Keith’s note: Has anyone heard NASA’s part-time leader Sean Duffy recently reach out, motivate his NASA workforce, seek out shutdown, furlough, RIF, layoff, concerns – or otherwise show visible, enduring support for their hardship? Or does DOT get all of his attention? Just wondering.

Keith’s note: according to “The Power Struggle Over Who Will Run NASA Is Turning Ugly“ in the Wall Street Journal: “Over the summer, Duffy told government officials he was interested in bringing NASA under the Transportation Department’s purview, people briefed on the conversations said. “Sean said that NASA might benefit from being part of the Cabinet, maybe even within the Department of Transportation, but he’s never said he wants to keep the job himself,” a NASA spokeswoman said.” Sounds like Sean Duffy has been thinking about expanding his turf at DOT by swallowing NASA.

Keith’s note: Apparently Janet Petro did not ‘Embrace The Challenge’ hard enough when it came to getting people at NASA to quit – thus leading to her replacement – even thought the NASA website says she is still in charge. At least that is what senior NASA leadership tells me. Interim (i.e part time) NASA Administrator (and also Secretary of Transportation) Sean Duffy is a 100% Administration loyalist so he can be expected to carry out (or delegate) whatever actions the White House tells NASA to do – without question. Since Duffy already has a day job, this means that NASA Chief of Staff Brian Hughes is the de facto Administrator. As such NASA is a managerial subsidiary of DOT for the time being. There are plans for Secretary-Administrator Duffy and NASA Deputy Associate Administrator Casey Swails to make some sort of fireside chat video on Friday that will be available to all NASA employees. As such you can expect the budget cutting and personnel deletion to continue at Warp 9.

FAA: Stakeholders’ Perspectives on Potentially Moving the Office of Commercial Space Transportation, GAO “Representatives from commercial space launch companies and spaceports GAO interviewed described advantages and disadvantages of moving the Office of Commercial Space Transportation to the Office of the Secretary of Transportation, but most of them favored moving the office. Conversely, most Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) officials GAO interviewed did not favor the idea. A senior official in the […]

FAA Spaceport grants will strengthen America’s commercial space industry “If you’re like me, you probably watched the final landing of the Space Shuttle Atlantis last month with a strong sense of nostalgia for an astounding era in American space travel. The good news is that the Federal Aviation Administration has been working hard to usher in a new era for U.S. space transportation. Today, I’m excited to announce that the […]

NASA to investigate cause of Toyota problems “The federal probe into runaway Toyotas has resulted in enough scientific mystery that investigators have asked NASA scientists for help. The nation’s auto-safety regulators have tapped nine experts from the space agency to answer questions involving software, hardware and other electronics issues…” Keith’s note: No mention of this (yet) at NASA.gov. I wonder who the “NASA engineers” are? Where will the NASA funds […]