Keith’s note: NASA has a Planetary Defense Program. They want to find asteroids that might pose a risk before they pose a threat. The other day the Vera Rubin Observatory released imagery of a variety of objects including 2,104 previously unknown asteroids discovered in just a few hours by this new instrument. NASA has ignored the Rubin observatory’s debut altogether while the rest of the world stopped to pay attention. This new NASA OIG report NASA’s Implementation and Management of Its Planetary Defense Strategy mentions Rubin as an option but does not ding the Planetary Defense Program for ignoring Rubin. Why is that? More below.

Keith’s note: According to NASA “To help guide NASA’s efforts over the next decade, the agency today released its Planetary Defense Strategy and Action Plan.” This is kinda important, right? NASA PAO tweeted about it and posted a thing on NASA.gov but did not bother to issue a media advisory or press release to the news media. No mention is made on the White House website, by OSTP, the National Space Council, the Users Advisory Group, or the Vice President’s office. Or Space Force, DHS, NOAA etc. No one really bothers to try and coordinate this stuff across the government anymore since it is really not much of a priority – unless there is a photo-op with the VP. More info.