Editor’s note: For many years, retiring at Ames often resulted in a special cartoon by Roger Arno – one which includes a fair likeness of the departing employee – plus intricate puns, pokes, and prods at that person and their career – the challenges they faced, and the successes they helped to achieve. Some of the puns are exceptionally insider in nature and riddled with acronyms. However, if you are […]

Editor’s note: According to Element 21 Golf Company, a golf club manufacturer, “one of the International Space Station’s astronauts” is going to using a gold-plated version of one of their clubs to hit a transmitter-equipped gold ball off of the ISS and into its own orbit. [View the inspirational video]. Element 21 Golf Company’s Message Is Out of This World!“E21 golf equipment is now traveling 300 miles above Earth, and […]

Editor’s update: As was reported last week, NASA is hiring yet another political appointee at the NASA HQ Public Affairs Office. Joe Pally, a former government PAO official, has now been formally hired. He has been given an email address [jpally at hq.nasa.gov] – with his position listed as “Public Affairs Specialist” and has an assignment: SOMD (not ESMD as was earlier reported). Editor’s note: The Orlando Sentinel was first […]

NASA Solicitation: Innovative Partnerships Program Services“The Innovative Partnerships Program (IPP) at NASA has undergone significant changes and restructuring over the past few years. The purpose of this RFI is to communicate the current structure, elements, mission and products of the IPP in preparation for the issuance of an RFP for services that will replace the prior network which consisted of the Regional Technology Transfer Centers (RTTC), the Research Triangle Institute […]

NASA MSFC Solicitation: Cargo Vehicle Core Stage Engine“NASA/MSFC has baselined the use of a lower cost version of the Space Shuttle Main Engine as the Core Stage Engine (CSE) for the proposed Cargo Launch Vehicle (CaLV). At this time, special studies are needed to evaluate and assess the processes and requirements necessary to develop and certify the CSE for the CaLV. The Core Stage Engine will be a highly affordable, […]

Uncertainties cloud shuttle schedule, MSNBC“For now, NASA’s top shuttle managers are holding firm to a schedule that would launch the shuttle Discovery on its second “return to flight” test mission as early as May 10. However, several senior NASA officials have told NBC News privately that launching in May was at best an iffy proposition.”NASA Ships External Fuel Tank for Next Space Shuttle Mission“In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which […]

Next on NOVA: “Arctic Passage” http://www.pbs.org/nova/arctic: Broadcast: February 28, 2006 at 8 p.m. ET/PT – The greatest geographical prize of its day was the search for the fabled Northwest Passage through the island maze of Arctic Canada. In 1845, Great Britain mounted an all-out assault with a lavishly equipped expedition that was never heard from again. Then in the early 1900s, a little-known Norwegian adventurer set forth in a secondhand […]

Editor’s note: Once again NASA PAO staff at HQ just can’t stand the thought of just one weekly space station status report going out – without having an HQ spin on it – so they take one developed at JSC – change a few paragraph breaks, and then issue a second one from HQ. They do this every week. It would be one thing if they just re-issued the JSC […]

Editor’s note: After 31 years of stellar service, Marcia Smith will be leaving the Congressional Research Office. Effective 1 March, she’ll be in place at her new job: Director of the Space Studies Board at the National Academies of Science.

Final Quality Control Review of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP and the Defense Contract Audit Agency Office of Management and Budget Circular A-133 – Audits of JPL for Fiscal Year Ending 30 Sep 2001., 23 Feb 2006 IG-06-005, NASA OIG (PDF)