08 November 2019 (03:37 UTC-07 Tango 06) 17 Aban 1398/10 Rabi ‘al-Awwal 1441/12 Yi-Hai 4717
NASA pilot suits-up for an ER-2 AVIRIS-NG mission high over Hawaii, February 2018. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Corporal Luke Kuennen.
Six decades after California set the first global standards for industrial anti-air-pollution laws the National Aeronautics Space Administration (NASA) has proven those (and subsequent) laws to be laughable.
NASA ER-2 preps for a mission from Marine Corps Air Station Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii, February 2018. USMC photo by Lance Corporal Luke Kuennen.
NASA used it’s modified U-2R/TR-1A, called the ER-2 (Earth Resources-2), to inspect industrial air pollution, scanning the ground from near-space (65-thousand feet/19-thousand-812 meters): “Before the pilots even take off, we put them on 100% oxygen for an hour to get all of the nitrogen out of their systems. It’s similar to what scuba divers can face. If they have nitrogen in their system, they can end up getting what they call the bends, and it’ll be a really bad day for that pilot.”-Wason Miles, ER-2 life support crew, from 2018 interview concerning the HyspIRI preparatory airborne mission over Hawaii
Liquid nitrogen is used to cool the ER-2’s hyperspectral thermal emission spectrometer. USMC photo by Lance Corporal Luke Kuennen.
The two years long NASA-California methane mission resulted in the AVIRIS-NG ( Airborne Visible InfraRed Imaging Spectrometer-Next Generation) system, onboard the ER-2, discovering dozens of what NASA calls methane “super-emitters”(published 06NOV2019) across the Los Angeles area. This why I say California’s progressively ‘tougher’ anti-pollution laws failed. I lived in California when those anti-pollution laws began driving out many industries causing the loss of thousands of jobs just in the Los Angeles area, in the 1970s-80s. The exalted lawmakers of The Golden State then started playing games with their own anti-pollution laws, trying to woo back major employers. NASA’s California methane mission revealed that the industrial sector of the Los Angeles area is still pumping out clouds of pollution, even with stricter air quality laws and fewer industrial operations.
NASA photo by Jim Ross, 13JUL2006.
Boring 2018 lecture type NASA explainer video about how AVIRIS detects and maps methane emissions:
NASA photo by Lori Losey, August 2001.
2017 NASA video explainer of their climate-spy-plane AVIRIS system:
ER-2 tail#706, over Edwards AFB, California, 04NOV1997. NASA photo by Carla Thomas.
In the 1990s, NASA had three ER-2s, but now has two. The other ER-2 was returned to the U.S. Air Force.
ER-2 tail#709. NASA photo by Tony Landis, 18FEB1998.
Lockheed ER-2 tail#809 cockpit. NASA photo by Tony Landis, 11DEC1999.
ER-2 #809 receives fuel outside Arena Artica hangar in Kiruna, Sweden. SAGE-3 Ozone Loss & Validation Experiment (SOLVE), January 2000. NASA photo by Jim Ross.
ER-2 #809 in Kiruna, Sweden for SAGE-3 Ozone Loss & Validation Experiment (SOLVE), January 2000. NASA photo by Jim Ross.
The ER-2, which has been in use for decades, can be equipped with a variety of sensors.
Large Area Collector sensor for a cosmic dust collection. NASA photo by Tom Tschida, 24APR2009.
ER-2 under-wing mounted cosmic dust collector pod. NASA photo by Tom Tschida, 24APR2009.
ER-2 Tropical Cloud Systems and Processes (TCSP) mission over Costa Rica, 06JUL2005. NASA photo by Bill Ingalls.
May 2010 pic of NASA’s ER-2 overflying the British Petroleum’s Deepwater Horizon Gulf of Mexico oil spill. NASA photo by Regan Geeseman.
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