Keith’s note: NASA is consolidating social media accounts (yes this was needed). The FY 2026 NASA Budget Request from the White House eliminates STEM funding, removes all public affairs staff at the field centers, cuts NASA HQ PAO staff, and reduces the overall communications and outreach budgets. And of course diversity, equity, and inclusion is now a forbidden concept. So where is the plan that NASA is following in order to do all of this? Is there a plan for this at NASA? Or does NASA just have a concept of a plan? One would assume that all of these dramatic changes to the public face of NASA are being done according to some overall guidance – yes? What follows are some random questions off the top of my head about the effective education and public outreach and engagement plan that the world’s pre-eminent space agency would need in order to continue to lead the way – and also expand that lead. Or maybe they don’t actually care to have a plan. Or know how. (More below)

Keith’s note: NASA Sources report that OCOMM – NASA Office of Communications – employees are saying that at least 60% of their staff need to take advantage of a NASA Deferred Resignation Program (DRP), Voluntary Early Retirement (VERA), and/or Voluntary Separation Incentive Program (VSIP) to leave the agency and do so by the deadline. Otherwise there is going to be an involuntary RIF beginning in August. NASA is moving ahead with implementing the implications of the White House FY 2026 NASA Budget Request (detail below) even before Congress has a chance to take up the budget. All positions at field centers are being eliminated and NASA HQ will go from 39.9 to 33.8 FTE overall the agency will go from 76.2 FTE to 33.8 FTE. (FTE Chart below). Even though this would seem like jumping the shark (no budget in place) the folks running NASA have been told that organizational changes and efficiency actions such as this are simply following various Executive Order directives and would be happening anyway regardless of where the FY 2026 budget lands.

Keith’s note: when I was working at NASA on the Space Station program back in the day one things we’d tell students and the general public was that the space station would be one of the brightest things in the night sky and that it will fly over their house. I have gone outside more times than I can remember just to see it fly over. Ask my neighbors. I always explain to them how to find the flyover times online. When I was in Nepal at Everest in 2009 I went to the Spot the Station website to get ISS flyover times and showed the flyover to a bunch of Sherpa guides who had no idea that this was a thing you could do or that a person who lived up there was in Nepal with me. Now, in a memo sent out on 14 May 2025, NASA is taking the ISS tracking website offline and relying only on cell phone apps. The memo sent out to Spot the Station website uses says “the ability to find sighting opportunities near you will also no longer be available on the website.” At a time when everyone struggles to explain the value and impact of space exploration, shutting off a website like this is counterproductive in the extreme. Apps are great – but why delete a trusted source that has been of global utility for decades – especially one with text messages that have great utility for people with limited Internet access? Full Memo below.

Keith’s note: Here are the NASA excerpts from the FY 2026 Budget outline – “Support Space Flight. The Budget refocuses National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) funding on beating China back to the Moon and on putting the first human on Mars. By allocating over $7 billion for lunar exploration and introducing $1 billion in new investments for Mars-focused programs, the Budget ensures that America’s human space exploration efforts remain unparalleled, innovative, and efficient. To achieve these objectives, the Budget would streamline the NASA workforce, information technology services, NASA Center operations, facility maintenance, and construction and environmental compliance activities. The Budget also terminates multiple unaffordable missions and reduces lower priority research, resulting in a leaner Science program that reflects a commitment to fiscal responsibility.”

• Mars Sample Return: cancelled
• SLS and Orion: cancelled after 3 flights
• Gateway: cancelled
• Landsat Next mission: descoped
• Climate monitoring satellites: cancelled
• Space Technology: 50% cut
• ISS: reduce crew and science, splash in 2030
• Green Aviation: gone
• STEM/Education: Its woke so its gone.
• HAPPY NATIONAL SPACE DAY!

Keith’s note: I give up. When female space youtubers like Eliana Sheriff @esherifftv go out of their way to mock a mission with women going into space – comparing them to chimpanzees – why should the rest of us even bother trying to knock down all the space misogyny. Here’s the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-B_ISPE3mc

Keith’s note: now that budget cuts and layoffs are approaching, government science agencies are starting to come up with the public-facing rationale for these draconian cuts. Mostly, it is word salad that often smells like Chatbot babbling and wonky talking points which drive home the same points again and again and again. In addition, NSF no longer seems to be interested in assuring the validity of scientific information used by decision makers and the general public. You can expect to see stuff like this coming out of NASA soon. Oh yes: The globe in the NSF logo is surrounded by people holding hands. The people icons are painted in shades of brown-gold, from light at the top to dark at the bottom. Sounds like diversity to me. Let’s see if they change this. Here is Statement of NSF priorities posted on 18 April. Excerpts – plus a response from House Science Committee Democrats : (below)

Keith’s note: On Saturday I posted a series of links about NASA’s decision to try and erase all mention of the two “First Woman” graphic novels it released several years ago. It did not work. They are spreading. The Iceland Space agency is now featuring them and will soon have links to both documents.

Keith’s 23 March update: within a few hours after this was posted (over a weekend) A NASA YouTube video and an official NASA photo of two female astronauts were pulled offline. Both things had been online for several years. This is not the first time this has happened. Apparently NASA DEI Sanitation Squad is using my postings to help them delete things. Details below. Keith’s 22 March note: in 2021 NASA issued the first of two interactive comic books/graphic novels (“First Woman: Dream to Reality”) depicting young women dreaming of – and then training for – a future that would comprise the so-called “Artemis Generation.” NASA issued a second novel (“First Woman: Expanding Our Universe”) in November 2023. Yet, as of March 2025 NASA has moved all evidence of these two publications from their various internet platforms as part of the ongoing Federal Government purge of anything related to diversity or women etc. (see “NASA’s Ever-Changing Artemis Crew Tagline‘). But these two publications are not totally gone. I found them – rather easily. Here they are:

Dear OSTEM Community: The new Administration has issued several Executive Orders (EOs) and implemented policy and guidance that may affect grants and cooperative agreements.  Consistent with this direction, OSTEM is working diligently to comply with the requirements of the new EOs, and policy and guidance, as well as comply with court orders resulting from litigation related to these EOs.

Keith’s note: This NASA memo is circulating and was sent out yesterday ordering “all NASA contractors and grantees to cease and desist all DEIA activities required of their contracts or grants.” (Full memo below)

Keith’s note: According to an email sent out late on Thursday: “On January 20th, 2025, the President of the United States of America signed an Executive Order entitled “Initial Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions”. This Order repealed Executive Order 14035, “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility in the Federal Workforce.” It also directed agencies to take immediate action to identify and terminate DEIA initiatives and programs. To comply with this order, SMD is in the process of amending open Program Elements in ROSES-2024 to end the Inclusion Plan Pilot Study, remove requirements for Inclusion Plans and the evaluation factors associated with them, and adjust the content of some other Program Elements to remove references to NASA’s DEIA programs. Program elements that have already received proposals will not be amended, but if they required Inclusion Plans, those plans will not be reviewed and will not impact the selection of proposals. The program elements that will be amended include:” (long list below)

Keith’s note: Some people are feeling rather big right now. Others feel rather small. Let’s recalibrate. Wherever you are on the political spectrum just put all of that aside for a moment. We can all rise above this nonsense if we want to. America’s spacecraft have touched the sun and travel across interstellar space. Our reach has always exceeded our grasp. May it always be so. Ad Astra

Keith’s note: I am posting this piece by Fredrik Jonsson (video link below) as an example of what millions of people can now do with tools on their personal computers. At once realistic and fictitious – and yet sublime and majestic – these tools now allow one’s imagination to go wild. What is often lacking is a strong narrative – a message. Instead we get vibes and memes.

Keith’s note: NASA put out a report NASA’s Economic Impact Report for fiscal year (FY) 2023. In addition to its data rich/ lousy common language construction (see A Nice NASA Economic Impact Report By / For Wonks) NASA is not really spending much effort to tell people about it. In addition to the report there are additional data files and one PDF file for every state (but nothing for Puerto Rico). But other than some info from GSFC, KSC, and Armstrong, NASA PAO seems to have ignored its own websites and not sent out any media advisories or press releases relevant to local state economic impacts (no mention here) just their main release and a KSC link. NASA has once again demonstrated that it is utterly clueless and bereft of strategic thought when it comes to demonstrating its value and relevance to its stakeholders, taxpayers, and its puppet masters in DC. This is going to come back and bite the agency. It is downright embarrassing that the same agency that can look outward and back at the beginning of time and reprogram 50 year old spacecraft in interstellar space can’t explain itself to the people that pay for the whole space thing. More snarky detail below.

Keith’s note: According to this new report New Report Shows NASA’s $75.6 Billion Boost to US Economy “NASA highlighted how its Moon to Mars activities, climate change research and technology development, and other projects generated more than $75.6 billion in economic output across all 50 states and Washington, D.C., in fiscal year 2023. … Combined, NASA’s missions supported 304,803 jobs nationwide, and generated an estimated $9.5 billion in federal, state, and local taxes throughout the United States. The study found NASA’s Moon to Mars activities generated more than $23.8 billion in total economic output and supported an estimated 96,479 jobs nationwide. For investments in climate research and technology, the agency’s activities generated more than $7.9 billion in total economic output and supported an estimated 32,900 jobs in the U.S.” Full report

• Great news. Everyone should know by now that NASA has a broad impact in terms of economic factors. It also has a great impact on education, inspiration and serves as a potent source of soft power globally. Alas, the NASA people who generated this report, the people who run education and public outreach, and the people who run international relations at NASA will not make the best use of this report – or each other’s metrics. The report has lots of numbers. How about some real world stories and metrics that are meaningful to actual human taxpayers, citizens, students etc. – things that they can wrap their minds around when it comes to their daily lives, dreams, futures, and finances? This is a fine report but it was written by econometrics wonks and is only relevant to other econometrics wonks – not real people. If you ask NASA Public Affairs about real world impacts of this report they will be clueless and simply direct you back to the report. I’d like to know:
• How does this economic news affect the communities where the money is spent? [Give examples of specific, identifiable communities and impact that NASA spending has had]
• How were these economic metrics generated and how do they map NASA’s impact when compared to other agencies? [Does DoD spend more/less?; how does this compare to local non-space industries?]
• How do these efforts find synergy in the Artemis Accord signatories? [NASA Space Apps and other OIIR activities have an impact, yes? So .. what is it and how does it map against various NASA agreements and collaborations and where might there be new opportunities?]
• What impact does this pervasive NASA spending and participation affect career choices for young people?[Is there a correlation between spending in a locality and the number of students choosing space science and engineering and allied fields?]
• How do the communities where this money is being spent get to interact directly with NASA missions (other than communities with large NASA centers)? [How many ISS student interactions, town halls, etc. are done and where? what areas have the largest number of people’s names on space missions, mailing list memberships?]
• How does the economic news in this report find its way into national, regional, and home town media stories [why not create a publicly available, updated list of press citations so we can all see our tax dollars at work while NASA does all of its amazing things?]

Keith’s note: The draft FY 2025 spending bill is working its way through the House. NASA Science gets the same amount as it was supposed to get in FY 2024 which equates to a ~$230M cut. NASA education programs get $89 million – the same as it was supposed to get in FY 2024 i.e no big increase as The White House had requested. Looks like the Artemis Program will do OK – even if the education for the Artemis Generation will not.

Keith’s note: The NASA Astrobiology Graduate Conference (AbGradCon) is underway from 11-13 June at Cornell University. Yet there is no mention of this event at the official NASA Astrobiology website or its event page; at its 827,000+ follower Twitter feed @NASAAstroBio; at the NASA Science Mission Directorate webpage; The NASA STEM Education webpage; NASA+ scheduled events webpage; or even the Cornell University webpage. No email about links was sent out to the NASA Astrobiology mailing list or media. Here is the official AbGradCon webpage. Here are the live webcast links via the NASA Astrobiology YouTube page (that they tell no one about) starting at 9:00am EDT/1:00pm GMT each day: 11 Jun, 12 Jun, 13 Jun. Only NASA could take a subject as potentially profound as Astrobiology – the search for life elsewhere in the universe – and ignore even the most basic rudiments of outreach and public awareness. FWIW David Grinspoon and Lindsay Hayes I am not exactly sure who is in charge of outreach strategy for NASA’s Astrobiology program but they have failed miserably in this instance. Instead of offering access to students nationally – and globally – in what would be a wonderful exercise of soft power – NASA just sits on its hands. Someone needs to fix this.

Keith’s note: when the new Star Trek Show “Starfleet Academy” was announced the question on every fan’s mind was ‘is this a prequel or a sequel?’ i.e. does it happen closer in time to us – or not. Here’s the answer – and why it is not going to be set in a time close to us. The decision makes perfect sense – unfortunately. More below.

Keith’s note: Yet another example of the global interest in space exploration – between Colombia and Poland – and yet they are half a world apart. Oh yes: note the logo on the boy’s hat. NASA’s reach is global and usually beyond its own understanding since the agency passes on capitalizing on innumerable soft power options to help empower the Artemis Generation – everywhere. The one glaring exception is the NASA Space Apps competition which is only promoted in a substantive way by some portions of NASA SMD – but not the rest of the agency (sadly). This is from A space camp’s cultural exchange, Science (subscription): “The camp’s instructors—including author C.O.D.—had come from Colombia to conduct research at Poland’s Analog Astronaut Training Center (AATC). As the head of the camp, which is run by AATC, I had invited them to share their knowledge with the campers. We worked together to translate the scientific concepts from Spanish to English to Polish. As we planned the lessons, they shared the Colombian traditions of integrating movement, art, music, and ancestral knowledge into scientific work. For example, one activity demonstrated how scientists are extracting the pigments from Colombian fruits and trying to incorporate them into green solvents that could be used to make organic solar panels. During a break, we played salsa music over a loudspeaker and encouraged the campers to dance.” More on NASA branding.