There are a lot of important headlines in today's H-Chron, including the story about the Pat Tillman investigation and the story which sort of suggests Tom DeLay might lose. But here's one story that you probably won't see blogged anywhere else:

Budget cuts and poor management may be jeopardizing the future of our eyes in orbit — America's fleet of environmental satellites, vital tools for forecasting hurricanes, protecting water supplies and predicting global warming.

"The system of environmental satellites is at risk of collapse," said Richard A. Anthes, president of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research. "Every year that goes by without the system being addressed is a problem."

Anthes chairs a National Academy of Sciences committee that advises the federal government on developing and operating environmental satellites. In a report issued last year, the committee warned that "the vitality of Earth science and application programs has been placed at substantial risk by a rapidly shrinking budget."

...

Scientists warn that the consequences of neglecting Earth-observing satellites could have more than academic consequences. It is possible that when a big volcano starts rumbling in the Pacific Northwest, a swarm of tornadoes sweeps through Oklahoma or a massive hurricane bears down on New Orleans, the people in harm's way — and those responsible for their safety — will have a lot less information than they'd like about the impending threat.

Included among the cuts are projects that directly impact hurricane forecasting, including a replacement for a satellite which estimates the intensity of rainfall within a developing storm, and replacements for the NOAA polar-orbiting satellites, which provide a much closer and much more detailed view of storms than their counterparts in geostationary orbit.

Why are these cuts being made? It's pretty clear when you look at the numbers - the funding is being crowded out by the President's Vision for Space for Exploration and the costs of the crippled shuttle fleet:

NASA officials say that tight budgets tie their hands, forcing them to cut all but the most vital programs. The agency's proposed 2007 budget request contains $2.2 billion for satellites that observe the Earth and sun, compared to $6.2 billion for operating the space shuttle and International Space Station and $4 billion for developing future missions to the moon and Mars.

"We simply cannot afford all of the missions that our scientific constituencies would like us to sponsor," NASA administrator Michael Griffin told members of Congress when he testified before the House Science Committee Feb. 16.

Griffin is faced with the difficult task of balancing the space agency's science and aeronautics programs against the cost of operating the space station and shuttle, while simultaneously planning the future of human space flight.

"I truly wish that it could be otherwise, but there is only so much money," Griffin said in his congressional testimony. "We must set priorities."

While I'm a fan of manned spaceflight, but quite frankly, the return-on-investment for improved earth observation tends to be large, and it tends to be immediate. Assuming one can not have his cake and eat it to, I question whether NASA is setting the right priorities.

In other Katrina news, Ray Nagin's been in town looking for votes. Not a normal practice for mayors to go out-of-state to campaign.