Keith’s note: FWIW my advice for Jared Isaacman at the town hall. I think he gets this. As the NASAWatch guy, former NASA civil servant/contractor – and Apollo era child: You do not need to give a motivational pep talk to NASA people. No where else does someone get to go to work every day to explore the universe. This is baked into the soul of everyone within and around the agency. And it has been simmering in there for decades, often since childhood. The workforce has been through a lot – budget cuts, layoffs, buyouts etc. They just want to know that they have a leader who will lead – and learn – and have their back. Its that simple. Ad Astra y’all.

Keith’s note: The above email was sent out to NASA employees at 8:33 am ET today. If you click on https://townhall.nasa.gov/vpncheck/ It checks you out and sends you to a VPN firewall and then a NASA Access Launchpad security thing. If you click on https://nasa.cnf.io/sessions/frpn/#!/dashboard to submit questions you are asked for name email and center. I just typed in my real name (Hi NASA!) and said I worked at “N/A” center and I got in. Interestingly each of the questions identifies the specific individual asking the question by name – so beware …. I tweeted the questions asked (see below) – with submitter names deleted. More below. Update: According to NASA Press Secretary Bethany Stevens “@NASAAdmin Jared Isaacman is having his first town hall internally with NASA employees to foster a culture of open discussion and mission-first collaboration with his team. We understand there is a great deal of interest in what will be said in today’s town hall. As such, we will be releasing it in its entirety following the event. NASA is committed to open communication, but agency wide workforce meetings serve an important purpose of allowing employees a direct line of communication and candid conversation with the Administrator without outside influence.”

Keith’s note: According to a message sent to NASA employees from newly-minted NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman who has pledged to “serve transparently” and said “I look forward to discussing this with all of you tomorrow at an agencywide town hall.” So … will this Town Hall be broadcast on NASA+ / NASA TV? UPDATE: NASA PAO says that it will not be publicly webcast. It is not on the website schedule here or here. I have submitted several inquiries to NASA PAO and posted on social media asking if this will be publicly viewable. No reply (yet). It goes without saying that the ‘NASA family’ is much, much larger – and more disperse – than civil servants with access to NASA video behind a firewall. Contractors, extramural/university researchers, people on travel, researches in the field, policy makers – and of course taxpayers – all have a stake in what happens at NASA. If NASA PAO decides not to open up access, I’ll happily accept (once again) audio recordings y’all might want to make on your phones and will ‘acid wash’ them to anonymize any source info. Ad Astra y’all.

Keith’s note: according to today’s Executive Order “The National Space Council is dead (again) per today’s Executive Order: “Sec. 4. Rescission. (a) This order supersedes Executive Order 14056 of December 1, 2021 (The National Space Council), which is hereby revoked.”

• (2021) – Executive Order 14056-The National Space Council
• (2017) – NASA Statement on National Space Council: “I am pleased that President Trump has signed an executive order reestablishing the National Space Council.”

Keith’s note: this was distributed internally at NASA. “As a pilot, astronaut, and lifelong space enthusiast, I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity to serve as your 15th NASA Administrator. I’m humbled by the chance to work alongside you – the greatest scientific and engineering minds this nation has to offer.” More below

Keith’s note: the White House just issued this Executive Order “Ensuring American Space Superiority”. Full text below.

Keith’s note: NASA PAO just issued this: “Jared Isaacman was sworn in Thursday as NASA’s 15th administrator by District Judge Timothy J. Kelly. The oath was taken during a ceremony held at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington.”

Keith’s note: Jared Isaacman’s confirmation has been approved by the Senate by a vote of 67 – 30. Next stop is swearing in. So we may have a new NASA Administrator this week.

Keith’s note: Senate Majority Leader Thune has filed cloture (the formal process to end a filibuster and force a vote on a bill, motion, or nomination) as shown on Executive Calendar #593 for Jared Isaacman to become Administrator of NASA. Final action is expected in the coming week. 16 Dec Update: According to Marcia Smith:

Keith’s 15 December update: This long-time GSFC website (nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov) now has a maintenance notice saying “The NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive website is temporarily offline for maintenance.” But people intimately involved with the site at NASA tell me that it has been unreachable for months prior to my mentioning it on NASAWatch for months – and that no one is actually updating or doing maintenance it. Three months ago (September 2025) someone posted on Reddit that this site was unreachable. This outage was also noticed on Facebook and forum-conquete-spatiale. If you look below you will see a screengrab from the Internet Archive Wayback machine and it stopped being able to ping the site in August 2025. So what is going on NASA? This is an immensely valuable and useful public-facing website.

• Keith’s 10 December Update: Suddenly, after months of being unavailable, NASA made the nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov link work again (a little) but all you see is “The NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive website is temporarily offline for maintenance.” Curious.
• Keith’s 9 December note: The NSSDCA (NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive) website and database (nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov) – managed at NASA Goddard has been blocked from public access since before the government shutdown. NSSDCA represents NASA’s most complete collection of information on all spacecraft and has been maintained and updated since the mid-1960s. The website also has other generally useful pages unrelated to the database, but these are all blocked as well. Here is what it looked like before it was turned off. NASA’s Education website points to it as an educational resource. Why did a useful, albeit benign, public-facing resource like this go dark?

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: If new border entry requirements go into force a lot of non-U.S. citizens may not be inclined to come to the U.S. for NASA and space-oriented meetings since they will be required to give the U.S. government access to 5 years of social media postings. According to a 10 Dec 2025 Federal Register posting by CBP regarding the Arrival and Departure Record (Form I-94) and Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA): “3. Mandatory Social Media: In order to comply with the January 2025 Executive Order 14161 (Protecting the United States From Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats), CBP is adding social media as a mandatory data element for an ESTA application. The data element will require ESTA applicants to provide their social media from the last 5 years.” So maybe NASA and all of its professional organizations will consider start using Zoom again like they did during the pandemic. Or move their meetings offshore. And flying suborbital flights out of the U.S. will be more intrusive as well.

Keith’s note: according to a press release from House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology “House SST Committee Investigates Alleged Misconduct in Agency Civil Rights Offices” letters have been sent to a number of agencies (including NASA) “following disturbing reports of potential obstructionism within agencies’ Office of Civil Rights (OCRs). The letters seek to determine the scope of this obstructionism and to inform appropriate oversight measures to ensure OCRs are fulfilling their statutory responsibilities.” More Below.

Keith’s note: according to a press release from the National Academies of Science “A new report “A Science Strategy for the Human Exploration of Mars“ from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine identifies the highest priority science objectives for the first human mission to Mars, and says searching for evidence of existing or past life on Mars should be the top priority. Improving our understanding of the effects of Mars’ environment on humans, plants, and animals; water cycles; geologic records; and dust storms are also among the 11 science priorities named in the report.” There will be a media event today from 12:00 PM – 1:30 PM (ET). Watch live.

Keith’s note: NASA issued a release moments ago: “The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation today reported favorably on the nomination of Jared Isaacman to serve as Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, advancing the nomination to the Senate Floor for consideration by the full legislative body. During his confirmation hearing on Wednesday, December 3rd, Isaacman received strong bipartisan support for his swift confirmation. … The committee’s favorable report allows Isaacman to advance for consideration of full Senate confirmation.”

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: A few weeks ago the existence of a “Project Athena” document prepared by NASA Administrator nominee Jared Isaacman and a few close advisors emerged. It had been written during his first nomination period as a shopping list, statement of purpose, first stab at a plan that he was working on for NASA. Then his nomination was pulled. Then it was reinstated. Now it will most likely stick. In the months between this report’s writing and today, much has happened that will nullify, modify, and/or accentuate most aspects of what was written. After its existence became known Isaacman wrote a summary of this summary to clarify a few things. But the actual document remained elusive until it started popping up on various social media accounts on Friday. I have excerpted two main features – the “Workforce Speech – Day 1 Speech”, and “Executive Summary”. You can download the PDF version of the full 62 page document that is circulating here on Google Drive or look at various Twitter and social media accounts for screen grabs and other links. BTW the cover says “Confidential/ Proprietary Information” – well that is moot now – but it was leaked from within a very very very small group of people at NASA who had copies. People leak things for their own purposes. This is a work in progress, subject to wholesale revision and even deletion, so caveat emptor, your mileage may vary, and ad astra y’all. Excerpts below.

Keith’s note: According to @NASAEarthWatch ‪@nasaearthwatch.bsky.social‬ “Goddard Space Center library is due to disappear. It is not about when, but how and where the books will go. Another casualty in this relentless attack to #science and culture. It has a Facebook page. Let’s see how long it lasts.”

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.

/m

Keith’s note: A preprint was posted on Wednesday 3 Dec 2025 titled “Voyager 1 Data Reveals Signatures of the Local Gas and Cosmic-Ray Source Distributions“ which refers to “recent Voyager 1 data taken in the local ISM” and that “this work is partially funded via NASA grants 80NSSC22K0477, 80NSSC22K0718, and 80NSSC23K0169.” A NASA (American) mission is sending back data that from interstellar space. No other nation has a growing fleet of interstellar missions. Talk about taking the lead in space exploration. Yes, this is nerdy stuff – but it is still baffling to me that the agency simply cannot back up the whole “Make America Great In Space (again)” mantra with actual, no kidding, examples of pre-eminence in space. Data summary below.