Keith’s note: Sami Aziz, an Emmy-Winning Creative Leader and Head of Live at NASA posted this on LinkedIn: “Tonight, we did it again. Our “2024 Total Solar Eclipse: Through the Eyes of NASA” broadcast has already been honored with the News and Documentary Emmy for Outstanding Live News Special. And tonight, at the 76th Technology and Engineering Emmy Awards, we won again for Excellence in Production Technology Application. This Emmy recognizes the engineering achievement required to tell the story of the eclipse across 3,000 miles of North America, from Mazatlán, Mexico to Houlton, Maine. It honors the innovation, discipline, and determination that our broadcast engineering teams brought to the most complex broadcast in NASA’s history. We set out to tell the story of totality in a way the world had never seen. The creative led the way for a multi-site, IP-based broadcast of unprecedented scale. The creative fueled the decisions, the engineering, the risk-taking, and the countless hours it took to bring thi vision to life.I am so proud of this team, our engineers, and every unsung hero behind the camera and behind the cables. Thank you for pouring your heart, your brilliance, and your belief into this mission.” Below is a picture of how they literally wired everything together across NASA that got Walt Lindblom and Sami Aziz the Excellence in Production Technology Application Emmy.

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Keith’s note: NASA’s global branding reach is astonishing with immense soft power projection potential – if only NASA knew how to take full advantage. Have a look at this video of a landslide in Sri Lanka. Someone wearing a NASA logo t-shirt pops in and out of view. Yes, a landslide in Sri Lanka – on Twitter. Even when it is passive or unintentional, NASA’s branding constantly shows up. Oh yes: you don’t see the Chinese Space Agency CNSA’s logo on people’s t-shirts. So we’re winning the space race on that front. But isn’t global reach what it’s all about in the end? Just sayin’.

Keith’s note: OK so I am ‘back’. Thanks for all the kind words, support etc. Let’s get down to business. The month of September is going to be the hardest yet for NASA. Multiple budget profiles will collide with one another – in an inelastic fashion. Missions will be on hold and operate in holding pattern mode. Other missions will simply die at the hands of budgeteers. And the people of NASA – regardless of where their paycheck comes from – will still be called upon to lead humanity’s exploration of space while being stressed from multiple directions. Meanwhile, the political people inside the glass doors on the 9th floor of NASA HQ simply don’t care what happens to the agency’s workforce – or keeping them informed. As if you had not already figured that out. That said, NASA is already ‘Great In Space”. No “Again” required. Despite the political rhetoric over the years, NASA has begun humanity’s expansion into interstellar space (see image). No one else has done that. And NASA’s lead will be rather hard to eclipse. Anyway – here is my top ten take on things to be aware of in September . Warning – it is not pretty – but it is also not without hope. [More below]

Keith’s note: that feeling you get when you grew up watching Star Trek – thinking that NASA was the key to that future – and then seeing today’s FY 2026 NASA budget request from the White House and realizing that you’ve been robbed.

Keith’s note: The NASA DEI Erasure Squad has been busy. If you search for past LPSC abstracts on DEI, DEIA, diversity etc. you’ll see that they have disappeared and prior meeting agendas have been altered. Try this one from 2022: “Insight’s Diversity and Inclusion Working Group“. Its gone. But the Internet Archive has it here. While I have your attention how about this one over at NTRS “Diversity and Inclusion in Spacecraft Science Teams: What Do We Know and What Can We Do About It?” from NASA GSFC that was presented LPSC 2023. Or “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility Initiatives on the Mars 2020 Science Team and Implications for NASA Planetary Science Missions“ presented at LPSC 2024. These and many other diversity and inclusion themed abstracts are all still online at a NASA server. And there’s man more abstracts and papers online all over the agency. And they are being archived offline. And they are in the abstract volumes originally created and distributed in printed and PDF formats to tens of thousands of participants. The DOGE Diversity Narcs are not very good at their job. You cannot make this whole topic go away. It just grows back and spreads when you try to do so. Just sayin’

Keith’s Note: on this date 1 April 1996, NASA (RIF) Watch was born with this posting. No kidding. “Editor’s note: From a well-placed source at NASA HQ who participated in this meeting: Mal Peterson (NASA HQ Comptroller’s Office) personally briefed NASA program managers (Centers and HQ) yesterday (27 March) and gave instructions for planning and implementing a RIF by Summer 1997, the reduction to be completed by October 1998, to a total complement level of 17,500, as called for by the President for the year 2000, to be completed by 1998. … Vugraphs were shown concerning “the value of fear in managing corporate-downsizing.” (That is a direct quote) They have statistics on the number of personnel supposed to be within retirement range and everyone will be encouraged to retire asap, though these numbers will not prevent a RIF.”

Keith’s note: NASA SMD Speaker at LSPSC2025 “I’m a member of LGBTQI+ community. Even if LGBTQI+ displays are not favored at NASA the support from NASA coworkers is still there – even if that expression is not as visible as it once was. Important to member that LGBTQI+ is only part of the entire community affected by the Executive Orders.” See earlier post ‘You Must Hide Your Pride At NASA‘

Keith’s note: I just spoke with Bloomberg Radio/Television about NASA layoffs, the future of the agency, and Jared Isaacman. [Audio]

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 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 the National Academies report “NASA at a Crossroads – Maintaining Workforce, Infrastructure, and Technology Preeminence in the Coming Decades” (full report) “The committee offers seven “core findings” that, in its view, rise to the highest level of priority. These issues often have cross-cutting connotations that impact more than one of the three resource areas cited in the legislation mentioned above and are interrelated. The committee’s findings regarding these high priority “core” issues are as follows:”

Keith’s note: There’s a NASA analyst job opening in the NASA Office of Technology, Policy & Strategy. OTPS has an agency-wide, future-leaning role – yet they don’t seem to be at all interested in a serious search for staff. Note the 4 day application window (again) over a weekend. If they were truly interested in getting the best possible applicants – and giving the position opening enough time to circulate widely so as to reach the widest possible pool of potential applicants – and then allow quality people to respond – you have to think that 4 days is rather pointless. People will find out about it after 3 days have already passed – and not enough time remains to seriously consider applying. Unless, of course NASA already has their person for the position hand-picked and they are pretending to be interested in getting applications so as to go through the motions. Its all about checking boxes – not getting quality people. More personnel inbreeding. Just sayin’

Keith’s note: The annual NASA OIG look at issues confronting NASA is out and nothing has changed. NASA still accomplishes astonishing things yet that is challenged by the fact that NASA still cannot figure out what things cost or deliver them on time. “… Despite these important achievements, substantial cost growth and lengthy schedule delays continue to impact not only human space flight programs, like the Space Launch System and Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, but also other major science and exploratory programs, projects, and missions. In addition, the International Space Station’s planned retirement at the end of the decade poses a challenge for the Agency as it seeks to maintain an active human presence in low Earth orbit. The Agency also faces long-standing challenges managing its information technology; overseeing contracts, grants, and cooperative agreements; ensuring it attracts and retains a highly technical and diverse workforce; and managing outdated infrastructure and facilities.” Full report: OIG 2023 Report on NASA’s Top Management and Performance Challenges

Keith’s note: NASA has issued another report (“New NASA Report Looks at Societal Considerations for Artemis“). Titled “Artemis, Ethics and Society: Synthesis from a Workshop“ the report “seeks to foster discussion about how the agency can make such dramatic progress in a way that takes ethical and societal considerations into account”. I have read through it and decided to make an annotation of the overall findings with my usual snark. This is a typical NASA report – one that spends a lot of time in less than normal stilted and cautionary English talking about the process of writing the report – and less time on providing useful information. It is mostly ‘OMG we’re actually going to do this whole Artemis Moon thing for real and we jumped into this without thinking things through ahead of time. Or maybe some other part of NASA has done this for other programs and lost that report or who cares this is different. But we need bullet charts and action items in boxes to show that we are serious’. To be fair some people involved actually rose to the occasion and said some smart things – but in many cases NASA punted because they were afraid to step outside of their sandbox or look out of their organizations’ stovepipe. In addition, NASA, as an agency is risk adverse in every imaginable way. And when to comes to public affairs, education, and public outreach or talking to real people on the street they are terrified of bad results. So they stay in their cubicles and have meetings about sentences and do not venture out beyond what the groupthink sees as safe. This whole Artemis thing is about going to live on the Moon long-term and then go to Mars. That is a bold undertaking – on steroids. NASA needs to stop finding excuses not to interact with the real world and new partners and instead “go boldly” into this endeavor. Back when the whole exploration re-visit/reboot happend post-Columbia, the Exploration AA Craig Steidle had a simple exploration logo with the latin phrase “audaces fortuna juvat” – “Fortune favors the bold”. I see nothing remotely “bold” in this report. Below is a stream of consciousness annotation of the four main observations starting on page iii:

Keith’s note: FWIW I just tweeted this: “Amanda Gorman’s Inaugural Poem “The Hill We Climb” was banned by a Florida school – the same state where @NASA sends missions that climb a great hill – up to the stars. FYI Florida words by @TheAmandaGorman were launched – from Florida – on the #NASA @LucyMission Just sayin’ “

Keith’s note: According to NASA PAO: “NASA has selected PCI Productions LLC of Huntsville, Alabama, to manage communication services for all agency centers including headquarters, as well as its mission directorates, to enable the widest practicable and appropriate dissemination of NASA information. … “This is one major step in our overall procurement strategy for communications that will allow us to more efficiently and effectively use the amazing capability of NASA communications organizations to connect the world with the agency’s missions,” said Johnny Stephenson, deputy associate administrator for Communications at NASA Headquarters in Washington.” FYI Johnny Stephenson spent most of his career at NASA MSFC – also in Huntsville, Alabama. On his Twitter account @jfstephenson1 he lists his position as “Director/Strategic Analysis & Comm at NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center, Real Estate investor, Sports fan”. He has 106 followers. This is the number two Comms guy for all of NASA – yet he can’t even make his social media account accurate. Oh yes, the new NASA PAO contractor @PciProductions only has 7 followers on Twitter. Let the world-class outreach goodness commence.

Keith’s note: The 2022 Global winners of the 2022 NASA International Space Apps Challenge were announced today. You can read about it but only outside of NASA at the Space Apps website. There was mention many days in advance by the NASA International Space Apps Challenge Twitter account @SpaceApps as well as by the various SpaceApps participants around the world. But that’s more or less all the visibility that was given for this event – an activity that is an impressive demonstration of the truly global soft power projection that NASA is capable of inspiring. There was no mention of this event at NASA.gov before or after the annoncement today. No NASA media advisory was sent out, nor was any press release posted by PAO anywhere within the NASA web universe. Take a look below at how pervasive the ambivalence about this amazing NASA activity was at NASA today:

Hmm, what can I do if you can find NASA t-shirts practically everywhere for like ~5 euros, while ESA ones… These photos are from the Romanian science festival last year pic.twitter.com/EDlFYohu94 — Sandor Kruk (@kruksandor) February 22, 2020 – Bridenstine: “The NASA brand is the most valuable brand America has”, earlier post Keith’s note: NASA has done a good job – an increasingly good one – at allowing the logo’s […]

Yes they asked this question at a Bible college and the @LibertyU guy could not resist making a dozen #Uranus jokes at @JimBridenstine's expense pic.twitter.com/VIY95kI2JH — NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) February 7, 2020 Keith’s note: More tweets below. FYI I stumbled across this in my Facebook feed. NASA did not make any mention of this appearance. Toward the end they played a question and answer game with Jim Bridenstine. Whoever was […]