[Ben Ficklin]

There have been quite of few articles about Cruz's appointment and how that might affect space exploration.

But none of these articles have touched on NASA exploring earth. There are numerous satellites up there staring at the earth, collecting data on Earth System Science and earth's cycles. And much of this data touches on the carbon cycle.

In the coming days the SMAP satellite(Soil Moisture Active Passive) will be launched which is the last of the 2014 satellites and 4 more are scheduled to be launched in 2015. The OCO 2 (Orbiting Carbon Observatory) was launched last July.

If Cruz/GOP were to cut funding to NASA, they would try to cut funding for the earth observing satellites, not space exploration. That is because the data the satellites are collecting is ominous.

If you have a couple of hours, there is a documentary entitled Earth From Space that can be found on YouTube that covers these satellites and the data being collected.

[Zeppo]

What is your specific concern about those satellites? Is it that the data will be misused, or something else?

Data from the Orbiting Carbon Observatory may help to demolish the foolish warmist creed of “natural CO2 good, human CO2 bad” (that is, if the real data continues to be made available rather than adjusted and homogenized data).

[goodnesswins]

Give us a hint about the type of “ominous” data being collected

[Zeppo]

If Cruz/GOP were to cut funding to NASA, they would try to cut funding for the earth observing satellites, not space exploration.

What is the source for that claim?