Ignoring NEEMO (Again)

NASA Uses Undersea Lab to Prep for Future Space Exploration

“Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Koichi Wakata will lead the crew on a seven-day undersea mission July 22 to 28 aboard the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Aquarius underwater laboratory …”

Editor’s note: The NEEMO 10 crew is already half way through their mission – yet NASA PAO – and its mission directorates – seem to be ignoring the project – again.

If you go to the NEEMO site at NASA.gov there are no images or status reports. As far as the NASA portal goes the missions page has nothing on NEEMO – neither does the Breaking News page. Also, there is no mention on the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate page, Space Operations Mission Directorate page, NASA’s Human Spaceflight page, or on JSC’s news page. As far as I can tell JAXA has nothing online at all – searching their website for “NEEMO” yields no results.

This is all rather odd since NASA PAO touted this crew’s activities as follows: “… NEEMO 10 project will include undersea extravehicular activities imitating moonwalks to test concepts for mobility, using weighted backpacks to simulate lunar and Martian gravity. Techniques for communication, navigation and using remote-controlled robots on the moon’s surface also will be tested.” Indeed, if you look at this NOAA Status report from 22 July it says that “NEEMO 10 is sponsored by the Constellation Program at NASA. The Constellation Program is responsible for taking NASA back to the Moon and on to Mars.”

Why go through the expense of announcing a mission like this – and then carrying it out – if no one knows that it is happening? Since NASA PAO is dragging their feet you might as well just go visit the NOAA Aquarius Website directly – they feature live webcams.

Editor’s 25 Jul update: JSC’s NEEMO page finally added journal entries – otherwise, the rest of the agency’s websites continue to ignore NEEMO.