amount of data to use before they lose it all. According to a report by Business Insider, NASA climate scientist Gavin Schmidt, said that he thought NASA’s climate research program was immune from any such intervention and was safe from any such tampering.

This move would cut down NASA’s spending by 40 percent and mark the end of an era, which is simply referred to as the ‘Satellite Era.” Many believe that if this happens, it could lead to the loss of valuable data, which will be lost forever.

Julienne Stroeve, a researcher with the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), said that this move would undermine our ability to make even basic judgments about the health of the planet, and that would be a big loss for everyone.

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