All that said, on this issue I completely agree with Greg. The Republican opponents of Triana didn’t give a damn about whether it had scientific merit or not, they saw only an opportunity to attack their political opponents, which they did with gusto.

— Donald

Actually, the onus is in Robert Park to substantiate his bold claims that the Bush Administration cancelled Triana. As far as I have heard it was an internal NASA decision, though I’d welcome evidence to the contrary.

When TRMM was on the chopping block the scientific community rallied in support of it. Nothing like that happened for Triana, which suggests that it couldn’t have been too high a priority for too many people, other than political partisans and those associated with the mission.

Finally, sunk costs don’t matter, particularly when there is a VSE to feed, precious few shuttle flights left and large costs associated with refitting Triana for another launch vehicle.

Roger Pielke has no argument that it didn’t happen. He says that we should put partisanship behind us, but with Triana, partisanship was the elephant in the room. He instead argues that the science on Triana wasn’t competitive. That was once conceivably true, but what is the argument for cancelling a largely finished spacecraft? If you don’t count the money that won’t come back anyway, then finishing the job does look cost effective.

Indeed, cancelling Triana looks particularly dubious in light of Bush’s insistence that global warming needs more study. Does it need more study or doesn’t it? It makes the call for more study look like an excuse rather than a sincere request.