California Gov. Jerry Brown to launch satellite to track greenhouse gas emissions
California Gov. Jerry Brown started the week by signing a pair of actions to get his state to use nothing but electric power drawn from green sources like wind and solar by 2045. He ended the week Friday with a surprise: The state would launch its "own damn satellite" to track down greenhouse gas emitters who fuel global warming.
Brown announces California plan to launch satellite to track climate change
News of California's satellite was among an abundance of pomp and pageantry on Friday when some of the week's biggest names took the stage, including musician Dave Matthews, former Secretary of State John Kerry and chimpanzee expert Jane Goodall.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Tuesday September 18 2018, @12:42PM
If Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, or Bulgaria can "launch" a satellite, so can California. There are plenty of satellite companies based in California [wikipedia.org] which would be good choices to receive the contract for building one. SpaceX is a California-based launcher.
Is the real question about money? California is $1.3 trillion in debt, or just $428 billion if you want to be generous. Another $100 million or so thrown onto the pile of debt is negligible. If they want to save some money, they could do a rideshare instead of getting a dedicated Falcon 9 flight. They could build a smaller satellite, such as a CubeSat, for this rideshare. That could cost less than $200,000 including launch, although I don't know if it would meet their goals. They could partner with a California university for the ground operations portion.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]