What does the Washington D.C. Metrorail subway system have in common with the Defense Department’s Meteorological Satellite (DMSP) program? They both are examples of the poor job this nation is doing of maintaining the engineering marvels we have created.
Washington’s Metro, once a showcase public transportation system, was shut down on March 16 for emergency inspections following a series of electrical fires (one of them fatal). An essential part of the Capital Area’s economy and daily life, the 40-year-old system has deteriorated to the point that it has become unreliable and dangerous while officials in Washington, Maryland and Virginia watched and have done nothing.
A week before the Metro shutdown, the Government Accountability Office released a report on DOD’s weather satellite program that concluded that a lack of adequate planning for replacing or extending the aging system could result in gaps in coverage as early as this year. As a result, “DOD and other stakeholders who rely on [satellite] data are now in a precarious position in which key capabilities require immediate and near-term solutions.”
Some workarounds for maintaining coverage have been identified. But any real solution in the near term seems unlikely. Two unsuccessful attempts were made at follow-on programs between 1997 and 2012, one a collaboration with NOAA and NASA that was cancelled because of cost overruns and schedule delays.
America is great at innovation. Given the challenge of inventing something or building on a scale that has never been done before we respond with imagination and energy. Witness the Interstate Highway program that began in the 1950s and the space program of the 1960s. Once we have achieved the impossible, however, we seem to lose interest and the mundane job of taking care of our creations is ignored. The nation’s highways and bridges are deteriorating. One more example is the Memorial Bridge, the iconic Potomac River span linking Washington with Arlington National Cemetery. The National Park Service said earlier this month that it could be closed to vehicles in five years without immediate repairs.
The responsibility for these failures is at the top of our governments, not with the people in orange vests who work on roads and bridges or with the white-shirted technicians in satellite ground stations. Cutting budgets for maintenance and upgrades is a cheap and easy way for legislators without political courage to avoid making difficult decisions.
A DMSP satellite exploded in orbit in February 2015, and one year later another has stopped responding to commands from its controllers at NOAA. And Congress has cancelled the launch of the final DMSP satellite scheduled for this year because of cost. The Senate also has slashed the administration’s budget proposal for new NOAA weather satellites by two thirds, and the House has zeroed out that funding entirely, potentially crippling the Weather Service’s ability to accurately predict storms.
Politicians with short attention spans, easily distracted by bright shiny objects and more interested in fundraising than in funding, are failing the nation and letting its infrastructure fall into ruin. Maintaining, upgrading and replacing our critical infrastructure are just as important as building it in the first place. We would be better off if politicians who are too shortsighted or lazy to do the hard work of ensuring this maintenance would seek employment elsewhere.