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Exploration

Website Folks at MSFC Still Ignore VSE – and the Rest of NASA

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
November 29, 2004

Editor’s note: less than 24 hours after NASA Watch made note of this omission on the part of MSFC, a link to NASA’s VSE suddenly appeared on this MSFC web page. However, they did not bother to add the link to this website’s companion, [email protected].

Editor’s note: Why is it that the [email protected] website at MSFC still has no linkage whatsoever to NASA’s Vision For Space Exploration (VSE)? This is especially odd given that this MSFC-hosted site claims that it’s mission is “to help the public understand how exciting NASA research is and to help NASA scientists fulfill their outreach responsibilities.” It is almost as of there are two public affairs organizations at MSFC.

OneNASA anyone?

Editor’s note: Oh yes: Then there is Spaceweather.com another news website sponsored by [email protected]. In addition to lacking any links to NASA’s VSE page, NASA’s Space Science Mission Directorate – or even NASA’s homepage, there is this curious caveat at the bottom: “Editor’s Note: This site is sponsored by Science@NASA. Space weather and other forecasts that appear here are formulated by Dr. Tony Phillips. They are not guarantees of space weather or other celestial activity.” Why is NASA paying for a website with information that apparently has enough of a potential for unreliability so as to warrant such a disclaimer?

Editor’s Update: less than 24 hours after NASA Watch made note of this curious disclaimer it was replaced with “This site is penned daily by Dr. Tony Phillips”. There is also a link to (Spaceweatherphone) a commercial service which Dr. Phillips apparently operates (since no mention is made of NASA, but his name appears) which charges a fee for certain services. Yet when you click on the link to subscribe to “space weather news” you are sent to a NASA webpage. Is spaceweather.com a NASA webpage – or is it a private business venture?

There is another website linked to by science.nasa.gov – Thursday’s classroom. Yet when you go to this website you see the notice “A note from Dr. Tony Phillips on behalf of the Thursday’s Classroom team: “Thursday’s Classroom will no longer be updated. We’re replacing it with Sky Calls, which we believe is innovative and even more fun than Thursday’s Classroom. Try it and let us know what you think.” This web page was apparently last updated in 2001. When you go to Sky Calls you arrive at a web page that also sells a commercial service. As such, the now-static NASA webpage for Thursday’s Classroom serves as a free advertising referral of sorts for Sky Calls. Shouldn’t there be some sort of disclaimer to that effect? Or is Sky Calls a NASA webpage?

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.