Perhaps we could climb to the top of the cellphone towers located along those roadways to take pollution readings? I'd bet it's a lot cheaper and closer to the ground where the pollution for vehicles is generated.

FR: There are already ground stations across the region, and NASA and the Maryland Department of the Environment and several universities will be augmenting those in July during the flyovers with both tethered and free balloons. As the linked story says, there will be a high-altitude aircraft doing lookdown observations, too, along with the satellites. The point is to get as many data points as possible, in all three dimensions and as the daylight hours go by. That will help to improve the computer models and pollution forecasts and to identify and measure the sources of the pollution, and where it winds up in order to make enforecement efforts more efficient and effective. Air pollution causes a great deal of illness, lost work time, increased healthcare costs and death. NASA's argument would be that sometimes you have to spend money to save lives and more money down the road.

NASA= Not A Space Agency.

The brains behind putting a man on the moon, sent probes to Mars and Venus, landed a probe on a comet, have now been "fundamentally transformed" by the Obama regime to air sampling and Muslim outreach.

FR: Okay. You've made your point. Now let's hear from the people who complain that it's a waste to send missions to the moon and planets (and comets), when we could be spending the money to address problems right here on Earth?

Obviously, no ne was paying attention while Bush and his cronies bled NASA dry and then tried to ram the Constellation program through at the last minute, causing cost over runs and such serious delays that the program was hopelessly over budget. Isn't this the government waste Republicans complain about ? Oh , that's right, it's OK for Republicans to waste the taxpayer's money.

Please see the 1958 Space Act which established NASA, particularly objective #1. NASA has always had Earth science in its charter, in fact it is the first item listed.

http://www.nasa.gov/offices/ogc/about/space_act1.html#POLICY

(d) Objectives of Aeronautical and Space Activities.--The aeronautical and space activities of the United States shall be conducted so as to contribute materially to one or more of the following objectives:

(1) The expansion of human knowledge of the Earth and of phenomena in the atmosphere and space.

Hey Ed Weglien, give it up. I guess you want the Orion P3 to tow a banner "Blame Bush".

I should have included this in the previous post, but regarding the state of NASA space exploration that "sad to see it go..." mentions, many of those things are still happening. The Mars Science Lab has shipped to the Cape, NASA selected the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft to return an asteroid sample, and there are several craft current at their destination or on their way (including Maryland's own New Horizons and MESSENGER spacecraft). Yes, the human program is a bit of a mess and it's disappointing we are still in low Earth orbit, but it's taken several administrations across both sides of the political aisle to screw that one up.

In the late nineties, I piloted a smaller twin-engine aircraft equipped with various pollution detection apparatus (tubes were sticking out all over that airplane.) We did our flights exactly as you describe it, one low (about a hundred feet) pass over the runway, then very slow, very smooth spirals up to about 6000 feet. From what the atmospheric scientist on board told me, there was no better way to get a good reading on air pollutants this low in the atmosphere. The costs of using aircraft in research (and in business) are greatly exaggerated in the public mind--such use can be amazingly efficient and productive.

"FR: Okay. You've made your point. Now let's hear from the people who complain that it's a waste to send missions to the moon and planets (and comets), when we could be spending the money to address problems right here on Earth? "

Did any of the NASA research from the 60's not help fix "problems right here on Earth"?

None of the technology had any effect on making the place a better place to live, a healthier place to live, a more efficient place to live?