{"id":16581,"date":"2015-02-09T23:54:52","date_gmt":"2015-02-09T15:54:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/17-years-later-gore-makes-case-for-viewing-earth-from-deep-space\/"},"modified":"2015-02-09T23:54:52","modified_gmt":"2015-02-09T15:54:52","slug":"17-years-later-gore-makes-case-for-viewing-earth-from-deep-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/17-years-later-gore-makes-case-for-viewing-earth-from-deep-space\/","title":{"rendered":"17 years later, Gore makes case for viewing Earth from deep space"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Sen.
Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Florida, and former Vice President Al Gore speak to reporters at the Kennedy Space Center before Sunday\u2019s launch attempt for the Deep Space Climate Observatory. Credit: NASA\/Kim Shiflett<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After waiting nearly two decades for dream to become reality, former Vice President Al Gore said Sunday the mission he fostered in 1998 \u2014 finally ready for launch this week \u2014 will have important scientific and social impacts in humanity\u2019s relationship with Earth.<\/p>\n

The mission Gore first proposed in 1998 has gone through starts and stops, surviving political roadblocks that put the former vice president\u2019s dream and the hopes of scores of scientists on life support.<\/p>\n

Now it is on the launch pad for a different reason than the purpose originally envisioned by Gore, but its complement of Earth viewing sensors remains intact.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe scientists in NASA and NOAA, and some of their colleagues in the Air Force as well, have been steadfast in making it possible for this mission to come off,\u201d Gore told reporters Sunday at the Kennedy Space Center.<\/p>\n

He said he was \u201cvery excited\u201d and \u201cvery grateful\u201d for the mission to finally come to fruition.<\/p>\n

The Deep Space Climate Observatory\u2019s main mission now is to monitor the stream of particles flowing from the sun toward the Earth. NOAA says forecasters need to measurements to keep track of solar storms that envelop Earth, disrupting power grids, air travel, communications and satellite operations.<\/p>\n

DSCOVR will launch Tuesday aboard a Falcon 9 rocket, which will boost the 1,250-pound satellite on a 110-day trip toward the L1 Lagrange point, a gravitationally-stable location nearly a million miles from Earth in line with the sun.<\/p>\n

Although officials rejigged project for space weather forecasting \u2014 a move that included transfer of overall responsibility for the mission from NASA to NOAA \u2014 the spacecraft still hosts the same pair of instruments built 15 years ago to achieve Gore\u2019s vision.<\/p>\n

Gore announced his concept for mission during a speech at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in March 1998. Gore\u2019s vision was for the mission to produce live imagery of the full sunlit disk of Earth from four times the distance of the moon 24 hours a day. The pictures were to be posted on the Internet.<\/p>\n

Gore named the project Triana, after the sailor that first spotted land on Columbus\u2019s 1492 voyage to the Americas.<\/p>\n

But the mission was grounded after Gore\u2019s political rivals, and NASA\u2019s own inspector general, raised concerns over Triana\u2019s cost and scientific merit.<\/p>\n

Congressional Republicans called the satellite an overpriced \u201cscreen saver\u201d and named the mission as one of Gore\u2019s pet projects.<\/p>\n

Triana was originally due to launch on a space shuttle mission in 2000, but Congress ordered NASA to put the project on hold in late 1999 pending a review by the National Research Council.<\/p>\n

The council, part of the National Academy of Sciences, concluded in March 2000 that Triana was a worthwhile mission that would collect unique data with important applications in climate change research.<\/p>\n

NASA decided to suspend work on Triana in 2001, months after former President Bush took office following his defeat of Gore in the 2000 election. The spacecraft was transferred to a clean room at NASA\u2019s Goddard Space Flight Center in November 2001, where it was stored under nitrogen purge conditions until it was removed for testing in November 2008.<\/p>\n

Triana was renamed DSCOVR before NASA quietly cancelled the mission in 2005, citing the dwindling number of remaining shuttle flights and a lack of funding to refurbish and launch the satellite.<\/p>\n

The cancellation came after NASA had spent $97 million on the project, according to agency officials.<\/p>\n

\"Artist's
Artist\u2019s concept of the DSCOVR spacecraft. Credit: NASA\/Scripps Institution of Oceanography<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThe whole idea of this satellite was Vice President Gore\u2019s,\u201d said Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Florida, who joined the former vice president at Kennedy Space Center. \u201cPolitics got in the way, and that mission was canceled, but fortunately some visionary folks in NASA and NOAA, in fact, knew that this payload was so important they kept it alive in storage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Worried that NASA\u2019s Advanced Composition Explorer supplying critical data to space weather forecasters could fail at any time, NOAA started studying how to replace the aging ACE mission. It turned out the most affordable option was to take Gore\u2019s bainchild out of its storage container for refurbishment and launch.<\/p>\n

DSCOVR already had a plasma magnetometer bolted on that could measure the constant flow of atomic particles streaming away from the sun to measure the velocity, magnitude and direction of the solar wind\u2019s magnetic field.<\/p>\n

The camera on DSCOVR \u2014 named EPIC \u2014 will not fulfill Gore\u2019s call for uninterrupted live imagery of Earth. Restrictions on the data flow from the spacecraft to the ground will limit it to about six full-color images of the whole day side of the Earth every 24 hours, officials said.<\/p>\n

Gore said Sunday the mission will still offer inspirational views accessible to everyone.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe constant ability to see the Earth \u2014 whole \u2014 fully sunlit every single day, the opportunity for every man, woman and child who lives on the Earth to see \u2014 if they wish \u2014 their own home in the context of the whole, can add to our way of thinking about our relationship to the Earth and, of course, the Earth\u2019s ecosystem,\u201d Gore said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMobilizing the general public will to put pressure on political and governmental leaders in every nation to take action to save the future of human civilization is one of the principal missions here,\u201d he said in a statement to reporters.<\/p>\n

DSCOVR\u2019s other payload is the NISTAR instrument manufactured by Ball Aerospace in partnership with the National Institute of Standards and Technology. It will take an accounting of how much radiation is reflected and emitted off Earth. Scientists say it can help determine how much of the energy comes from human activity.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat this satellite will make it possible to do when it reaches the L1 point a 100-and-something days from now is to measure not only the energy coming into the Earth from the sun, which we can measure today, but we can also now, for the first time, measure the energy reflected back into space from the Earth,\u201d Gore said. \u201cYou subtract that second number from the first number, and that\u2019s the problem we\u2019ve got to solve.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s why the ice is melting, and the sea level is rising in Miami Beach and a lot other places around the world,\u201d Gore said. \u201cThat\u2019s why the storms are getting bigger, and the floods, the mudslides and the droughts are getting deeper and longer, and the weather\u2019s getting a little chaotic, and more chaotic year-by-year, as well as the temperature going up.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Air Force and NASA partnered with NOAA on the $340 million mission, with the Air Force paying SpaceX for the launch and NASA funding the EPIC camera and NISTAR instrument.<\/p>\n

\"This
This diagram shows DSCOVR\u2019s position in space at the L1 Lagrange point. Credit: NOAA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The four-megapixel EPIC camera aboard the spacecraft will see Earth in 10 wavelengths spanning the ultraviolet, visible and infrared portions of the spectrum. During the new moon phase, EPIC will see the moon pass through its narrow field-of-view, allowing the camera to make a family portrait of the Earth-moon system.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s going to be pretty cool,\u201d said John Grunsfeld, head of NASA\u2019s science division.<\/p>\n

Like the rest of the spacecraft, the camera was made with 1990s technology. It was originally manufactured by Lockheed Martin\u2019s Advanced Technology Center.<\/p>\n

Steven Clarke, head of NASA\u2019s office overseeing DSCOVR, still expects the public to be \u201cwowed\u201d by EPIC\u2019s imagery.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it will be an inspiration for people to see the sunlit disk, when they can go online and take a look at something that was just taken from a unique vantage point,\u201d Clarke said. \u201cI know it will be for me, and I know my children will be happy to see that kind of thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will be a whole new perspective,\u201d said Nelson, a longtime member of Florida\u2019s congressional delegation who flew on a space shuttle mission in 1986. \u201cWe had a different concept of ourselves when we saw our home taken from the perspective of the astronauts on the moon, or in lunar orbit, looking back at the Earth because suddenly we saw the planet as large as our thumbnail, and we could see our relationship to the cosmos.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gore said he sees cost reductions in renewable energy, a new climate change accord signed between the United States and China in November, and a global climate conclave scheduled for December in Paris are big steps toward stemming global warming.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a turning point, and this satellite will contribute to this general change in direction for us as we face this challenge,\u201d Gore said.<\/p>\n

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Florida, and former Vice President Al Gore speak to reporters at the Kennedy Space Center before Sunday\u2019s launch attempt for the Deep Space Climate Observatory. Credit: NASA\/Kim Shiflett After waiting nearly two decades for dream to become reality, former Vice President Al Gore said Sunday the mission he fostered in 1998 \u2014 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4160,1710,2308,594,479,975],"class_list":["post-16581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-al-gore","tag-bill-nelson","tag-dscovr","tag-earth-science","tag-falcon-9","tag-noaa"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16581"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16581\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}