NASA.GOV Is Totally Offline – Almost
Keith’s note: All websites hosted at NASA.gov addresses websites present this placeholder when you try and visit them since all websites hosted at ***.NASA.gov are supposed to be offline. But JPL.NASA.gov is online. It would seem that JPL folks are making an illegal/unauthorized expenditure of tax funds to keep their overtly official NASA.gov website online. JPL is just another NASA contractor and bills NASA for everything eventually w/overhead – just like all of the other contractors. Why does JPL run things when other contractors are shut down? Guess they did not get the memo – or they just ignored it. I’d ask JPL PAO but they 1. always ignore me and 2. are not at work today.
Oddly, while NASA.gov goes dark, JPL keeps all of its websites online and fully functional but then tweets this – the same thing NASA itself sent out:
Due to the gov't shutdown, all public NASA activities/events are cancelled or postponed until further notice. Sorry for the inconvenience.
— NASA JPL (@NASAJPL) October 1, 2013
Yet while JPL keeps its official website functional it uses its social media accounts to say that they will not be keeping these official accounts active. So which is it? Is JPL “NASA” or is it not? Is JPL staying online or going dark? Are webmasters “essential” personnel while tweeters are not? Why is it that JPL can easily leave its websites online albeit not updated with all content available — but NASA.gov cannot? Does JPL know something about websites that NASA HQ does not?
These websites: lvis.gsfc.nasa.gov, weather.msfc.nasa.gov, thunder.nsstc.nasa.gov/, kepler.nasa.gov, and www.nas.nasa.gov are still online. Let’s see if darkness falls over them as well. Please let us know if you find any survivors that are still online. So much for a consistent NASA IT policy.
Sorry, but I won't be tweeting/responding to replies during the government shutdown. Back as soon as possible. http://t.co/XjL1JDaotz
— Curiosity Rover (@MarsCuriosity) October 1, 2013
JPL-related Twitter feeds, website to cease with shutdown, Pasadena Star News
“In line with NASA headquarters shutting down on Monday, JPL has put a hiatus to news releases, website and social media updates. “Information going out through the Twitter feeds and website, we coordinate with the program manager at NASA,” said JPL spokeswoman Veronica McGregor. “Without that coordination, we’re not releasing mission information during the shutdown.” However, since JPL is privately run by Caltech and under contract to NASA, it is spared from being shut down with the rest of the space exploration organization. But the JPL Twitter feeds that are manned by NASA headquarters are already silent.”
Keith’s note: Ms. McGregor (who refuses to interact with NASA Watch – on any topic) fails to explain why the NASA JPL website (with NASA’s logo on it and other official NASA Information) continues to stay online while all other official NASA websites are taken offline. If she wished to actually comply with what the agency is doing then her websites would go dark. They have not. Also, unless I am mistaken, a number of JPL Twitter accounts that have been shut off are actually maintained by JPL employees.
If you are going to be so bitter, at least check your facts. JPL is owned by Caltech, not NASA. Caltech is covering the shortfall, for now, for most of JPL. That’s not illegal any more than your daily, bitter whining.
You might want to check your facts. NASA.gov is owned by NASA – not JPL. NASA allows JPL to use it. And what is on JPL’s websites? Missions for which NASA has paid 100% of the cost. JPL likes to act like NASA when it suits them and as Caltech when it does not. As for Caltech coverage of costs – no mention has been made by them of this – either way NASA will reimburse them for what they spend – since they will bill NASA anyway – like they always do.
NASA was strongly encouraged to redirect all publicly-facing websites to the shutdown page in case any information became outdated and (obviously) wouldn’t be able to be revised. Just because the jpl website is accessible doesn’t mean that they are actively monitoring or updating it, and therefore billing for it. Also, not all contracts are shut down – some are still funded for various lengths of time. During the 95-96 shutdown, only 20% of federal contracts weren’t operating.
Ok possible outdated-ness, that’s the best reason I’ve heard.
I don’t understand why these websites get taken down. Most sites, if properly configured, stay up on their own just fine as long as they’re not DDOSed. Why pay someone to come in and change the settings for a redirect, do the testing to make it work…etc?
It might take more webmaster time to take a site down and put it back up than to…? do regular maintenance duties? Hopefully their web site can be just left on its own for a while as needed. I don’t know how it’s hosted but just not paying for next month’s hosting and letting it lapse might cost less than making those transitions as well. If it’s hosted in-house, I suppose they could turn off the lights to save electricity.
I guess those NASA buildings that still have power turned on are also making an illegal expenditure.
Many contractors have contracts where they are prepaid for expected, routine expenditures. During the last shutdown, the contractor I worked for kept us going, as they had been paid several weeks in advance, though we had to vacate NASA buildings. We did get within a couple of days of being sent home without pay. And unlike the civil servants, we would not have been paid for the furlough days.
As contractors, we’re still at work. We’re Caltech employees, and the contract from NASA has money in hand for at least several weeks. We were told to assume business as usual, with further bulletins as events warrant.
I just did a quick check and it looks like DOE labs, which as FFRDC’s share the same status with respect to the gov’t as JPL, are also open and operating until their carryover funds run out. So there’s really nothing remarkable about JPL being open.
The public updates may be limited because, as you point out, the domain is owned and managed by NASA, and even if the social media are posted by JPL staff there may be some requirement for NASA oversight.
Keith has commented several times before about his dislike of projects maintaining multiple websites, but it looks like it’s a good thing in this case. I’m trying to share some information with folks about next week’s Juno Earth flyby. I can’t send ’em to the official NASA page because of the shutdown…but hey, no worries, because SWRI’s excellent Mission Juno page is still up and running. http://missionjuno.swri.edu…
However, there’s no reason a single centralised project site can’t be set up to ensure that the various independent groups and agencies, contractors, ESA, CSA, etc, can sub for each other in the event that one agency is unable to maintain it.
[That said, I do see a point in having multiple project sites, but not in the uncoordinated overlapping way they are set up currently. It seems logical to me to have a “kids site” for the general public PR, a glossy pamphlet, hosted at a simple obvious projectname.nasa.gov address, with all the flash and web 2.0 BS that increasingly infests NASA’s project pages. An “enthusiasts” site, for people who want more meat, current details & research announcements, and are more web-savvy. A “researchers” site, with raw data and feeds for external researchers and PhD students, insanely simple flat boring formatting (ie, long lists of links to specific data). And the in-project site, non-public facing.]
I’m not sure why this piece needed to be full of hysterics. Maybe if there was less of that, the PAOs may be willing to talk to you as they talked to Emily Lackdawalla at The Planetary Society.
http://www.planetary.org/bl…
Veronica McGregor is not supposed to be talking to ANY media.
It stuns me how many statements you make that you haven’t researched whatsoever. You assume — but did not check — that all government contractors are not working. That it costs anyone any money to leave a static website online. That there was a single policy on ALL NASA websites that JPL is violating. Do a little research before you make blanket statements, which in this case are incorrect, and you might be respected a little more.
As an outside observer of the space program, I find nasawatch to be a very useful resource. And I find Mr. Cowing often critiques NASA, Congress, and other actors for extremely valid reasons — high level policy mistakes.
But every now and then Cowing goes off on deeply picayune matters of NASA bureaucracy. It’s one thing if NASA is trying to hide something from the public, but jeez, the most important thing about the shutdown for the US space program is inconsistencies in how the press office has handled web sites? Really? Sure, they should probably handle it better, but man, what a small tree in a big forest of stories you might cover. Plenty of other agencies are confused on this — Defense Dept schools should all be under the same rules, for example, but in reality West Point has a “no updates” disclaimer but their website is up, while National Defense Univ is simply down w/o any redirect, it just “404”s to nowhere.