NASAWatch Is 25
How It Started | How It’s Going
Keith’s note: NASAWatch turns 25 on 1 Apr 2021. It started as “NASA RIFWatch” on 1 Apr 1996 with this post “RIF at NASA In Summer 1997?“. The website was first hosted on a Mac Classic II on a 128 kbps ISDN line in my old little condo in Reston, Virginia (see 20 Years Ago Today: The Seeds of NASAWatch). Here are a few things from those early days that are still online:
– Rogue Webmasters, Government Executive, 1 Oct 1996
– NASA’s Most Important Asset, Gerry Griffin, 31 December 1996
– Dan Goldin Comments to the Space Science Advisory Committee (SSAC) Meeting, 6/17/96
– Changes in Thinking At NASA November 29, 1996, PBS News Hour
Plus this piece from 2016
– NASA Watch Celebrates 20 Years of Critiquing the Space Agency’s Every. Single. Move., Inverse (2016)
Just to show you how things have changed, this photo should shock a few of you … (well worth a click) – and no, it is not an April Fool’s joke. Today, some up and coming bloggers and digeratti love to throw snark at me just like I threw it at Dan Goldin back in the day. Life is funny like that.
Those of you who have followed my ‘other’ exploits will know that I have had a certain interest in doing online updates from distant and extreme locations (Devon Island, Everest Base Camp, etc.). This website (still online), “The McMurdo Dry Valleys Long-Term Research Project – Life in Extreme Environments; An Antarctic Field Journal“, done with my friend Dale Andersen, was one of the very earliest – possibly the first – website actually updated from Antarctica.
People have been asking me to look back on things and pick the events that are most memorable. After all I have spent nearly 1/3 of my life – a quarter of a century – running this damn thing. I have been given many chances to do things because of my peculiar notoriety. This shaky video, done live with my friend Miles O’Brien in 2009 – about our mutual friend Scott Parazynski – while this picture was being taken – is the one singular moment where it all came together. I wrote about it here: “My Star Trek Episode at Everest“.
Thanks to all of you for stopping by for the past 25 years. Let’s all hope we’re here for the 26th anniversary.
Congrats, Keith! Well done!
Thanks. Now if only NASAWatch will get a job and move out of our basement.
Thanks for informative and insightful posts, also providing the media someone they can use to describe current space activities with that Miles Obrien quality. And the time to deal with mischief that sometimes occurs in comments section.
I’m NASAWatching daily, since it wasn’t even a teen!
Some of the things NASAWATCH gave light to over the years ended up changing very bad, very dangerous decisions. That ended up saving lives (even a few on orbit). Well done!
Thanks Keith, and congrats!
Thank you Keith for providing us mere mortals with a look into NASA, and for (hopefully somewhat) keeping NASA on its toes.
So many years of website service is a rare display of dedication.
You are my main source and have been for years for reliable NASA news and one of my few main sources for all space activities.Well done, thank you, and God bless you!
Congratulations on 25 years of curmudgeonry!