NASA CO2 scan satellite launch fails NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) satellite has failed to reach orbit after "problems separating" from its launcher rocket. The space agency describes the launch as "not successful". NASA has issued a brief statement, saying: The Orbiting Carbon Observatory failed to reach orbit this morning after a 4:55 a.m. EST …
Now we just have to know who killed the bird:
a) Oil Industry not wanting the truth be known.
Obviously, the don't want to have to change their bussines model.
b) 'Green' saviors not wanting the truth be known.
Obviously, they don't want loose the power and the grants now enjoy.
In either case, a loss for the rest of us, who want true unbiased data to make OUR OWN decisions.
The article talks about the failure to reach orbit but it does not clarify whether the payload was destroyed or whether it was salvaged (if that is possible). Regardless of what happened to the payload though, this should keep conspiracy theorists happy and busy for a while!
Even if the launch had been a success, I very much doubt that the results garnered from this would have done anything of the sort.
Fuelled the fire considerably, more like.
After all, AFAIK, it's (or rather was) only capable of a 'here and now' set of readings.
Unless NASA have cracked time-travel...
Of course, I could be wrong...
I don't see how that would end any arguments. CO2 is not a pollutant, nor does it drive temperature. It is the other way around, temperature driving atmospheric CO2. The world is CO2 impoverished compared to historic geologic levels. The two most bio-diverse eras were the Cambrian and Permian, where CO2 levels were ten and seven and a half times current levels, respectively.
This is a great shame. There is a better way at far less cost.
Governments should make the Scentilla Perk Kit http://blog.sentilla.com/2008/05/sentilla-announces-worlds-smal.php freely available to pc users to monitor CO2 emissions on a real time basis. This information could be piped into an independent web site such as the Purdue Vulcan project http://www.purdue.edu/eas/carbon/vulcan/index.php. Check out the Vulcan project. You can zoom down to the lowest possible level to view CO2 offenders.
Sumner
If the payload fairing didn't deploy the satellite is a write-off.
Either the additional weight which should have been jettisoned will prevent it reaching orbit, in which case it will make a hypersonic re-entry to the Earth's atmosphere; or, if it does reach orbit, the satellite remains trapped inside the fairing, can't deploy its sensors and solar panels and the poor thing dies either of overheating or when its battery dies.
"Regardless of what happened to the payload though, this should keep conspiracy theorists happy and busy for a while!"
Yes, but even if it had launched, the conspiracy theorists would just claim that the numbers being broadcast by it were doctored, or that its purpose had nothing to do with measuring carbon dioxide at all (i.e. it's a giant mind-control laser or the "Oooo ray" -- or maybe it was going to link up with the HDTV converter boxes and steal our brain power ala The Riddler in that stupid Batman movie, and it was scrapped in the end because not enough coupons went around to ensure that a large enough percentage of American households would have mind-stealing devices).
There's no end to what conspiracy theorists can conjure in their minds.
Seeing as how it was a sleeve (valve) that failed it must have been a Bristol Taurus. Trying to explain why they used 1930's technology and underpowered at that is a question that should be answered. Everyone knows they should have used at least a Centaurus, or better still, an Olympus.
OK This is GasBird-1 I am online, looking for CO2.
Aha! There's a high concentration bearing 212.5, declination 43 degress. It's enormous! One helluva CO2 trail! It's vast! It's runs all the way from here down to Florida, just over Cape Ca.... Oh., Sorry. My mistake. Nothing to see here. Move along.
Undoubtedly the poor sat was undone by PETA (People for Ethical Thermal Analysis) since no one can trust the NASA data fiddlers on climate topics. Better just to prevent any tainted data from showing up, after all who knows how the instruments were "calibrated" to support the hypothesis du jour of the global warming aficionados!
Where are the conspiracy theorists when you need them anyway? Why is NASA spewing great plumes of carbon to study carbon, if the global warming is real they should be launching solar power satellites (which also make dandy death rays to melt holes in Persian nuclear bunkers and liquefy the atomic contents of mountains beloved by Dear Leader-- and maybe carbonize a few Talibanis and their highly profitable poppy fields or AlQueda planting roadside BinLaden IED bushes). Innovation is dead in the Western world, it is easier to make up a global warming problem and study it to death (or at least till we can retire on a fat pension) than to do anything real anymore! I will gladly pimp for global warming if I get retirement medical and a pension in exchange!! Where do I sign up?
540 million years ago CO2 was 7000ppm (when land animals appeared).
170 million years ago CO2 was 1700ppm (when dinosaurs roamed the Earth)
250 years ago CO2 was 250ppm (after Little Ice Age)
currently, because of man, CO2 is 385ppm.
Plant life dies at 150-180ppm through asphyxiation.
CO2 is a finite resource. Nature has been sequestering it underground for 540 million years. At the rate of decrease over the last 170 million years, Earth would have hit 150ppm in about 10 million years. Odd as it may seem, man had inadvertently increased the life essential CO2 concentrations, and if we were to disappear today, the added CO2 probably adds another 10 million years to plant life on Earth. However, man is clever, and may find a way to bury CO2 and make it unavailable to nature at an accelerated rate. Thus, we may yet find a way to kill off most of the planet's plant life, thus ending the 3rd atmosphere.
Meanwhile the governments and most of the press focus on the wrong components.
N2O, which has no carbon, is 296 times worse than CO2, and 3% of fertilizer for corn to make ethanol is emitted into the air as N2O. Will that be regulated? And if so, will the cost of food soar?
CH4 (methane) is emitted from rotting wood and is 22X worse than CO2. Will that be regulated? Termites create considerable methane, how will we regulate that? And will methane receive equal penalties for unequal effect?
H2 (hydrogen) in the atmosphere combines with hydroxyls (-OH) and removes OH from the air. Hydroxyls normally combine with free methane to remove it. A hydrogen economy may actually increase the longevity of methane in the air, thus increasing Global Warming Gas effect. Will the EPA control that?
Burning wood reduces the amount of methane released but increases CO2 over letting it rot which releases much more methane and less CO2. Methane oxidizes in about 9 years to CO2. Will the EPA promote burning scrap wood as a means of decreasing the overall GW effect?
The current policy doesn't actually use science in its decision making. What is at stake is that if the government controls CARBON it controls LIFE.
I grow trees. Agricultural growth rate has increased 30+% because of the increase of CO2 in the past 250 years. It is projected to increase further with any continued rise of CO2. What is the political end game? Are ecopoliticians trying to reduce CO2 to preindustrial 250ppm? Do you realize that we would lose the 30% agricultural gain and thus cause massive STARVATION across the planet. And do you know what happens when global concentrations drop to about 150ppm? Most life on Earth DIES. Is this what you want to promote?
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