US government shutdown will take a heavy toll on sciences and health services

With the US government in shutdown over their dispute about 'Obamacare', hundreds of thousands of civilian employees are being sent home as of today, many without pay. While this shutdown affects agencies across the entire nation, those that deal with the sciences are going to be dealt the hardest blow.

The Environmental Protection Agency is apparently suffering the biggest cuts, with over 93 per cent of their staff being furloughed. Those employees that get their funding from other sources, are essential for toxic cleanups or responding to environmental disasters, or are involved with enforcing rules and prosecuting environmental law cases are being kept on. Other than that, according to The Hill, EPA administrator Gina McCarthy said that this situation "will mean that EPA effectively shuts down."

Agencies that deal with health issues — the Administration for Children and Families, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health, all under the Department of Health and Human Services — will be keeping roughly half of their employees during the shutdown. This puts them in a better position than the EPA, but at the same time, it creates a very dangerous situation. Not only does it reduce the ability of the government to keep the public safe in more routine situations, if there was some kind of national health emergency, like a natural disaster or an outbreak of disease, response times would be down and services would be reduced, putting people at risk.

NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will be shutting down as well. Employees essential to public safety, such as those with the National Weather Service and the National Hurricane Center, will remain at work. That means that weather forecasts will still be available, and they will still be monitoring hurricane activity and issuing warnings. Otherwise, all research and other services will be stopped.

Although the most basic services that keep life on Earth safe from things like asteroid strikes will still be running, and enough staff will be around at Johnson Space Center in Houston to keep the International Space Station online and safe, NASA will be in complete shutdown. That means that, out of over 18,000 employees, only 600 will allowed to work during the shutdown. Satellites, including telescopes like Hubble, will be kept running and safe, but all information from them will be left unseen. If the dispute drags on, it may even impact future missions, like cargo deliveries to the space station, or the upcoming launch of theMAVEN satellite that's destined for Mars.

Fortunately, all the planetary science currently being done by Jet Propulsion Laboratories (the Curiosity and Opportunity rovers, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Cassini to name a few), and the Applied Physics Laboratory (like MESSENGER and New Horizons). This is because they are run by universities, rather than the government, but these laboratories do depend on public funding, so it's unsure how long they can continue.

Perhaps the saddest part of the NASA shutdown is that their incredible website, www.nasa.gov, one of the most visited websites in the world, is completely shut down, giving only a "this website is not available" message in its place.

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The hope is that the US government can resolve this dispute soon, and get everything running again soon. However, as the past has shown us, these shutdowns rarely end quickly. The last one, back in 1995, went on for a total of 21 days. However, since the Republican plan these days is to hold the government hostage to get whatever they want, even though the thing they're fighting against will ultimately help the entire nation, the chances of a quick resolution are probably pretty slim.

(Photo courtesy: NASA/CSA)

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