Solar eruptions, our satellite constellation, and redistricting

The sun is still very unsettled, and a new active area is rotating in to view. Although most people think of the GOES satellites as being weather satellites, they are really a multi-function platform. I have a ground station with two antennas that receives the huge amount of data this satellite produces and relays. Everyone is familiar with the main sensor, the Advanced Baseline Imager, which observes the earth on 16 different wavelengths lets us produce amazing views from this morning

The last few satellites, including both GOES East and West, also have a lightning mapper – here is the view also from this morning showing flashes along the front that just passed through the southeast and stalled …

One of the functions of the GOES satellites is to monitor the sun and “space weather” – here is a view from the SUVI sensor over the last couple of hours – watch the active area in the lower left rotating in to view, and the X-ray flare with a characteristic “X” pattern of diffraction as it overloads the sensor …

And here is the X-ray flux charted on a graph. This data is essential for both satellite operators and our power grid managers to anticipate problems and take protective measures from solar storms.

Complex satellites like this take upwards of a decade to design, test, build and launch, and can provide useful data on-orbit for a decade or more. It is difficult to impossible for the private sector to provide that kind of continuity, and given how vital this data is to our society, it is something that government should and can do. I ranted about this before over the controversy around the DMSP satellites. We are slowly going blind at a time when this kind of technology is more essential than ever.

As I repeatedly say, while the present administration is being more publicly disruptive than usual, this isn’t a Democrat or Republican problem – it is an inherent problem with our political system that it is increasingly impossible to carry out long term projects when every two to four years or even eight years the system is overturned and a new party comes in and, often over political spite or partisan priorities, tears up whatever long term plans the previous regime put in place.

There are ways to defuse this increasingly destructive cycle of sabotage, which effects far more than the American scientific enterprise (although it is probably the most vulnerable). Everything from infrastructure to economic planning by businesses is damaged by the political pendulum. It’s got to stop, but it’s only going to get worse with the extreme weaponizaton of redistricting to create more and more highly partisan “safe” districts that not only increase and widen divisions in Congress, but increasingly disenfranchise large swaths of voters.

It’s up to you to change this. How? As emotionally satisfying as it might be to get fired up for a politician who is going to “fight for you” or “stick it to the other side,” remember that “other side” are your neighbors and family who probably share most of your concerns, just have different priorities or perspective than you and leaving aside the extremists on either side who are controlling the narrative, can be reasonable and if given the opportunity will hear you, and we can figure out something. It’s not as exciting to hear “lets talk to the other side and find a compromise we can all benefit from” – but that’s how communities and nations function and are sustainable.

Because if you don’t, this society will collapse.