The list of delayed, downsized, and canceled satellites in the article are all directly associated with helping us understand the causes and effects of global warming, while the $4 billion geared towards missions to the moon and Mars are geared towards more of a "feel good" nationalistic goal that will do a lot less towards helping us, our children, and grandchildren live on this planet.

If I were a conspiracy theorist, I would lump this all in with other shenanigans.

Whether that's true or not, I think our elected officials should be encouraged to think about the long-term effects of letting NASA's Earth Observation systems decline. The long lead time associated with designing and launching a satellite means that money appropriated during one administration is not likely to bear fruit until the next one. That makes this a tough issue to deal with.

One bright light, in my opinion is the increasing interest in things like Google's and Microsoft's imagery. Perhaps the next big challenge is to figure out a way to make compelling visualizations of time-series data that can be appreciated by a wider audience.