There is reason to suspect the general political stance of the administration and the Republican party, seeking to deny global warming and other environment consequences of unfettered industrial activity, leads to this kind of activity undermining the growing self awareness of the species. But this shortsightedness will be overcome by equally compelling business reasons for increasing the data available in these scientific areas. Still, pretty irresponsible.

“On 5 June, the U.S. government decided to strip several climate instruments off a suite of polar-orbiting satellites intended to provide the next generation of weather and climate-monitoring data for military, civilian, and scientific users.”

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/312/5780/1580?etoc