Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

US Defense Department will stop providing satellite weather data

text.npr.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 185 posts

Re: US Defense Department will stop providing satellite weather data

#151

Post by dzhiurgis »

defrost wrote: post #150
dzhiurgis wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And have you got a source thats not a nearly 2 decades old and not for government contract? Edit: here's one thats $30M https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2023/05/electron-tropics-lau...

> have you got a source thats not a nearly 2 decades old Such as the Lockheed Martin 2024 contract I linked? Sure.. try that link, it's from last year and talks about grown up big boy weather sat costs in 2024.. Your $30m SmallSat is not in the same league as a full featured $300m sat .. I'll leave you to work out the differences. Moreover the launch costs for those $30m sats is under $8m each launch, again refuting…

I had a bit of a chat with chatgpt and I agree the smallsats are not replacement just yet, but in future there's no doubt they are better in most ways - faster iteration, far better resolution and of course lower cost.

Re: US Defense Department will stop providing satellite weather data

#152

Post by jimnotgym »

GiorgioG wrote: post #129
bix6 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heaven forbid the richest nation on earth that steals resources from everyone else contribute to global improvement.

Heaven forbid the rest of the world pays their own share of the bill. We’re not a charity. We treat our own people like shit, don’t expect to be treated better.

The lack of self-awareness here is incredible. Every Visa, Mastercard and PayPal transaction in my country results in us paying tax to the US. You think we couldn't develop our own card schemes?

US tech business gets tax free entry into our market. It uses our roads, our communications, our police and court system. All of this is to the detriment of our local business.

A huge amount of our defence spending goes directly to the US. We buy your planes even when we could make better ones ourselves. We have supported the US in nearly every colonial adventure since WW2.

Why do we allow ourselves to be milked like this? We are paying tribute to the US for being the ally of our colonial masters. Its time we stopped.

Re: US Defense Department will stop providing satellite weather data

#153

Post by [deleted] »

XorNot wrote: post #105
burnt-resistor wrote: post #19

[flagged]

Which would be hilarious because one of the primary reasons GPS became generally accessible was because consumer GPS being accurate made it easier and cheaper to stick GPS in absolutely everything the military uses. Basically trying to deny accurate positioning tends to not help your own forces as much as it being trivial for them to call back to your giant logistics machine with accurate positioning.

[deleted]

Re: US Defense Department will stop providing satellite weather data

#154

Post by gwerbin »

buttercraft wrote: post #136
matthewdgreen wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we survive this, these people will go down in history as monsters.

What if they're the ones who survive and rewrite history

That's what they're betting on. It's why suppressing free public access to knowledge and education is part of the agenda.

Re: US Defense Department will stop providing satellite weather data

#155

Post by yurishimo »

Frost1x wrote: post #30
alwa wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Accuweather, who also depend on this same USG sensor data for their modeling… I don’t think anybody wins from this. See e.g. https://www.accuweather.com/en/press/accuweather-does-not-su...

Are there other countries with similar weather satellites? I imagine China or the EU likely have some of their own. I know the US has been pushing this for free so plenty of nations likely piggy back off the free data. But I imagine larger ones might want their own redundant services to some degree to avoid vulnerability. If so, they might be benefiting, but that’s about it.

Definitely. The EU has weather satellites and Asia as well. Luckily, they tend to collect data around the entire world but what we lose here is the on-the-ground infrastructure that is woven together with satellite data to give better information about the facts on the ground.

Funny enough, this came up in the Netherlands a few months ago. The government released their own mobile app based on the data they collect and the private weather apps got all upset that the government was competing. What made it hilarious though, is that the private companies are all using the open source government data to power their apps!

So yea, this data will still be collected in the USA, but then sold to for-profit companies for basically nothing and then they will charge consumers for access to data collected with their collective tax dollars. Pretty messed up imo.

Re: US Defense Department will stop providing satellite weather data

#156

Post by fredfish »

tw04 wrote: post #106
whycombagator wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> NOAA, which oversees the National Hurricane Center, says the loss of the Defense Department data will not lead to less-accurate hurricane forecasts this year. In a statement, NOAA communications director Kim Doster said, "NOAA's data sources are fully capable of providing a complete suite of cutting-edge data and models that ensure the gold-standard weather forecasting the American people deserve."

Kim Doster is a Trump appointee who worked on Musk’s super pac. Her previous position was as a climate change denial specialist. Pardon my skepticism that we can believe anything she has to say. The Trump administration is a big fan of hiring Iraqi information minister wannabes as their spokespeople.

> Her previous position was as a climate change denial specialist.

Predictions won't be less accurate because weather is beyond the comprehension of all people and no amount of data could change that.

Re: US Defense Department will stop providing satellite weather data

#158

Post by kgwxd »

9283409232 wrote: post #35
genter wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I recommend Ambient Weather instead of Accuweather. [0] https://ambientweather.net/

I recommend my tax dollars actually pay for something useful to citizens instead of going directly into some oligarchs off-shore banking account.

Re: US Defense Department will stop providing satellite weather data

#159

Post by renegade-otter »

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #7

Here is what will be denied to NOAA, now and going forward Defense Department data also allow hurricane forecasters to see hurricanes as they form, and monitor them in real-time. For example, hurricane experts can see where the center of a newly formed storm is, which allows them to figure out as early as possible what direction it is likely to go, and whether the storm might hit land. That's important for people in…

Generally the outcome of voting for criminals, thieves, and conmen/women.

And then people wonder why they are erecting spikes around the White House and the Treasury. The pillaging has begun.

Re: US Defense Department will stop providing satellite weather data

#160

Post by actionfromafar »

gwerbin wrote: post #154
buttercraft wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if they're the ones who survive and rewrite history

That's what they're betting on. It's why suppressing free public access to knowledge and education is part of the agenda.

Yet, many even here on HN will if not outright defend this, then let it slide, because there is one overarching goal which must not be compromised at any cost: to own the libs.
Post reply on HN