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Recently the National Academy of Sciences held a review of the current and future scientific needs for satellites that provide data about the Earth system and its climate. This review concluded that since 2000 NASA's Earth science satellite program has been failing to meet the needs of scientists to a steady and improving data resource. In an editorial in the Boston Globe (January 31, 2007), Derrick Z. Jackson describes this as President Bush's "Sputnik Moment," and quotes the NAS report's cochair:

"'Since 2000, this thing has gone off a cliff,' said Berrien Moore, cochair of the National Academy of Sciences panel on studying Earth from space and director of the Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans and Space at the University of New Hampshire. Moore said the Bush administration has created a 'perfect storm' with the 'collapse of the earth science budget, down 30 percent at NASA,' and the inept development of a polar-orbiting environmental satellite system by NOAA and the Pentagon. The system is three years behind schedule and $3 billion over budget, and many climate-detection instruments have been thrown out to slash costs.
'They just drove the train off the tracks,' Moore said. 'The effects are about to become very apparent. The assets we have for things like measuring glaciers and ice are getting long in the tooth, with very little in the future to replace them. We're buying data from India and the French.'
Moore said the least the Bush administration could do is restore the earth science budget to the levels of the Clinton administration. Just as frustrating to him is that even as the evidence piles up that humans cause global warming -- the Intergovenmental Panel on Climate Change releases major new data this week -- there is no White House proposal to cap fossil fuel emissions. Moore said it is 'almost irresponsible' that the CEOs of 10 major corporations have called for caps on carbon dioxide emissions but Bush still has not."

You can read the whole article here:

Bush spaces out during Sputnik moment

You can also read the entire NAS report here:

Earth Science and Applications from Space: National Imperatives for the Next Decade and Beyond