Keith’s note: Have a look at “I’m a former astronaut: NASA workers are afraid, and safety is at risk“ by Garrett Reisman at The Space Review: “I call upon NASA’s interim administrator, Sean Duffy; the new associate administrator, Amit Kshatriya; and the rest of NASA leadership to proceed with caution. Administrator Duffy said just this past week that “sometimes we can let safety be the enemy of making progress.” Based on my experience at SpaceX, I assert that safety and progress are not mutually exclusive, and I challenge NASA to accomplish both without compromising either. Finally, let me remind you that it will be much harder to achieve our national ambitions in space without the contributions of everyone who has the talent and interest to help. So, as you reduce NASA’s workforce and work to reshape its culture it is imperative that you ensure that personnel decisions are made based only on performance and merit and not based on a person’s gender, race or sexual orientation. That is not only the right thing to do for NASA; it is the right thing to do period.”

Keith’s note: On the left is a full page ad in Monday’s issue of the Washington Post by AXA – a French multinational insurance company headquartered in Paris. Note the footprint is in gray soil by a strangely shaped boot. On the right is an actual photo of an Apollo 11 crew footprint on the lunar surface in 1969. Advertising copy is an art style. I get that. What were they trying to evoke with this image? After half a century one would assume that this is a lunar footprint – but how many people not alive at the time get the same impressionas that those of us who lived through it? Given its ubiquity its probably become iconic. Like the God/Adam finger touching image from the Sistine Chapel. But instead of using readily available (and often higher quality royalty free) images from NASA they re-create the footprint in a studio. Funny how they fake a moon footprint when so many people think that all of Apollo was faked, right? Anyway … A French company takes out an expensive full page ad in a prominent American news paper (and probably others) at a cost of millions using the human exploration of the Moon as a symbol of the risk taking they are citing as being important to progress. They never mention space. Nor do they mention Artemis or even exploration. They do not care about space in terms of their product line – but they certainly embrace the core risky notion that the whole Apollo thing embodied. They just throw the paradigm shaking/shifting trips to the Moon in your face as the penultimate risk/benefit exercise. It works. In reality it is a false lesson. You see, we got afraid of going back to the Moon after we went there. Half a century later were are less tolerant of risks involved, stumble when it comes to designs and budgets, and are taking far longer to even begin to match what we did half a century ago. NASA has a vast branding reach. The whole world was exited when Apollo was gearing up. I was there. I saw it. Now, NASA just goes through the motions with occasional flashy Artemis media things that are soon forgotten. Yet in China and India and elsewhere where Moon programs are all the rage, their citizens are in the streets cheering. What have these nations discovered that we have forgotten – and why is NASA so clueless as to how to bring back the excitement that going to the Moon once inspired my generation? Just sayin’

Larger image First Reported Occurrence And Treatment Of Spaceflight Medical Risk On ISS, LSU “Ultrasound examinations of the astronauts’ internal jugular veins were performed at scheduled times in different positions during the mission. Results of the ultrasound performed about two months into the mission revealed a suspected obstructive left internal jugular venous thrombosis (blood clot) in one astronaut. The astronaut, guided in real time and interpreted by two independent radiologists […]

Blood and Money, Wayne Hale “We must have a clear-eyed appreciation for the risk involved in space exploration. Flying to the moon will not be much safer in 2024 than it was in 1969. Exploration always comes with risk, and with some regularity exploration risk is realized. The real cost of Artemis will be written in blood. Face that fact. This may be considered a poor time to bring this […]

Keith’s note: Last night there was a panel at the Humans To Mars Summit about risk and exploration. The panel was moderated by Leonard David and consisted of NAI Director Penny Boston, former astronaut and SMD AA John Grunsfeld, former Google space lead Tiffany Montague, and NASA SMD’s Rick Davis. At one point the 2004 Risk and Exploration Symposium that John and I put together back in 2004 was mentioned. […]

Loss of Signal: Aeromedical Lessons Learned from the STS-107 Columbia Space Shuttle Mishap “Loss of Signal presents the aeromedical lessons learned from the Columbia accident that will enhance crew safety and survival on human space flight missions. These lessons were presented to limited audiences at three separate Aerospace Medical Association (AsMA) conferences. As we are embarking on the development of new spacefaring vehicles through both government and commercial efforts, the […]

Avalanches: Beauty, Wonder, and Danger – with video (May 2009) Keith’s note: There was a huge avalanche at Everest yesterday. So far it seems that 12 people were killed – all Sherpa guides. They were walking up the Khumu Icefall on their way to work. This (link above) is what Scott Parazynski and I witnessed in May 2009. At the time this was described as being a very, very big […]

Message from the Administrator NASA and the Importance of Risk “Much of the time, we work in an environment where the consequences of not getting things exactly right are very high. The good news is that our processes and culture are well adapted to doing these things very well. We must not lose that. Human spaceflight and flagship science missions can sometimes be a dangerous business. But, as I have […]

Not Because It Is Easy, But Because It Is Hard, opinion, Alan Stern, Space News “It has been said that a ship is safe in harbor, but a harbor is not where ships belong. If SpaceX doesn’t fully succeed in its first try with Dragon, there will be disappointment, and some may even question NASA’s wisdom in undertaking the COTS program. Others may question the ability of the American aerospace […]