SpaceX: More NASA Launches, Less Money, FreeSpace, Discovery News “I attempt to cover the news without bias, but privately I cheered NASA’s selection of startup SpaceX and innovative Orbital Sciences over The Big Three collaborative (not automakers, aerospace contractors) bidding on $3.5 billion of government work to deliver stuff to the International Space Station. I thought it was a little weird that SpaceX’s share, totaling $1.6 B to start, covered […]

Editor’s note: I have received several reports from folks here in the Metro Washington DC area that NASA is shipping copies of new book by Mike Griffin by priority mail. The book is titled “Leadership in Space: selected speeches of NASA Admistrator Griffin – May 2005 to October 2008” (NASA 2008-564). Isn’t a little odd to be shipping a book by priority mail to a bunch of people who are […]

Editor’s note: It would seem that Mike Griffin and Mike Coats want to be extra certain that everyone within NASA’s contractor workforce knows what Neil Armstrong thinks about Mike Griffin and the Obama Transition Team. —–Original Message—– From: Coats, Michael {JSC-Center-Director}(JSC-AA) Sent: Sat 12/27/2008 3:33 PM To: JSC-DL-JSC-Contractors Subject: FW: WSJ Letter by Neil Armstrong —–Original Message—– From: Griffin, Michael D. (HQ-AA000) Sent: Saturday, December 27, 2008 8:38 AM Future […]

NASA Rejects Trojan Horse, Motley Fool “On Christmas Eve-Eve, NASA finally announced the results of its long-running Commercial Resupply Services competition, and as the tidbit above correctly points out, neither Lockheed nor Boeing (nor Alliant Techsystems, for that matter) wound up in the winners circle. What you may not know, is that none of these three companies were actually bidding for the contract at all, at least not directly. Instead, […]

France’s first woman in space hospitalized after suicide attempt, Scientific American “The first French woman in space has been hospitalized after she tried to take her own life, according to published reports. Claudie Haignere, 51, was hospitalized late yesterday after she tried to commit suicide, an unidentified French government source told Agence France-Presse. Another source told AFP that Haignere overdosed on pills.”

Editor’s note: We were offline last night due to some power outages associated with bad weather on the West Coast. Everything should be working fine now.

Obama to boldly go where no geek has gone before, AP “President-elect Barack Obama used to collect comic books, can’t part with his BlackBerry, and once flashed Leonard “Mr. Spock” Nimoy the Vulcan “Live Long and Prosper” sign. That and other evidence has convinced some of Obama’s nerdier fans that he’ll be the first American president to show distinct signs of geekiness. And that’s got them as excited as a […]

Santa Invited To Explore NASA’s Moon And Mars Progress, NASA KSC “When Santa Claus makes his routine pit stop at NASA Kennedy Space Center’s Shuttle Landing Facility on Christmas Eve, he may do a bit more than chow down on milk and cookies. In the next few decades, humans could be living, working and playing on the moon, including millions of good little boys and girls counting on Santa to […]

Bush Administration Nixed NASA’s U.S.-China, Aviation Week “NASA tried and failed to obtain Bush administration approval of an overture to China for a cooperative U.S.-China space mission, NASA Administrator Michael Griffin tells Aviation Week & Space Technology. The White House believes that a higher level of cooperation is too great a reward to China for its human rights and arms-trafficking violations of international law. But the new Obama administration may […]

NASA Awards Space Station Commercial Resupply Services Contracts “NASA has awarded two contracts — one to Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Va., and one to Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) of Hawthorne, Calif. — for commercial cargo resupply services to the International Space Station. At the time of award, NASA has ordered eight flights valued at about $1.9 billion from Orbital and 12 flights valued at about $1.6 billion from SpaceX. […]