Ignoring Exploration at NASA

Editor’s note: The NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations (NEEMO) project is currently underway. According to its webpage “Three NASA astronauts and a Cincinnati doctor are living and working under the ocean this month to test space medicine concepts and moon-walking techniques. Canadian astronaut Dave Williams is leading the 18-day undersea mission April 3 to 20 aboard the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Aquarius Underwater Laboratory off the Florida coast. NASA astronauts Nicole Stott and Ron Garan and Dr. Tim Broderick of the University of Cincinnati round out the crew. Jim Buckley and Ross Hein of the University of North Carolina at Wilmington will provide engineering support.”

Since NASA is now supposed to be refocused on supporting the VSE, you’d think that such exploration activities would gather prominent mention on NASA’s various web pages. Think again. Is there any mention whatsoever on NASA’s Exploration web page? No. How about NASA’s Human Spaceflight page? No. How about NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (where the Earth Science folks live)? No. How about NASA’s News and Events page? No.

It is really annoying to see that one part of the agency is either too lazy or disinterested to reference valuable activites being done by another. These days its hard to tell what the motivation (or lack thereof) is for this malaise. Oh well – you can read all of NEEMO’s 2006 reports here on SpaceRef – or Google up some news.

Editor’s update: I have just learned that there is a link here. But this still does not explain why ESMD, SOMD, and SMD ignore this project.

– Live underwater webcams
– NASA goes underseas to moon walk (picture), c|NET
– ‘Aquanauts’ Train for Space (Video), ABC