Advancing Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility in Competed Space Mission Leadership at NASA Will Require Extensive Efforts Along Entire Career Pathways, Says New Report, National Academy of Sciences “Inadequate data gathering and reporting are critical barriers to NASA’s understanding of the efficacy of its own DEIA efforts to date, and of the proposal leadership pool’s demographics, according to the report. These are necessary steps for measuring progress, and for identifying […]

Report Identifies Priority Planetary Science Missions, Planetary Defense Efforts, and Strategic Investments for the Next Decade “A new decadal survey [Origins, Worlds, and Life: A Decadal Strategy for Planetary Science and Astrobiology 2023-2032] from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine identifies scientific priorities and opportunities and makes funding recommendations to maximize the advancement of planetary science, astrobiology, and planetary defense in the next 10 years. The recommendations by […]

NASA Makes Progress Toward Planetary Science Decadal Priorities, National Academy of Sciences “Despite significant cuts to NASA’s Planetary Science Division budget early in this decade, the space agency has made impressive progress in meeting goals outlined in the 2013-2022 planetary decadal survey by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, says a new midterm assessment from the National Academies. The report notes that the agency met or exceeded the […]

NASA Should Continue its Large Strategic Missions to Maintain United States’ Global Leadership in Space “NASA’s large strategic missions like the Hubble Space Telescope, the Curiosity rover on Mars, and the Terra Earth observation satellite are essential to maintaining the United States’ global leadership in space exploration and should continue to be a primary component of a balanced space science program that includes large, medium, and smaller missions, says a […]

NAS Report: Review of the Restructured Research and Analysis Programs of NASA’s Planetary Science Division “Recently, PSD reorganized the R&A program to provide better alignment with the strategic goals for planetary sciences. The major changes in the R&A program involved consolidating a number of prior program elements, many of which were organized by subdiscipline, into a smaller number of thematic core research program elements. Despite numerous efforts by PSD to […]

NAS Report: Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) at NASA “The U.S. Congress tasked the National Research Council with undertaking a comprehensive study of how the SBIR program has stimulated technological innovation and used small businesses to meet federal research and development needs, and with recommending further improvements to the program. In the first round of this study, an ad hoc committee prepared a series of reports from 2004 to 2009 […]

Smith to Bolden: Why Not Orion for Commercial Crew?, SpaceNews “If Orion could provide a redundant capability as a fallback for the commercial crew partners, why is it necessary to carry two partners to ensure competition in the constrained budget environment?” Smith asked NASA Administrator Charles Bolden in an Oct. 7 letter co-signed by Rep. Steven Palazzo (R-Miss.), chairman of the House Science space subcommittee.” 5 Years After Augustine, Florida […]

Keith’s note: The Space Studies board is meeting jointly on April 3-4, 2014 in Washington , DC [Agenda  register online]. The meeting starts today at 8:30 am but is closed. The public (open) session starts at 10:50 am. Marcia Smith reports that Charlie Bolden will be there.

Review of NASA’s Evidence Reports on Human Health Risks: 2013 Letter Report (2014), IOM “Review of NASA’s Evidence Reports on Human Health Risks: 2013 Letter Report is the first in a series of five reports from the Institute of Medicine that will independently review more than 30 evidence reports that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has compiled on human health risks for long-duration and exploration space flights. This report […]

Keith’s note: The NAS Space Studies Board is meeting today. Here is the webex Link that the NAS doesn’t want you to know about. Their PR office told me several weeks ago that they would be letting media know about webcasting in advance of their meetings. They never sent me anything despite their pledge to do so. You have to know which internal NASA webpage to go to in order […]