Keith’s 2 Jan 2025 update: I posted this a year ago. We are coming up on the agency’s Remembrance Day observations. We’re about to see humans return to the Moon. NASA has not bothered to update or repost this link. Why airbrush history when you are trying to repeat it? Keith’s original 26 Jan 2025 note: Looks like this DEIA-oriented page at NASA.gov needs to be erased ASAP: “45 Years Ago: NASA Selects 35 New Astronauts On Jan. 16, 1978, NASA announced the selection of 35 new astronauts, the first time in more than eight years that the agency had admitted new astronauts. The selection of the first class of space shuttle astronauts held historic significance not only because of its then-record size but also because, for the first time, the group included women and minorities. Previous astronaut selections in the 1960s consisted of test pilots or scientists, in those days the domain principally of white men.“ Update: I posted this on Sunday morning, 26 January. I checked today – 27 January – and it is gone.  This is what it looked like 2 days before being removed.

Keith’s note: I did an A.I. search. There are approx 114,500 grammar, junior, high schools (public & private) in America. Space them out from here to the Moon (239,000 miles) and you get one every 2 miles. 3 million classrooms is 12 per mile. That infrastructure houses 55 million students – the Artemis Generation. As a child of the Apollo Generation I think a successful metric for NASA outreach for Artemis II and beyond would be a NASA poster, study plan, model, webcast in every classroom in America. Prove me wrong. NASA has had a decade or more to plan this. (Thanks Grok!)

Keith’s note: It looks like a lot of Americans still believe in a bunch of conspiracies (surprise surprise) including the whole Apollo Moon landing thing. NASA will launch Artemis II to circle the Moon in 2026. The Artemis III landing on the Moon will be in 2028 or whenever. News and rumor – and fears and hopes – all collide (badly) in today’s news bubble. It is going to be a challenge for NASA to put forth – not just the play-by-play of these missions – but also the rationale and (gulp) even the proof that they are real. I recall experiencing the 1969 landing. The world stopped and watched in awe. Will that happen again more than half a century later as we return?

• Recently I posted a revision of an earlier post “Doing Something Again For The First Time” (Update)“: “75% – 3/4 of the people on this planet have never seen humans walk on another world. We’re suddenly in a race to go back to the Moon and we are not clearly in the lead. The next time humans walk on the Moon will be the first time this happens as far as most of humanity is concerned.” Well, I forgot to factor in the people (across age groups) who think we never went in the first place. So I guess for them Artemis III (or a Chinese mission) will be their first lunar landing too.
• The Conservative Manhattan Institute’s recent Report on Republicans’ opinions survey says: “Moon landing: A similarly sized chunk of the Current GOP (36%) believes that the Apollo 11 moon landing was faked by NASA. Again, younger men are more likely to hold this view (51% of men under 50 vs. 38% of women under 50). There are stark racial divides: while only 31% of white GOP voters believe the conspiracy, this rises to 59% among Hispanic Republicans and 63% among black Republicans.” Based on personal experience I suspect that the Moon landing deniers exist in similarly large numbers among Democrats and Independents and across all age groups.

Keith’s note: 75% – 3/4 of the people on this planet have never seen humans walk on another world. We’re suddenly in a race to go back to the Moon and we are not clearly in the lead. The next time humans walk on the Moon will be the first time this happens as far as most of humanity is concerned. History is just history. Instead of grainy, flickering black and white imagery on a hulking television we’ll all see people bouncing on the Moon in 4K streaming on our cellphones. How does NASA adapt to this paradigm shift? So far, it is not doing that well. More below.

Keith’s lament: Apollo missions to the Moon were seen as great feats of exploration by the media. As we try to do that again NASA has clearly lost control of the narrative to tabloid-level stupidity. Since this whole ‘Back to the Moon, Mars, Beyond’ etc. thing was announced 21 years ago we constantly lose our way and get distracted and drag things out faster than we accomplish those things. And now we are going to beat China to the Moon? That’s not gonna happen unless we change the way the government/space industry hive mind does things. Moreover, it will not happen unless NASA gets the population and media on board while all this other crap is going on. Just sayin’

Keith’s note: Well done Sean Duffy for getting NASA and the President’s Artemis lunar missions back in the headlines. The top “NASA” stories on Google involve two Reality TV stars talking about Moon hoaxes. You’re in a league with the Kardashians now. What will you talk about in next week’s show?

Keith’s note: FYI Sean Duffy: NASA pushes out narratives (issued from the White House) about winning the “second space race” to the Moon. OK, that seems like a straight forward story to tell. Having historians and storytellers explain this adventure would be smart. But you really can’t do that when your boss dumps on one of the greatest lunar popular storytellers i.e. Tom Hanks. Read the room. Just sayin’

Keith’s note: I was just on CNN on HBOMax with Jim Sciutto talking about Jim Lovell [Audio] transcript below.

Keith’s Note: according to William Anders, Apollo 8 astronaut, killed in San Juan Islands plane crash: “Retired American astronaut William Anders, who was a member of the Apollo 8 crew, was killed in a plane crash just off the San Juan Islands on Friday afternoon. Anders’ son, retired Air Force Lt. Col. Greg Anders, confirmed the death to The Associated Press. The plane that crashed was a vintage Air Force T-34 Mentor, which is owned by Anders, who is also a San Juan County resident.” I met Mr. Anders at an event that Leroy Chiao and I put on at LSU with Sean O’Keefe. He was totally approachable and funny and went into incredible detail about his mission including the famous ‘Earthrise” pictures. Ad Astra. Update: NASA Administrator Remembers Apollo Astronaut William Anders

Keith’s note: This is the current NASA Advisory Council. No one is under 50. Many are much older. Indeed, some are de-facto life appointees. And no one is a member of the Artemis Generation – yet NAC members evoke them anyway as a throwaway talking point. If this is where our future in space is to be born it will be dull and listless. We can do better. Much better.

Keith’s note: the archetype for NASA outreach – beyond space enthusiasts – was the original NASA Art Program during Apollo. It expressed in images what math and physics could not. I recall seeing these images as a young boy and they served to heighten the excitement of what lay ahead. I am willing to state that everything NASA has done with and for the arts since that time has its roots in this program – including such things as the Golden Record on the twin Voyagers and the Pale Blue Dot image. According to “James Dean, Founding Director of NASA Art Program, Dies at 92 (NY Times): “James Dean, a landscape painter who ran a NASA program that invited artists like Robert Rauschenberg, Norman Rockwell and Jamie Wyeth to document aspects of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo projects, died on March 22 in Washington. He was 92. … Mr. Dean believed that artists offered a perspective that could not be found in photographs. “Their imaginations enable them to venture beyond a scientific explanation of the stars, the moon and the outer planets,” Mr. Dean and Bert Ulrich wrote in their book, “NASA/ART: 50 Years of Exploration” (2008).” Ad astra James Dean.

Keith’s note: George Abbey has died. It is not an understatement to note that he has left an indelible and enduring mark on NASA and human spaceflight. They only make one of these models once in a generation. Ad Astra George. From the Abbey Family: “Our devoted father, mentor, guidepost, and hero, George W. S. Abbey, passed away last night after an illness. He was 91.”

Keith’s Note: Former NASA astronaut Gen. Thomas Stafford has died. Details to follow. Ad Astra. Update from Bill Nelson: “Today General Tom Stafford went to the eternal heavens which he so courageously explored as a Gemini and Apollo astronaut as well as a peacemaker in Apollo Soyuz. Those of us privileged to know him are very sad but grateful we knew a giant.”

Keith’s note: On Wednesday evening I appeared on CGTN to talk about the launch of a cargo spacecraft to China’s Tiangong and the future of the Chinese space station program [audio]. A few minutes later I appeared on the Scripps TV network and all of its affiliates talking about Astrobotic’s peregrine and sending humans back to the Moon. [audio].

Keith’s note: According to NASA PAO “NASA will hold a media teleconference at 1:30 p.m. EST Tuesday, Jan. 9, to provide an update on the agency’s lunar exploration plans for the benefit of all under Artemis. Audio of the briefing will stream live on NASA’s website.” So … what will be discussed? According to Reuters: “Senior NASA officials in recent months have been mulling plans to move the inaugural Artemis astronaut landing to the fourth mission, giving SpaceX and other contractors more practice before making the first such landing in half a century. NASA officials presented that option to the agency’s senior leadership last month, but it could not be determined if it chose that path. It was also unclear what the new target dates for the initial Artemis missions would be.” In 2004 NASA announced that America was going back to the Moon. 20 years later and that is still 3-4 years ahead. In 1961 NASA was challenged to go to the Moon by 1970. It got there early. When we did not know how to go to the Moon we did so faster and much cheaper. Now that we know a lot more about how to go to the Moon it takes us longer to repeat what was once so easy to do. What’s up with that? Update: here is NASA’s release. I live tweeted the presser on @NASAwatch

Keith’s note: The popularity of space exploration – both real and imagined – is something that those of us in the developed and throughly wired developed world take for granted. What we often do not appreciate is how much of our content leaks out and finds its ways across the rest of the world. And in so doing how it can inspire millions of people – ones that we never stop to think about – to aspire to explore space. [much more below]

Keith’s note: I just did an interview on CGTN and was talking about the year ahead in space – space stations, Moon, Mars – and cooperation in the exploration of space. I mentioned the fact that I was watching a space station EVA clip on social media the other day and was initially confused as to what part of the ISS the astronauts were on – and then I realized it was China’s space Station. How cool – I was confused because there are TWO modern space stations in operation. More please. We then discussed the fact that more than half of humanity has never seen humans walking on another world – live – and for them this will be doing the same thing again for the first time – with more people experiencing this for the first time than watched all of the Apollo landings. I also mentioned the fact that U.S. researchers can now submit proposals to study China’s lunar samples. I then noted that one way great nations can cooperate in space is in great endeavors like space exploration – perhaps the greatest endeavor of them all. [Audio]

According to NASA PAO: “The following is a statement from NASA Administrator Bill Nelson on the passing of former NASA astronaut Col. (ret.) Frank Borman, who passed away Nov. 7, in Billings, Montana, at the age of 95. “Today we remember one of NASA’s best. Astronaut Frank Borman was a true American hero. Among his many accomplishments, he served as the commander of the Apollo 8 mission, humanity’s first mission around the Moon in 1968. “His lifelong love for aviation and exploration was only surpassed by his love for his wife Susan.” More. Ad Astra.

According to NASA PAO: “The following is a statement from NASA Administrator Bill Nelson on the passing of former NASA astronaut Rear Adm. (ret.) Thomas K. (TK) Mattingly II. “We lost one of our country’s heroes on Oct. 31. NASA astronaut TK Mattingly was key to the success of our Apollo Program, and his shining personality will ensure he is remembered throughout history.” More