NASA AND NOAA; NOSEY PARKERS
In the past we’ve done projects for NASA, at space centers in Houston, Huntsville and Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Recently we were lucky enough to have a local project; building an iPad App for NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), in conjunction with the National Park Service. The app was an electronic brochure on the Channel Islands, which lie just off the coast of the Los Angeles basin.
NOAA and NASA are now in the crosshairs of the Trump administration; NASA has been accused of practicing “politically correct climate science”, and NOAA’s earth climate data has been described as overdoing the climate change “hysteria” through cherry-picked data. Both have been put on notice that their earth science works are not currently appreciated. As a matter of fact they’re downright suspicious. NASA has been told effectively to “stop looking at the earth” and avert their gaze outward, into deep space.
We think this is short-sighted nonsense. The polar ice caps are melting down. The seas are rising. The Florida coastline is going under. And as predicted, with rising carbon and heat levels, weather events; (storms, tornadoes, floods, winter and summer), are getting stronger in intensity.
The head of the European Space Agency’s Earth Observation Program wrote that changes under President Trump could impact them as well, as they depend on the data from NOAA and NASA. “Policy”, said Mark Drinkwater, “be it mitigation, adaptation or technology infusion, is completely reliant on knowledge…required to avoid the “blind spot” which could otherwise slap humankind in the face.”
