Keith’s update: Now the page is approved and online again. WTF Meta? Keith’s earlier note: Here we go again. Meta has suspended the Facebook NASAWatch page – again for “community standards violations” . They took it down a week ago, denied my repeated protests, then suddenly restored it. It has been online for ~20 years. This is what you have to put up with if you try and get news to NASA people affected by layoffs, DOGE etc. See As DOGE focuses on NASA, Facebook suspends NASAWatch. ‘A curious coincidence’? from the Houston Chronicle on 21 Feb 2025 about the earlier suspension. Oh yes – on the shutdown notice it says “Good news: no violations to show”. So – there are no violations, so why was it taken down for “violations“?
(more…)Keith’s note: some sage advice from a reader: “I’ve been telling everyone at NASA and elsewhere, download all your personnel records, SF-50s; get all your appraisals and download those; go to any other places like employee express (for NASA and some other agencies) and make sure you download all your Leave and Earnings statements. Also, offload and save any emails that have to do with good performance and anything that you can use later. Once you’re out, you won’t have access to any of these things.” Update from GRC: a Directorate level supervisor said the OCIO said “eOPF downloads are being monitored – do not to save it to your agency computer.” Employees were told instead to print it out and were told that NASA will be doing searches on computers.
(more…)Keith’s note: the AI mapping of NASA management and employee structure has started at DOGE. This basic structure is online at DOGE now. Just follow the management tree and you will see that they are mapping out down to the sub-directorate level. They are already mapping employee age, time employed, and salaries. Knowing the tools that they have access to, their raw computer power, and unfettered access, I am certain that by the time they are done they will know quite a lot. And they will not necessarily want to openly share that data – or tell employees what individual information they have. Given the lack of obvious guard rails, this information may well involve various things that the government is not supposed to track – personally identifiable info like social media postings, and conceivably virtually anything you can already get through a basic commercially accessible ID check. And there will be errors that will only be caught after something illegal or inappropriate has been done with that info.
- Oh yes – this website is already creating stir: according to HuffPost: “The website states in tiny print at the bottom that its database excludes information from U.S. intelligence agencies. But an easy search shows that DOGE’s database provides details on the National Reconnaissance Office, the federal agency that designs, builds and maintains U.S. intelligence satellites. Not only are NRO’s budgets and head counts classified, but the prospect of Musk’s tech team meddling in sensitive personnel information is setting off alarms for some in the intelligence community.”
Keith’s note: NASA PAO just provided this statement with regard to my post You Must Hide Your Pride At NASA (they waited 4 days to respond) which was cited in a press release from House Science Committee Democrats. To be clear: I stand by every single word in my post. Its real folks.
- NASA: “There are no new bans on any personal affects in employees’ workspaces. As always, the items must adhere to legal, safety, and NASA rules and guidelines. Some managers have been reminding employees to be mindful of what personal affects they have in their workspaces, but there are no penalties or warnings about being placed on administrative leave for displaying personal items.”
Keith’s note: D.O.G.E. people are expected to be at NASA this week looking through the things that they want to look through. Make sure to hide the alien tech before they get there.
(more…)Keith’s note: According to the Washington Post: “The DOGE team plans to replicate this process across many departments and agencies, accessing the back-end software at different parts of the government and then using AI technology to extract and sift through information about spending on employees and programs, including diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, according to another person familiar with the DOGE process, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to describe it. – The Technology Transformation Services section of the General Services Administration, a group established during the Obama administration to make government platforms more accessible and intuitive, has become a key tool of the DOGE.”
(more…)Keith’s update: A month ago, on 2 May 2024, NASA Ames posted “Researchers Develop ‘Founding Document’ on Synthetic Cell Development“ which says “In a paper published recently in ACS Synthetic Biology, researchers outline the potential opportunities that synthetic cell development could unlock and what challenges lie ahead in this groundbreaking research. They also present a roadmap to inspire and guide innovation in this intriguing field.” When it was originally published at NASA.gov it had a link to “Building Synthetic Cells─From the Technology Infrastructure to Cellular Entities” (ACS Synth. Biol. 2024, 13, 4, 974–997 Publication Date: March 26, 2024) which, it would seem, was the ‘Founding Document’ that NASA wanted everyone to know about. Cool stuff. Thanks for the heads up NASA. But wait: the article that NASA points to is behind a pay wall. It is rather odd for NASA PAO to overtly promote this article as a ‘Founding Document’ – one that is apparently important (to NASA) – but then lets this important thing sit behind a paywall offsite. So I sent an email to NASA a month ago. They said they’d fix it. They then fixed it. Now the link is simply gone from the NASA.gov article and no hint is offered as to where it is or how to read it. A month later and there is still no link to the article or link to the text that is this ‘Founding Document’ By now NASA should be aware of various OSTP/OMB policies with regard to making taxpayer-funded research available. NASA has gotten better at this but apparently not everyone got that memo. So, will you please post the ‘Founding Document’ NASA – or make it openly available at its source?
(more…)Keith’s note: I guess its nice that NASA’s Astrobiology program officially emails info about job openings – in Norway. It might be a little more appropriate to start sending out info on job openings – in the U.S. – for all the people being laid off at NASA JPL and NASA Goddard. Meanwhile at the official NASA Astrobiology website the top story is about a undergraduate fellowship with a due date of 2 February 2024 – almost 2 weeks ago. Why bother being accurate. Just sayin’
(more…)Keith’s note: Take the time to read the Astrobotic press release (below). While it is sad that Peregrine won’t land on the Moon it is very important that everyone – including NASA – takes note of the unrivaled transparency and promptness of updates that Astrobotic has provided. They’ve set a new standard that all responsible users of space should follow. Ad Astra.
(more…)Keith’s note: according to a new GAO report “Cybersecurity: Federal Agencies Made Progress, but Need to Fully Implement Incident Response Requirements“: “The Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration should ensure that the agency fully implements all event logging requirements as directed by OMB guidance. (Recommendation 17)” … “In written comments, reprinted in appendix XI, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration concurred with our recommendation and stated that it plans to address our recommendation by, among other things, creating a comprehensive plan to address all event logging requirements under a recently established Cybersecurity Improvement Portfolio. It also noted certain challenges it faces, such as data integration into the agency’s uniquely designed systems and resource constraints.” [Note: NASA’s response is on pages 63-64]. Previous NASA IT posts
(more…)Keith’s note: This is a revised version of the original website that was first posted – from Antarctica – in 1996. As far as Dale Andersen (who is in Antarctica now doing Astrobiology research) and I know we ran one of the first – if not the first website updated FROM someone onsite in Antarctica. You might find out 1996 take on things interesting … Dale wrote: “We have radio telephones that allow us to contact McMurdo via several repeaters which have been placed in Taylor Valley. With this phone line we can send data via computer (e-mail, access the web etc.) at about 4800 baud. The signal is first sent to McMurdo, and is then forwarded by the servers there to Black Island (thirty miles to the west of McMurdo), and then uplinked by satellite back to the states where it enters into the Internet and ends up at Keith’s house in Virginia.“ and I said “When images have been placed on the remote FTP server, I use FTP to retrieve the images (usually from my home). I then manipulate the images into thumbnail and webpage – optimized versions with Adobe PhotoShop 4.0, link them to a webpage using World Wide Web Weaver 1.1, and then mount them on the Reston Communications webserver. My webserver is a Radius 81/110 Mac clone, with 40 Mb of RAM, running Webstar 2.0, connected to the Internet via a dedicated 128 kbps ISDN connection.” In other words this was sporty at the time but still rudimentary. Here are the pics. Oh yes – they got to hang out with Sir Edmund Hillary there.
(more…)Strangely @KathyLueders talks again and again how these #ISS missions are "our nation's missions" and emphasizes the need for #NASA to inform the public – and then a moment later she says that @NASA is cutting back on live mission updates due to the cost. Huh? pic.twitter.com/ibg9y8zM7g — NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) February 4, 2022
Sometimes it seems that everyone on Earth is wearing a NASA T-shirt, Washington Post “Go to any college campus, Ulrich said, and there are “kids there with NASA shirts on. You see it on the subway. You see it on the street. It’s just proliferating.” It sure is. Last year, Ulrich said, the agency received 11,000 merchandising requests from companies that wanted to use the logo on some sort of […]
Media Accreditation Open for Minotaur I Rocket Launch June 15 from NASA Wallops “Media must apply for accreditation by 4 p.m. Friday, May 28, by sending a request to Keith Koehler at …” Keith’s note: Yesterday I stumbled across a media advisory for media accreditation from NASA Wallops for a launch via someone’s Facebook page. It is posted by NASA here: Media Accreditation Open for Minotaur I Rocket Launch June […]
Modernizing Science Websites, Thomas Zurbuchen “More so than ever, our Science Mission Directorate (SMD) websites are the front-door to our worldwide community of enthusiasts and learners. Upon an in-depth analysis of our web presence, I believe it is time for us to elevate the way we communicate and enhance the breadth of our audiences using a focused approach on great content, and best-in-class optimization techniques. As will all of our […]
Keith’s note: By now you must be bored with my daily critique of how NASA organizes and presents itself to the public, policy makers, news media, and the rest of the world – especially when it comes to education. (see Fixing Education And Outreach At NASA. Part 1: STEM Engagement Office) To virtually everyone, everywhere, NASA.gov online resources are how people learn what NASA does – and where they go […]
Keith’s note: When you think of NASA you think of science. That is because NASA wants you to think that. And since there is a lot of science at NASA, this is rather easy to do. Indeed, many times the people or organizations tasked with getting the science out via education and outreach at NASA are not very good at doing so. But the science is so compelling that it […]
#FlashbackFriday For online journalists, bloggers, etc. who think you are having a hard time covering @NASA This is what I had to go through back in 2000 just to get #NASA press credentials. House Science Committee Chair & the NASA OIG got involved. https://t.co/8oPpZUxESM pic.twitter.com/A0YbfujPUA — NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) March 5, 2021 Keith’s note: From my 24 July 1999 NASA PAO media accreditation request: “NASA Watch is read regularly (during […]