Max Luke and Jenna Mukuno: Boldly Going Where No Greens Have Gone Before, Wall Street Journal “When you include the energy of the entire Virgin Galactic operation, which includes support aircraft, it is seven times more than the flight from Singapore to London. As such, a single trip on Virgin Galactic will require twice as much energy as the average American consumes each year. (These numbers were confirmed by a […]

NASA Establishes a Sustainability Base on Earth, Next.gov “It was inconceivable to me that in the 21st century, in the heart of Silicon Valley, NASA would be building a building that could have been built 25 years ago,” [Ames Associate Director Steve Zornetzer] said. “NASA had to build the highest-performing building in the federal government, embed NASA technology inside and make a statement to the public that NASA was giving […]

Planetary Exploration Newsletter Editorial from Mark Sykes: Mars Science Laboratory “MSL lands this evening, but our community will not be “forever changed.” I disagree with Jim Green, NASA Planetary Science Division Director … We are weakened by bad policy recommendations and decisions of the past ten years, crippling the former workhorse Discovery program and canceling the Mars Scout program, while backroom deals are pursued to allocate yet more resources to […]

NASA Releases Scorecard on Energy and Sustainability Goals “NASA has released its fiscal year 2010 scorecard on sustainability and energy performance. The agency exceeded the 5 percent target on renewable energy use for federal agencies last year. The scorecard measures federal agency progress in a number of areas related to energy efficiency, greenhouse gas emissions and waste reduction. This is the first year federal agencies have published their scorecards.” Government […]

NASA SMD Memo: Status of Planetary’s Research and Analysis (R&A) Program “In order to maintain our fiscal responsibilities this situation demands that the Planetary Science Division Program Officers not over commit our R&A funds too early in the year. Therefore we will under-select in each of our R&A calls and put many more on notice that they are in the “selectable” range until it is clear what our final budget […]