Merging programs usually is a mistake with F-111B, JSF, and even Shuttle being examples of programs that suffered from ‘Jointness’. There are always non-overlapping requirements. The problem is that requirements do not add linearly. It is usually better to build something to do one thing well and then re-purpose later if it is suitable rather than to try to serve multiple masters from the beginning.

The biggest change has already been made, the split between NOAA/NASA and DOD. Merging the programs in the first place was obviously, in hindsight, a mistake; having worked NASA/DOD teams myself I would suggest that while individuals in both organizations work well together, the organizations are separated by such a vast gulf both administratively and culturally that attempting to collaborate on a major program like this was a fool’s errand. The involvement of three separate agencies (NOAA, NASA and DOD) only made it worse. This at least has been corrected.

Second, Chairman Hall’s (R-TX) pillorying of Kethryn Sullivan on the question of climate change, and his party’s long fight to stamp out government spending on anything that smacks of support for the subversive Democratic propaganda of climate change, which is, in his view, just a plot to limit the growth of the Texas energy industry, suggests that Congressional micromanagement and obstructionism may have been a factor. Dr. Sullivan’s hurried defense that NASA had already eliminated every transistor on the satelite that might provide any information on climate supports this.

We have money for pork rockets but not for genuinely useful things like weather satellites.

So mismanaged unmanned programs are okay?

What’s really stupid about this is that climate and weather research would be just as vital and important even if there was no manmade global warming.