OSTP Memo to Departments and Agencies: Increasing Access to the Results of Federally Funded Scientific Research “The Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) hereby directs each Federal agency with over $100 million in annual conduct of research and development expenditures to develop a plan to support increased public access to the results of research funded by the Federal Government.” American Astronomical Society Applauds Obama Administration’s New Open-Access Policy “So […]

Education & Public Outreach, Lars Perkins, Chairman Education and Public Outreach Committee NASA Advisory Council 29 November 2012 Larger image NASA Says It Cannot Advertise – and Then Buys Advertisements, (NASA Watch posting referenced in this NASA Advisory Council Chart). Keith’s 25 August 2011 note: I have lost count how many times people at NASA have told me that they cannot self-promote, advertise, lobby, or otherwise try to use standard […]

Living With a Star (LWS) Targeted Research and Technology (TR&T) NNH13ZDA001N-LWS, ROSES-13 Appendix B.6 FAQ/ Clarifications “10) Re: section 1.4.2 “Directed Topic Workshops” Is it required for the step 1 proposals to provide a list of likely team participants, or is it sufficient to have then main workshop organizers assigned? The title and investigators must be fixed in the Step 1 proposal. If, say, Dewey, Cheatham and Howe are involved […]

NASA: A Nuclear Reactor To Replace Your Water Heater, Forbes “Instead, a low-energy nuclear reactor (LENR) uses common, stable elements like nickel, carbon, and hydrogen to produce stable products like copper or nitrogen, along with heat and electricity. “It has the demonstrated ability to produce excess amounts of energy, cleanly, without hazardous ionizing radiation, without producing nasty waste,” said Joseph Zawodny, a senior research scientist with NASA’s Langley Research Center.” […]

Letter From NASA to Senate Appropriators Regarding Impact of Sequestration “Overall, for purposes of this assessment, the Agency assumed that the FY 2013 Continuing Resolution, with all of its terms and conditions, would be extended from March 27 to September 30, 2013, and that the sequester would cancel 5.0 percent of the fullyear amount, which would be the equivalent of roughly a 9 percent reduction over the remaining seven months […]

‘Blunt’ NASA boss says sequestration will widen the gap with Russian space program, Huntsville Times The gap between America and Russia, which can still launch astronauts, will not close, Bolden said. “The gap is going to get bigger,” he said. “I’m just being very blunt about. Anybody who thinks this is no big deal – it’s a big deal.” No furloughs seen in NASA’s Huntsville programs because of sequestration, Huntsville […]

Sriracha Hot Sauce Catches Fire, Yet ‘There’s Only One Rooster’, BloombergBusinessWeek “The first thing you smell at the Huy Fong Foods factory in suburban Los Angeles is the overwhelming aroma of garlic, a key ingredient in the company’s signature product: Sriracha Hot Chili Sauce. The first thing you see, however, doesn’t make nearly as much sense. In the lobby is a blown-up picture of two astronauts–one Russian, the other Asian-American–hovering […]

CuriousMars: Rover Poised to Test For Organics Where Habitability Potential is High, SpaceRef “The Mars rover Curiosity’s team is beginning to amass enough diverse science data to actively consider whether the area around its first drilling site was potentially habitable. At the same time the science team is readying the rover’s most powerful instruments to search for organic carbon and minerals supportive to life in its first sample of gray […]

Investing in Technology to Enable the Future: NASA Creates Space Technology Mission Directorate “As part of the Obama Administration’s recognition of the critical role that space technology and innovation will play in enabling both future space missions and bettering life here on Earth, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden has announced the creation of the Space Technology Mission Directorate. The directorate will be a catalyst for the creation of technologies and innovation […]

Dr. David S. McKay Has Passed Away “Our friend and colleague, Dr. David S. McKay, passed away peacefully in his sleep in the early morning hours yesterday, 20 February 2013. David had been battling serious health problems for some time, especially cardiac issues this past year or so. He was 77. .. Of course, he was the lead author on the 1996 paper in Science on the ALH84001 martian orthopyroxenite, […]