vessels, he can’t help but enjoy the view from time to time: dolphins, pods of North Atlantic right whales, monk seals, and seabirds. It brings him back to carefree afternoons he spent dip-netting for minnows as a child — but with a greater sense of mission. “You really have that tangible feel- ing of success when you go out and complete a project safely and collect the data that the scientists want,” he says. “It’s a good feeling.” Zegowitz and his fellow offi cers
also are keenly aware of the history of their service and fi eld. While com- manding NOAASHenry B. Bigelow (R-225) and as the executive offi cer aboard Albatross IV before that, Zegowitz often admired photos of previous Albatross missions — “all the way back to the beginning. “It’s a very tangible line of history that ends with you,” he says. Ocean surveys, the agency’s core, have come a long way. Manual lead
line surveys could take ages before sonar. Theberge estimates that dur- ing the 1870s, USC&GS Blake ac- quired 3,000 deepwater soundings over fi ve years. “Today, one of our ships in the same depth of water can acquire probably 3,000 soundings in, I’d guess, fi ve minutes,” he says. What might the mission resemble in another hundred years? The future likely will bring more
surveys and plenty of modeling to help predict future conditions. Theberge says particular areas of interest include sediment-laden ports, subject to frequent changes with tides and storms, and low-lying coastal cities likely to change as the sea level rises. “NOAA’s mission will not stop,”
he says. “Somebody will be studying the environment and continuing to make improved predictions concern- ing its state.” Score has a similar view. What
yesterday required ropes and sight lines and today needs pilots and
sonar might in the future rely on un- manned air- and watercraft. “We have been testing small, unmanned hydrographic survey vehicles, called ‘Z-Boats,’ that can measure depths in areas as shal- low as 1 foot and get that data into processing almost immediately,” he says.
Earth and sea observation While many NOAA offi cers have eyes trained to the horizon or waves, others look even further afi eld. Capt. Will Odell, assistant director of satellite and product operations at NOAA’s National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) in Silver Spring, Md., now is able to look at the sun after the 2015 launch of the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR). This satellite, located more than 1 million miles from Earth at a gravity-stable location known as a Lagrange point,
NOAA WEATHERS ANOTHER TYPE OF STORM: BUDGET CUTS
President Donald Trump’s proposed FY 2018 bud- get, which was released in early March, called for a 17-percent cut in the nation’s science agencies, in- cluding the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). In response, MOAA President and CEO Lt. Gen. Dana
T. Atkins, USAF (Ret), said, “As the nation’s leading voice for commissioned officers for all of the seven uniformed services, MOAA believes a 17-percent cut in NOAA’s funding will severely limit important weather- monitoring services that keep citizens, businesses, and the military safe from extreme weather.” This isn’t the first time NOAA and the Commissioned
Officer Corps has come under attack. During President Bill Clinton’s second term in office (1996-2000), the ad- ministration proposed eliminating the NOAA Commis- sioned Corps as a uniformed service by denying NOAA the ability to recruit any new officers for several years. MOAA worked behind the scenes with NOAA’s
leadership over the course of two years to persuade Congress to retain the Corps and succeeded by the slimmest of margins. MOAA (then TROA) “took a
major leap of faith and sup- ported the NOAA Commis- sioned Corps during a very critical period,” recalls former NOAA Commissioned Corps Director Rear Adm. William L. Stubblefield, NOAA (Ret). “NOAA Corps represented a fraction of total membership ... [but] the organization was in lockstep in supporting NOAA Corps and flood- ed Congress and the administration with an avalanche of letters and phone calls.” While NOAA has yet to make any statements on the
subject of new budget cuts, former chief scientist for NOAA Rick Spinrad, who also was a civilian scientist with the Navy for many years, stated: “The proposed cuts to the budget at NOAA will compromise critical mission areas. NOAA’s seagoing operations — such as mapping and charting our nation’s coastline — depend on robust research advancements. With the cuts that are being offered, the administration is sacrificing the future of the United States’ global maritime leadership.”
MAY 2017 MILITARY OFFICER 53
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