I don't understand the gripe of the article and pointing out Republicans controlling Congress as some sort of bad guy deception. There is a new satellite for climate monitoring set to launch on the 10th. They wanted to store old technology for $500+ million and *maybe launch it? Something's missing here.
>> It should have been replaced with the F20 probe, which had already been built and was being kept in storage by the US Air Force. However it had to be destroyed, on the orders of the US Congress, on the grounds that its storage was too costly.
They destroyed the replacement.
Isn't Joint Polar Satellite System the replacement?