ON APRIL 8th Envisat, Europe’s largest Earth-observing satellite, unexpectedly stopped talking to its users on the Earth below. Since then those users have been frantically trying to re-establish contact. They rely on Envisat’s radars and other sensors for a wide range of measurements, from the temperature of the oceans to the chemistry of the stratosphere. Scientists have used it to gauge ocean conditions for shipping and to investigate earthquakes; its data have been the basis of thousands of scientific papers.
4月8日欧洲最大的地球观测观测卫星Envisat意外与地面用户中断了联系。从那时起，Envisat的用户就抓狂似的不断尝试重连卫星。从海洋温度监测到对平流层的化学分析，他们都离不开Envisat上雷达和其他一些传感器的帮助。科学家们曾把它用于判定海运条件及地震研究，而且大量论文都引用自该星的观测数据。 Envisat had, unlike much of Europe, forgone early retirement: designed for five years of operation, it was on its tenth. Given its advanced years, you would think that planning for its eventual end would be well in hand. You would expect that successor instruments would already be in orbit, their measurements carefully cross-correlated with Envisat’s so that the elucidation of the scope and pace of global environmental change could continue seamlessly. You would be wrong. Envisat与大多数欧洲卫星不同，它是超期服役：设计寿命是5年，但其却熬过了10个年头。考虑到它的服役年限之久，可以得出5年的设计寿命是十分保守的了。你可能会认为接班人早已在轨等候多时，并且尺寸与Envisat交叉相关，以便实现检测能力的升级与地球环境变化的步伐的无缝衔接。但事实却相反。 Wilful blindness 有意变盲 Providing earthlings with a reliable, continuous record of their planet’s condition would seem a sensible aim in any circumstances. With the state of the atmosphere and oceans (see article) upset in ways whose consequences are not easily foreseen, and may well prove catastrophic, it becomes an imperative. You do not need to know every little thing about the environment in order to make policy about it. But only long-term measurements will allow researchers to get a reliable grip on the science of climate change and other environmental stresses. A firm grasp of the basic trends is a necessary precondition for understanding and for informed policy. 无论在何种状况下，做一份既可靠又具有连续性的地球环境监测记录都是明智之举。由于大气层和海洋环境变化无常，且不说它预测困难，其往往带来的都是灾难性后果，所以环境监测势在必行。（或许）并不需要等到对环境有了全面了解之后再做出对策，但有了长期的观测记录之后，研究人员对气候变化的认识和其他环境压力的认识才会更加可靠。（所以）对基本趋势的明确把握无论是对理解政策还是制订有理有据的政策来说都是不可或缺的先决条件。 The governments that build and operate satellites like Envisat are not taking that necessity seriously. According to a damning report from America’s National Academies, the number of civilian Earth-observing satellites flown by the United States government looks likely to fall from 23 today to just six in 2020, and the number of instruments in orbit could drop from 90 to 20. The situation in Europe is somewhat less disastrous, but has its own problems. The European Space Agency is unwilling to move forward with a new generation of satellites that can monitor the environment continuously until the European Union promises to pay their operating costs. 制造并运营像Envisat那样卫星的政府却没有一直到这么做的必要性。美国国家研究院一份批评性的报告指出，到2020年美国民用地球观测卫星数量似乎将从今天的23颗减少到6颗。各种空间在轨仪器的数量也讲从90个降为20个。欧洲的状况还稍微好点，但也有其问题。除非欧盟答应支付运营费用，否则欧洲宇航局是不愿升级其能持续监测地球环境的卫星的。 Several of the parties involved must share the blame for this failure. The scientists who have a say in setting the priorities for Earth observation often fixate on pet projects and new sorts of measurement, as scientists are wont to do; that can lead to the vital business of long-term monitoring getting downplayed. Co-operation and co-ordination between agencies and countries is not what it should be. Then there is bad luck (or poor judgment): in recent years the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) lost two Earth-observing missions in a row because of a second-rate rocket for which it has yet to find an adequate replacement. 涉及此事的各方都必须为此事负责。那些在设定地球观测项目优先顺序中有发言权的科学家们常青睐于他们钟爱的项目及各种新的测量法（这往往是他们的一贯作风）：这将导致对地球长期观测的轻视，各机构和政府之间的合作与协调之事也并不在正常轨道上。运气不佳（或者主观决策失误）：近年由于没有合适的替代品而使用次等火箭，导致NASA一连搞砸了两次地球观测卫星计划。 But the main culprits are governments, which are spending too little on the job. In 2010 the World Meteorological Organisation estimated that getting satellite observations up to scratch in terms of climate monitoring would cost an extra $1 billion a year. In the late 1990s NASA used to spend $2 billion a year on Earth observations, but by 2007 that had fallen to $1.3 billion (the costs of a successor to the Hubble Space Telescope rose from around $2 billion to $9 billion over roughly the same period). Properly co-ordinated, modest increases in the budget in America and the EU, and contributions from other powers (China is now flying very capable Earth-observing satellites; India and Brazil have been in the game for a while), could sort the problem out. Without them, the world will feel its way into the future blind and ill-prepared. 由于对地球监测的预算太少，所以主要责任在政府一方。2010年世界气象组织估计，从头开始搞气象监测卫星将会每年多带来10亿美元的财政支出。上世纪90年代末NASA通常每年花20亿美元用于地球观测，但2007年该数字将减为13亿美元（大致在同一期间哈勃太空望远镜的接班人身价却从20亿美元飙升到90亿）。美国和欧盟协调且适度地增加预算支出，并辅之以其他国家的捐助（中国现在已经拥有许多不错的地球观测卫星了；印度和巴西参与其中也有些时日了），或许可以解决这个问题。而没有他们，人们面对未来将会不知所措，并且毫无防备。