Editorial: U.S. Planetary Program Poised to Lose a Generation of Scientists, Planetary Exploration Newsletter “National Research Council reports have long recognized these programs as fundamental to US solar system exploration efforts. The recent NRC planetary decadal survey gave them high priority, independent of the fiscal situation (the worse the fiscal climate, the more important these programs are to sustaining national capabilities in this area). Unfortunately, policy decisions by NASA leadership […]

A Message from the International Space Station to All Humankind, (Video) NASA “NASA Television shares this inspiring production by Italian videomaker, Giacomo Sardelli, about the International Space Station, its inhabitants, and its role in space exploration. Sardelli writes of the video, “I’m not the first one to use NASA’s pictures taken from the International Space Station to craft a Timelapse video. You can find many of them on the Internet, […]

Keith’s note: NASA Watch is (more or less) on hiatus until 2 Jan 2013. Happy holidays. If you are reading this over the holidays, then shame on you – unless you are a NASA contractor employee. If so, you have reason to be checking on the news. With the collapse of the budget deal with Congress, your government has failed you – and it looks like the fiscal cliff is […]

CuriousMars: Curiosity Begins Rock Triage to Avoid Dangers of “Martian Honey”, SpaceRef From Craig Covault and A.J.S. Rayl “The first use the rover Curiosity’s drill to obtain subsurface samples from inside a rock on Mars will be delayed until mid to late January to reduce risk to the rover during its first drilling operations.” “The delay is needed to complete extensive target rock “triage” to ensure that the heat from […]

NASA employee at KSC arrested on forgery charges, Click Orlando “A NASA employee, who works at Kennedy Space Center, was arrested on forgery charges on Thursday 38-year-old Candrea Thomas, an employee in the Public Affairs department at the Kennedy Space Center, has been booked into the Brevard County jail, according to Brevard County Sheriff’s Office. Deputies said Thomas faces 5 felony charges for allegedly forging documents.”

@NASAVoyager2 END MAYACAL BTUN 12.19.19.17.19 SHUTDOWN:UNIV(12) BEGIN BTUN 13.0.0.0.0 BOOT:UNIV(13)

Bolden: Don’t Have to Travel Far to Asteroid to Meet President’s Goal, Space PolicyOnline “Bolden said that when the President announced that an asteroid would be the next destination for NASA’s human spaceflight program, he did not say NASA had to fly all the way to an asteroid. What matters is the “ability to put humans with an asteroid,” Bolden said. An NRC report released earlier this month concluded that […]

NASA Solicitation: Science Definition Team for the 2020 Mars Rover “The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) invites scientists, technologists, and other qualified and interested individuals at U.S. institutions and elsewhere to apply for membership on the Science Definition Team (SDT) for the 2020 Mars science rover mission (hereafter Mars-2020). Mars-2020 is a strategic mission sponsored by NASA’s Planetary Science Division, through the Mars Exploration Program, all of which are […]

U.S. defense bill lifts barrier on satellite exports, Reuters “Tucked into the annual U.S. defense budget bill making its way through Congress this week is a long-fought and potentially lucrative reprieve for U.S. satellite manufactures and suppliers to export their products, officials said on Wednesday. Since 1999, spacecraft and their components have been grouped with ammunitions, fighter jets and other defense technologies and subject to the nation’s most stringent export […]

Soyuz Rocket Launches Expedition 34 to the International Space Station (With video), SpaceRef “At 7:12 a.m. ET this morning the Soyuz TMA-07M rocket with the Expedition 34 crew of Chris Hadfield (Canada), Tom Marshburn (USA) and Roman Romanenko (Russia) launched to the International Space Station on Expedition 34 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.”