The upward gamma-ray bursts have been know for quite a while. How could it be a “never-before-seen phenomenon” when there are about 20 really good studies (by balloons) already published about it? Heck, I even have a paragraph about it in my book that been out a couple years (there’s even a cartoon). NASA has a bit of a history of this. The classic goes all the way back to the their first satellite explorer one. It “discover” the Van Allen Radiation belts that had already been discover by Van Allen. They needed a win so the discovery was rediscovered. It’s fun to check the dates on Van Allens studies about the belts. Many predate the explorer one flight. This doesn’t diminish James Van Allen in any way. In fact I think it shows what a truly great scientist he was. He make the discovery with his low cost, university student and budget rockoon space program. He didn’t actually needed NASA. They very much needed him.

It’s not the researchers fault. They are really getting some new and great data about TGF’s. I just get irked when great balloon discoveries are ignored until an “important” satellite takes a look.

http://www.space.com/10602-antimatter-beams-thunderstorms-nasa.html

Kinda sounds like yet another failure of ignorosphere science.