President Bush’s anounced goal of returning men to the moon by 2020 has caused the cancelation of satellites that would have given scientists critical information on earth’s changing climate. Almost every planned earth studying mission, all of which contribute to our understanding of global warming, has been effected.

Berrien Moore III, director of the Institute for the study of Earth, Oceans, and Space at the University of New Hampshire charges that;

Today, when the need for information about the planet is more important than ever, this process of building understanding through increasingly powerful observations . . . is at risk of collapse … NASA has canceled, scaled back, or delayed all of the planned earth observing missions.”

NASA has canceled a satellite designed to measure soil moisture, a key factor in understanding the impact of global warming and prediction of droughts and floods.  The Deep Space Climate Observatory, already built, was cancelled earlier this year.  The Global Precipitation Measurement mission, and the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System have been delayed.  In addition the research and analysis budget has been cut by 20 percent.

At a time when we are seeing record storms, glacial melting, and droughts, these budget cuts–in the name of sending men back to the moon–are remarkably, incomprehensively shortsighted.

This administration has gone beyond that old army acronym FUBAR.  We need a whole new acronym to describe the Bush administration–BUBAR: BUshwacked Beyond All Recognition.