Why did nasa stop exploring the ocean?
NASA hasn’t actually stopped exploring the ocean; their primary focus is space exploration. However, various agencies, including NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), are more directly involved in ocean exploration and research.
NASA has contributed to ocean studies primarily through satellite missions that monitor ocean health, sea levels, and climate change. They use remote sensing to gather data about ocean temperatures, currents, and biology, which is crucial for understanding Earth’s climate system.
While some people might feel that more attention should be given to ocean exploration, NASA’s resources and missions are largely aligned with their goals in space. Other organizations are dedicated to the intricate work of exploring and preserving our oceans.
NASA did not stop exploring the ocean, and the claim that it did is false:
- NASA continues to explore the oceanNASA has continued to study the ocean’s depths through satellite and robotic missions. NASA launched its first oceanographic satellite, Seasat, in 1978, and has continued to study the ocean from space since then. NASA also launched missions as recently as 2021 and plans to launch the PACE satellite in 2024.
- Videos claiming NASA stopped exploring the ocean are falseVideos circulating on social media claim that NASA stopped exploring the ocean in 1978 or 2014 due to a mysterious discovery, but these claims are false.
Some reasons why exploring the ocean is difficult include:
- Extreme conditions: The ocean becomes extremely difficult to explore at great depths, where pressure is high and it’s dark.
- Lack of landmarks: The ocean is mostly water, and it’s difficult to see in deep water.
- Risk: Traveling to the ocean’s depths is high risk because of the enormous pressure.
NASA was founded in 1958 in direct response to the Soviet Union launching its Sputnik I satellite. Since 1958, the sole purpose of NASA has always been to explore outer space. While the organization does help create weather satellites for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), NASA has never been used to investigate or explore the oceans. NASA isn’t trying to get us off of Earth, why do you think it is? Why did nasa stop exploring the ocean?
What is the current fastest fighter jet and what are its top speeds?
Why did nasa stop exploring the ocean?
Misleading. NASA did not abruptly stop deep-sea research following the failure of a satellite in 1978. The agency continues to study the deep ocean and launched missions as recently as 2021.
NASA does space, NOAA does the oceans. That said, NASA partnered with the University of Hawaii to send some student astronauts out to a habitat mockup out in the middle of a barren lava field to simulate living in a lunar or Martian camp. But at some point, they built an undersea habitat called NEEMO, designed to study the people and logistics in a more unforgiving environment. It had little to do with exploring the oceans.
NASA’s role has never been to “explore… the ocean”. NASA was created in 1958 as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration – nothing to do with the ocean except to develop and launch weather and other satellites to study the Earth.
As for “trying to get us off the planet”, where did you get that idea! Sure they want to go back to the Moon again and have visions of visiting Mars, but if their plan was to get us off the planet, they had better success in the late 1960s and early 1970s where they actually did manage to send 12 astronauts to the Moon and bring them back.
It would be nice if the Artemis programme, which is fraught with problems at the moment, was successful in due course and delivered more astronauts to the Moon for a longer stay than the Apollo programme, but that is far from certain. It’s also rather a long way from NASA “trying to get us off the planet”!
Why does NASA want to crash the ISS into the ocean instead of sending it out into space?
Want isn’t a relevant word. NASA doesn’t “want” to dispose of the ISS. NASA and its international partners have a responsibility to dispose of the ISS, when it becomes non-operational. Inserting it into a decaying orbit that will result in most of it being vaporized by extreme heat and any remaining small pieces plunging to the bottom of the ocean is the most sensible way to do that.
Sending it out into space is not a sensible option. What would be the benefit of that and what would be the cost? The only benefit that comes to mind is that in a thousand years, it would be a treasure trove for space archaeologists, assuming civilization makes it that far. But at what cost? Immense cost.
Propelling ISS far enough a way to never be a threat would take about half as much energy as was required to lift it to space in the first place. Every penny that would be spent on such an effort would be a penny taken away from other missions.
Is it worth it to those future space archaeologists if we don’t go back to the Moon because we spent the money moving ISS? Is it worth it to those future space archaeologists if we don’t go to Mars? Or if we don’t send a probe to Europa? NASA and the international partners have a responsibility to advance science and exploration.
Why did NASA stop underwater exploration? Or did they never even do that in the first place, and is it just something social media came up with?
In the US, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is tasked with underwater exploration – which they still do. Try them at oceanexplorer.NOAA.gov.
The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is tasked with space exploration.
There is tremendous overlap between the two. Both agencies use aircraft for atmospheric research, and both use Earth-observing satellites. They frequently cooperate with each other, and it is not uncommon to see one agency’s people at the other’s facilities.
However, NOAA is the one that explores the oceans. Why did nasa stop exploring the ocean?
Why did NASA stop exploring the ocean and now is trying to get us off the planet?
NASA was never supposed to explore the ocean. NASA’s mission is to explore space. That is what all the funding Congress gives them is earmarked for. NASA does not have the power to just take that funding carte blanche and do whatever the hell the want with it.
The prior activities NASA did with respect to the ocean were all in the context of using the ocean as a proxy for space. It was NEVER about exploring the ocean, and any new information they discovered about the ocean in the process was just a bonus.
There is a different US government agency whose mission is the exploration of the ocean, and which gets federal funding specifically for that activity.
NASA stands for National Aeronautics and Space Administration. It is not concerned with exploring the oceans. It is interested in space exploration and human access to space, along with the efficient design of airplanes and other atmospheric flight. AFAIK, it was never much interested in exploring the oceans. NOAA is the ocean exploration entity for the USA.
In 1978, was there a reason why NASA stopped exploring the ocean? Any information to back it up?
“In 1978, was there a reason why NASA stopped exploring the ocean? Any information to back it up?”
NASA *doesn’t* “explore the ocean.” They explore space. You’re thinking of NOAA.
In 1978, NASA launched a satellite that STARTED looking at the the oceans *from space.* Maybe that’s what you’re thinking of?
But the “S” in NASA stands for “Space,” you want NOAA. The “O” in NOAA stands for “Oceanic.”
Why have we not explored most of the ocean, when it’s just right there?
- It’s really really big. It’s 70% of the Earth’s surface, so there’s more than twice as much ocean surface as there is land. And the deepest parts of the ocean are deeper than the heights of the highest mountains. In theory, you could sink Mount Everest in the Marianas Trench and it wouldn’t break the surface. The ocean is big. Even a large ship can’t explore more than a tiny bit of the ocean at a time.
- A lot of it is far away from the nearest land. Sending a support ship out for weeks with fuel, food, a crew who can sail it, and a support staff and shore facilities gets expensive—and that’s before the research even starts. Just as an example: to operate Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute’s research submersible Alvin, and its support ship R/V Atlantis, costs $45,000 per day. (WHOI : Instruments)
- We can’t breathe down there. Sending people down there requires a lot of life support gear. Alvin can dive to three miles (4500 m), but dives usually last less than ten hours, with maybe five hours of working time—it might take two hours just to get down to working depth, and two to rise to the surface again. (And there’s no room for a toilet.)
- Did I mention it’s really really deep? This means that
- Sending a diver down means you can’t go down very far without having to deal with fun little medical issues like nitrogen embolisms (the “bends”). There are ways to avoid that, but they get expensive.
- Sending anything down means you have to design it so that it doesn’t get crushed like a beer can against my grandmother’s forehead. One of the fun things that people who get to dive on the Alvin do is decorate large styrofoam cups with permanent markers. The cups are kept on the outside of the Alvin as it goes down. . . when they come up, they’re hard as a rock and about the size of a shotglass. Now imagine that happening to your lungs. . .
- Sending anything down means a non-zero chance that you’ll never see it again. Cables can snap, wires can get cut, seals can fail, and anything can go on the fritz. My major professor, who has done a lot of ocean exploration in his day, used to say that you should never let anything down into the ocean that you can’t bear to lose. He once talked about being on a ship—I’m not sure which—when a six-figure ocean probe went over the side and was never seen again. That happens.
- It’s also really really cold—close to 0°C. That’s not a serious obstacle, but it does mean anything you send down there has to be engineered to function at freezing temperatures.
- A surprisingly large part of the deep ocean floor is called the abyssal plain: it’s almost completely flat, covered in fine sediment, and, while not absolutely barren of life, not very productive. Think about this: unless you’re near a hydrothermal vent or some weird and wild energy source like that, the only source of food and energy in the deep ocean is the dead plants and animals and poop that slowly rains down from the photic zone (where there’s sunlight). That’s called “marine snow”, and it’s ultimately the only support for most deep-sea ecosystems—and there’s not enough to support a very rich and diverse ecosystem in most areas. That’s one reason why most deep-sea creatures are slow and sluggish and mostly gelatinous; there’s just not enough energy in the food web to support fast-attack predators. So much of the deep ocean isn’t a priority for exploration because it doesn’t look all that interesting. (Not that it wouldn’t be interesting, but we have to prioritize.)
- We do explore the ocean. Universities, governments, militaries, and private foundations all maintain oceanographic research vessels, submersibles, and unmanned remotely operated vehicles (ROVs). There are also less direct ways of exploring the oceans, like sonar to map the contours of the ocean floor, remote sensing from satellites, or even attaching radiotransmitters to migrating whales, turtles, and other animals. We’ve got a good and constantly growing sense of what’s down there (although many surprises await, I’m sure). But exploring every last inch of the ocean floor would take an extremely long time, cost a huge sum of money, and wouldn’t necessarily be cost-effective.
You can check out ocean exploration going on right now at sites like Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute | MBARI , Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the US government’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and dozens of institutions around the world. We are exploring the ocean.
But in the words of James Ray back in 1962: “But it’s gonna take money, a whole lotta spendin’ money, it’s gonna take plenty of money, to do it right, child. It’s gonna take time, a whole lotta precious time, it’s gonna take patience and time, to do it, to do it, to do it, to do it, to do it, to do it right, child. . .”
Conclusion
Why did nasa stop exploring the ocean? It never has.
NASA has to know something about Earth’s oceans if it consider other lunar bodies like Europa or maybe Encelidas (sp) possibly having oceans just like NASA has to understand atmosphere on earth for comparative study of atmospheres on other planets.
So I briefly worked on Seasat-A/1 which started its program in 1964 and had its launch in 1978. And I moved on to VOIR (became Magellan after I left). Seasat died under somewhat mysterious circumstances after 99 days in orbit with a budget for 1 year with planning for 1 year life time with planning active for additional years.
Scuttle butt blamed the Navy. Radars like SARs have to be optimally build for oceans and can’t really be using land based systems. Like for studying wave patterns and ocean surface topography.
Some subsequent missions were done by SAR buddies with NGIA using the Shuttle. Other buddies used shallow oceans for early ROV VR science experimentation for Moon and Mars analogs. Most work with universities and other agencies like USGS and NOAA and various DOD agencies. Many of the DOD agencies prefer to work quietly (not classified but low profile).
You may be a curious Cat, but in this instance, stupidity not curiosity, killed the cat.
Your question is complete BS. No one can answer why NASA stopped exploring the Ocean because they never did in the first place.
It’s not the mission of NASA to explore the ocean.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
Their job is to advance scientific understanding in aircraft design and flight, and spacecraft design and missions in space.
Where in the hell does the ocean enter into that? It doesn’t.
There is a whole other organization for that.
NOAA.
National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.
They explore the ocean. See that word? Oceanographic? It mean related to the study of the ocean.
Both Administrations deal with the air, but differently.
NASA: Aeronautics … related to flight in air.
NOAA: Atmospheric … related to the air itself.
NASA studies how to make craft that fly in the air better, more effecient. NOAA studies how to predict weather and tracks how storms and hurricanes form and move.
Only NOAA studies the ocean. I don’t know where in the hell you got the silly idea NASA did.
Why did nasa stop exploring the ocean?