Keith’s note: NASA has just authored a paper on a new way for people with a wide variety of interests to use – and build – sensor technology that is a preview of the devices we will use to explore other planets. How will we develop these instruments – sensors, tricorders, scanners, smartphones – call them what you will is now underway at NASA. There is a vibrant citizen science / open science / DIY / “hacker” community in America and around the world that seeks to make interesting things out of ordinary materials. Cellphones outperform what we would have called a “super computer” just a generation ago – and they are in everyone’s pocket. Electronic parts can be bought online and how-to instructions are openly available online – globally. Full story

Keith’s note: On this date (3 January 1958) Sir Edmund Hillary’s team reached Earth’s South Pole – the first time humans had gone overland in 50 years after Amundsen/Scott. Now we’re flying recons over the Moon 50 years after Apollo to land at the lunar south pole – next to craters named after Antarctic explorers.

Keith’s note: Playing with memes – prompted by other memes. Much of the what is being pumped out on social media by the Administration and its agencies seems to be more about bullying and less about inspiration.

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: NASA is being rather shy about Artemis II launch dates and windows. Why?

• According to NASA Press Secretary Bethany Stevens @NASASpox “opportunities for Artemis II open February 6 and extend through the spring” [Note: “spring” extends until 21 June]
• But the NASA Artemis page makes no mention of launch date/window.
• And this 23 Dec 2025 Artemis II update makes no mention of a launch date/window.

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: there will be a “Artemis Accords Five-Year Anniversary Celebration” here in Washington DC on Thursday, December 11th, 8:00 am – 10:30 am ET Hosted by the Meridian International Center at the Meridian House. I’ll be there but I will try and post a live webcast link in advance. Registration. —- Program below.

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: There is a little global softpower projection on ABC Australia’s ABC Arts about the Artemis Accords with Jess Bush from “Star Trek Strange New Worlds” and Mike Gold from Redwire Space. You can view it here on Instagram or here on Facebook.

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 note: The politicos at White House and NASA were complaining about DEI (Diversity, Equality, Inclusion) in space exploration the other day. They seem to have missed the fact that it was the Trump 1.0 team who aded “first woman” to the NASA Artemis tagline. Oh well. You may recall that I mentioned an outrageous example in March 2025 of DEI-infused censorship at NASA: You Can Still Read NASA’s Deleted “First Woman” Graphic Novels. Two illustrated novels with “First Woman” in their titles featured two young girls, who happened to be brown skinned, yearning to become astronauts and explore the universe. Imagine what they could have become in future volumes of these stories with some of the new AI tools everyone now has access to. More below – including some animated AI examples.

Keith’s note: Everyone is pleased that Jared Isaacman is back in the NASA Administration nominee’s chair at NASA. But the current Administration just can’t take this win without taking a swipe at the previous Administration by calling them out on DEI issues – including the agency’s statement about sending the “first woman” to the Moon. see “NASA Nominee Plans to Prioritize America First Agenda in Space, Not DEI“ in the Daily Signal quoted by the White House press secretary: “Under the Biden administration, the public emphasis of the 2026 mission to the moon, Artemis III, was taking the first woman and first person of color there. But astronaut selection is about merit, expertise, and experience, NASA press secretary Bethany Stevens said. Under the Trump administration, NASA has refined its public messaging to reinforce that Artemis is primarily about advancing space exploration.” Newsflash: during the Trump 1.0 Administration (not The Biden Administration) the “first woman” wording was added according to the NASA press release: “NASA Publishes Artemis Plan to Land First Woman, Next Man on Moon in 2024.” Just sayin’. Use Grok next time to check these things.

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: In a nutshell, acting/interim/(maybe)actual NASA Administrator Sean Duffy says that SpaceX is behind “schedule” on its Artemis stuff. OK this may well be true. Yet Duffy can’t say when Artemis II, III, etc. will launch i.e. according to a “schedule” with dates etc. or if there’s an actual firm budget to stay on “schedule” or if his new ideas to try other approaches have a “schedule” or if a landing will have a NLT 19 Jan 2029 in its “schedule’. “Notional” won’t get us to the Moon, beat China etc. Just sayin’.

Keith’s note: according to an email from Heather Hall at NASA MSFC “NASA CFO has approved HLS as an excepted activity. … Given the contingency plan to protect Artemis II, Artemis III and the supply chain for Artemis IV+, HLS interprets the excepted employees to include:” (full email below)

Keith’s note: According to NASA “NASA’s 10 new astronaut candidates were introduced Monday following a competitive selection process of more than 8,000 applicants from across the United States. As you may have noticed the NASA release was titled “NASA Selects All-American 2025 Class of Astronaut Candidates“. FWIW according to Requirements to Become an Astronaut: “Today, to be considered for an astronaut position, applicants must meet the following qualifications: 1. Be a U.S. citizen …”. So, by NASA’s own definition, all NASA astronauts are “all American”, right? Just sayin’. Otherwise congratulation folks – Ad Astra y’all.

Keith’s note: I recently participated in a web chat about NASA’s plans to put nuclear power systems on the Moon as part of the Artemis program with my friends Miles O’Brien and space nuclear expert Bhavya Lal. All of us are Star Trek fans BTW (and we’re not shy about that). Here’s the video.

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’