Twilight for the golden age of earth observation? [News]

When leaders of the congressional committees that approve NASA's missions and budgets put forth their priorities in February, only space science and deep-space exploration made the cut. Conspicuously absent was Earth science-a US $2 billion function within NASA that tracks our rapidly changing environment. Add in White House skepticism of climate science, and what experts call today's "golden age" of monitoring Earth via satellite faces some serious challenges.