Kamala Harris Visits NASA, Wants National Space Council To Focus On Climate Change

Vice President Kamala Harris visited NASA on November 5 and announced that the National Space Council will design a "comprehensive framework" for national space objectives, focusing on climate change.

Harris didn't go into much more information about the framework. She did, however, underline the need to use space capabilities to benefit society as a whole. While space exploration characterized the twentieth century, the US Vice President believes that space's opportunity will define the twenty-first.

(Photo : Photo by OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images)
US Vice President Kamala Harris looks at the hyperwall during a climate change discussion at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Goddard Space Flight Center on November 5 , 2021 in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Harris Wants National Space Council to Focus on Climate Change

According to Space News, Harris wants to handle climate change as part of the broader framework. Climate change, according to Harris, is an existential issue that requires immediate action from everyone. She also wants to use satellites to keep an eye on climate change.

Harris' visit at Goddard focused on climate change. She saw the first photographs from the Landsat 9 Earth monitoring satellite. NASA also announced just before her speech that it had chosen a smallsat mission dubbed Investigation of Convective Updrafts or INCUS to research storm genesis as part of its Earth Venture Missions program, with a launch date of 2027.

According to SciTechDaily, Vice President Harris and NASA Administrator Bill Nelson also discussed Earth Venture Mission-3 (EVM-3). The Investigation of Convective Updrafts (INCUS) project will look at how tropical storms and thunderstorms form and strengthen, which will aid in the development of weather and climate models.

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NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the United States Geological Survey (USGS) are among the government agencies that perform climate research and supply essential climate data to agencies and groups throughout the world. Droughts, floods, and wildfires are becoming more common as a result of extreme weather and climate events. Space-based observations enable us to examine our planet as a cohesive system in order to better comprehend these events and assist people on the ground.

Vice President Harris met with scientists and engineers to explore how NASA's diverse portfolio of Earth science missions addresses the world's climate issues.

ESA to Help Combat Climate Change's Consequences, Too

Meanwhile, Space.com said a new space mission would monitor how much heat is trapped in Earth's atmosphere. This probe will have to see if humanity is making headway in combating climate change's worst consequences.

The European Space Agency (ESA) and its partners are now working on the Traceable Radiometry Underpinning Terrestrial and Helio- Studies(TRUTHS) mission. It will look at the so-called Earth energy balance, the difference between how much solar energy reaches the globe and how much is reflected back into space. The more heat Earth retains, the warmer it becomes, and hazardous greenhouse gases contribute to the planet's ability to trap more of the incoming heat.

In a statement, ESA said the TRUTHS mission would establish a benchmark to identify climate change. It is made up of a satellite that might be launched into orbit in the year 2029.