Keith’s note: There are lots of NASA technology events and news on the @NASAiTech account which are retweeted and commented upon by @Kirablackwell – Kira Blackwell – who is the NASA Space Technology Mission Directorate Program Executive for @NASAiTech. Yet when you go to the NASA Space Technology Mission Directorate main page none of these @NASAiTech events are listed nor are they mentioned on the NASA.gov calendar. There is also […]
Keith’s note: On 27 January 2020 NASA issued a release NASA Selects First Commercial Destination Module for International Space Station. This title and a lot of the wording are misleading since the release actually says “NASA selected Axiom from proposals submitted in response to a solicitation through Appendix I of NASA’s Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships (NextSTEP) 2 Broad Agency Announcement, which offered private industry use of the station […]
Letter From Concerned Scientists Regarding H.R. 5666 “We are writing in response to the draft bill, HR 5666. We strongly agree that bipartisan support for our Nation’s space program is absolutely critical for its ongoing success. We also support the provisions for the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. We additionally strongly assert that commercial sector involvement is a critical investment in the future of our country. However, we have […]
NASA to Pay Tribute to Fallen Heroes with Day of Remembrance “NASA will honor members of the NASA family who lost their lives while furthering the cause of exploration and discovery, including the crews of Apollo 1 and space shuttles Challenger and Columbia, during the agency’s annual Day of Remembrance Thursday, Jan. 30. NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, along with other senior agency officials, will lead an observance at Arlington National […]
Now that the speed dating portion of this #cst2020 session is over will someone please explain where the “trillion” in “trillion dollar space economy” thing came from. No one ever explains it. They just assume it is true. Thanks. — NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) January 29, 2020 “You think of Earth differently when you see it from space. With all of the snow glittering I thought Earth had worn all of […]
Keith’s note: In summary, with regard to Artemis, the Democrats do not think NASA has provided enough detail and provided some detail of their own in this bill but today they said that the detail probably does not matter. The Republicans would prefer a bill that says other things but since they are not in charge good enough is good enough. It would seem that no one on this subcommittee […]
GAO: NASA Commercial Crew Program: Significant Work Remains to Begin Operational Missions to the Space Station “NASA will have fewer astronauts on the ISS in 2020 unless the Boeing and SpaceX spacecraft are ready to fly missions, but significant work remains for both. NASA has few back-up options if delays continue and will have only one astronaut on the U.S. side by April 2020. Most of this astronaut’s time will […]
James Webb Space Telescope: Technical Challenges Have Caused Schedule Strain and May Increase Costs, GAO “The National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) project has made significant progress since GAO’s last report in March 2019, such as completing testing of the observatory’s individual elements and integrating them together in August 2019. However, new technical challenges have required the project to use more schedule reserve extra time […]
Keith’s note: On this date 28 January 1986 the crew on board Space Shuttle Challenger, itself named after a fabled ship of learning and exploration, left Earth on a trip above the sky. And that trip ended in the sky. But their mission continues at challenger.org Ad Astra Challenger STS 51-L Accident
Keith’s note: If you have been following NASA’s exploration plans for more than 10 minutes you know that there have been a lot of pivots along the way. The chart above (minus my snarky large yellow arrows and captions) is floating around NASA and puts the past few decades of pivots, false starts, and detours in NASA’s exploration plans into context. Notice that even though the whole focus right now […]