Keith’s note: Space Twitter has a lot of noise. Mostly noise. Lots of snark. Some times an obvious question emerges. This was directed at Jared Isaacman:“What launch cadence do you have the budget to support? Once every 2.5 years? How about a little transparency? We all support what you want to achieve, yet we’re leery of the implementation”. Full conversation. — Unlike the usual NASA PAO response mechanism which takes hours or days, required meetings, approval cycles, and talking point insertion, this new guy just puts out commentary and direction – in near real time – in the actual fora where people converse – and many times in response to people who make clear points from an account with only a few followers. Small questions can yield important answers. Refreshing. See Isaacman’s response below.

Keith’s note: The Senate CS&T Committee held the confirmation hearing for Matthew Anderson to be Deputy Administrator of NASA. He sailed through with the usual questions from both sides of the aisle. As to when the full Senate will vote on his nomination – stay tuned. Probably soon. Update: according to Marcia Smith: “Following today’s nomination hearing for Matt Anderson to be NASA Deputy Admin, the Senate Commerce Cmte will vote on his nomination (and several others) next Thursday, Mar 12, at approx 11:30 am ET. It’s in the Capitol (S-216) so likely not livestreamed”. Opening statement below:

Keith’s note: Jared Isaacman spoke at the a16z event about the lack of core competencies and extensive outsourcing at NASA is “why we’re $100 billion deep into [Artemis]”and how OPM is working with NASA and the new NASA Force effort to reverse that. Of course NASA just lost a lot of its workforce – so this is an effort to bring back some of what may have been lost as well as attracting new skills to the agency. Comments and video below:

Keith’s note: A lawsuit was filed on 19 February in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia concerning the closure of the NASA Goddard library and the disposition of records and research materials housed there. The plaintiffs, including the Goddard Engineers, Scientists and Technicians Association (GESTA), filed the case to seek judicial review of NASA’s decision to close the library and disperse or dispose of portions of its collections. The complaint alleges that the agency’s actions violate federal records preservation requirements and were undertaken without the transparency and review required under federal law. Full complaint below.

Keith’s note: According to a tweet by @NASAAdmin: “Today, we’re launching NASA Force with @USOPM Returning to the Moon requires restoring core competencies in our civil servant workforce. This program will recruit top aerospace, software, systems, and other critical technical talent for approximately 2-year terms at NASA. This will strengthen in-house engineering excellence, close skill gaps, and deepen partnerships with industry. We’re investing in our people to deepen America’s leadership in space.”

Keith’s note: I was just on Deutsche Welle TV talking about today’s Artemis programmatic change s- and the impacts that may or may not have on Europe and other internationals pace efforts. [Audio] [video] – Youtube below.

Keith’s note: ASAP issued its 2025 Full report. There is not much new in this report that the ASAP et al have not said every year for decades. But this time the first recommendation strikes at the heart of why NASA often seems to be reactive and make things up one day at a time – with actions that are often inconsistent and contradictory: “Recommendation 2021-05-01: NASA should develop a strategic vision for the future of space exploration and operations that encompasses at least the next 20 years, including potential alternative scenarios, that is driven by how the Agency is going to understand and manage risk in the more complex environment in which it will be operating.

• The vision should describe the role that NASA intends to play during that period and how it plans to engage with both commercial and international partners.
• NASA should assess the workforce, including the number, types, skills, experience, and responsibilities that will be required, and the infrastructure facility requirements, with a plan for managing changes needed to meet those requirements.
• NASA should also propose general criteria for evaluating “make, manage, or buy” decisions on future programs or projects.
• All aspects of the strategic vision and its implementation should be clearly and unambiguously communicated throughout the Agency.”

Keith’s note: House Speaker Mike Johnson invited the Artemis II crew to be his guests at State of the Union tonight. Talk about Earned PR. Has NASA made any mention of this? No.

Keith’s note: Yesterday President Trump tossed out his quasi-official proof of alien life – and visitations – directive on social media. NASA has not said anything about this. Oddly, they certainly had quite a lot to say about the exact same topic a few years ago in a formal report. As such I’m waiting for the formal Executive Order – maybe that will pry something out of NASA PAO. Meanwhile I did a lot of global TV today. (more below)

Keith’s note: Well … it would seem that NASA will be paying more attention to Astrobiology now. And other things.

Keith’s note: It is certainly refreshing for the Administrator of NASA to take a personal, hands-on interest in clearly stating that transparency is a priority at NASA and responding to events in near-real time. But he has to do most of that by himself. His writing and speaking style are easy to detect: no stilted English, no odd capitalizations, no weird grammar, no jargon and little in the way of overly gratuitous rah rah. Instead it is mostly to-the-point substance. Unfortunately, NASA Public Affairs staff can’t or won’t engage in basic human language in a similar manner. Instead, they cut and paste pre-written talking points and political babble – or just ignore the chatter – and those who do the chattering – altogether. Most of Isaacman’s time on social media seems to be focused on the bloggers and influencers and random armchair rocketeer posters on social media (me included) – all of whom are snugly inside the space bubble – a pocket universe that is mostly invisible to the real world. Don’t get me wrong: It is good that Isaacman cares about the fans of space exploration and is willing to engage with them – and make a convert here and there. Alas, he parachuted in the middle of several decades of other people’s bad decisions and now everyone expects him to fix all of that by next week. It is unfortunate that he has to spend time on postings inside the space bubble – often about woulda-coulda/oughta minutiae – and not on NASA’s value to the remaining 99.99999% of America – and the world. So chill space fans. Ad Astra y’all. Several Isaacman posting examples below:

Keith’s 13 Feb note: I am posting some photos of the NASA Goddard library taken yesterday. The photos were NOT taken by library employees – but rather by others at GSFC. Word has it that trucks are arriving this weekend to begin removal of these boxes. Many GSFC employees are still concerned that the imminent removal and possible disposal of materials are in direct contradiction to the instructions in a Congressional Joint Exploratory Statement which directs NASA to preserve technical and scientific capabilities. Jared Isaacman has said that he has staff he’s assigned to monitor this process. Perhaps NASA GSFC or NASA HQ management could post an update as to where these boxed library materials are being sent. I’d ask NASA PAO – but they ignore me these days. Keith’s 14 Feb Update: according to a source at NASA GRC “We are currently renovating our library space and briefing center (Building 142) and we’ve been told recently that NASA GRC will be ‘The NASA Library’ for the Agency and that the GSFC library books are being relocated to GRC.‘. See: Recent NASA NASA GSFC Library postings [More photos below].

—- Keith’s note: I have annotated Jared Isaacman’s new directive “Workforce Directive: Restoring NASA’s Core Competencies“ with some of my thoughts. This directive does bear a certain similarity to a posting “Recognize, Reward, Inspire” that he made on 16 January 2026 – and the earlier Project Athena document he produced in 2025 before becoming administrator and benefited from some sanity checks during his first month on the job and his road trip to all the NASA centers. This is a somewhat stream of consciousness ramble on my part (as is usually the case on NASAWatch – and I may fiddle with it). Before I start, there are some prevailing, over-arching, and hard-to-avoid factors: (more below)

Keith’s note: On Friday NASA distributed memo to the entire workforce titled “Workforce Directive: Restoring NASA’s Core Competencies“ accompanied with a video that was posted on social media. (full text below)

Keith’s note: A final rule by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) titled “Improving Performance, Accountability and Responsiveness in the Civil Service” (preview text) has dropped and will appear in the Federal Register tomorrow. Update: 91 FR 5580 – Improving Performance, Accountability and Responsiveness in the Civil Service is now formally posted in the Federal Register As implemented, it will lead to tens of thousands of nonpartisan career civil servants being moved to Schedule Policy/Career (Schedule P/C, a revived Schedule F) and being stripped of their civil service protections. The rule says that the President can fire anyone in the new Schedule P/C who disagrees with whatever the Administration says or does. Protect Democracy filed a suit a year ago and will be filing an amended complaint soon. [Earlier NASAWatch posts] Here’s the summary of what this all means according to OPM:

• “The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is issuing a rule to increase career employee accountability. Agency supervisors report great difficulty removing employees for poor performance or misconduct. The final rule authorizes agencies to move policy-influencing positions into Schedule Policy/Career. These positions will remain career jobs filled on a nonpartisan basis. Yet they will be at-will positions excepted from adverse action procedures or appeals. This will allow agencies to quickly remove employees from critical positions who engage in misconduct, perform poorly, or obstruct the democratic process by intentionally subverting Presidential directives. The rule requires agencies to establish internal policies protecting employees from prohibited personnel practices.”

Keith’s note: With regard to the IAF Global Space Conference on Climate Change (GLOC 2026) in Kigali, Rwanda – don’t expect any NASA attendance.

1. “The U.S. Department of State has assessed Kigali (Rwanda) as being a HIGH-threat location for crime directed at or affecting official U.S. government interests.” — source
2. “The USGCRP met its statutory requirements by presenting its reports to Congress. NASA has no legal obligations to host http://globalchange.gov‘s data,” NASA Press Secretary Bethany Stevens said in an email. That means no data from the assessment or the government science office that coordinated the work will be on NASA, she said”. — source
3. The U.S. Government has formally isolated itself from international Climate Change efforts — Source

Keith’s note: NASA posted this interesting news on Friday: “Perseverance Rover Completes First AI-Planned Drive on Mars“. This is a standard press release thing without much thought as to how it could be enhanced and re-purposed synergistically. Don’t mention the astrobiology or astrogeology science either. Just write it and push it out – on a Friday afternoon. In fact it could be used to leverage things NASA wants to be known for outside of the JPL robotics bubble. Done properly, White House OSTP; the tech, science, and commerce sectors; and other trending initiatives could be leveraged so as to boost visibility of NASA’s participation. But NASA is still kinda shy about all of that self promotion. NASA could do a vastly better job promoting all of its cool tech. Indeed, as budgets shrink NASA needs to do a much better job explaining itself. The Moon mission glow will (sadly) fade all too soon. (More below)

Keith’s note: Like everyone else I am acutely aware of the arrest of two journalists – independent journalists – by the Department of Justice today. Details are still lacking. But the White House is applauding it. NASA Public Affairs leadership – all of whom are loyal political appointees – have already essentially blacklisted me. That used to be just an annoyance – one I am used to after 30 years. Well, not any more. So what can I (and others covering NASA) expect from the political appointees at PAO if I post something they do not like? What about people who provide me with information? I do not have an answer. I am not easily spooked. But my bullshit meter is now permanently redlined – and my inclination to set foot on any NASA facility or attend any NASA-sponsored event is now in question.

Keith’s note: last week NASA decided to halt support for MD Planetary Science Division Analysis and Assessment Groups. The following email was shared widely by the ExMAG executive committee: “Dear Colleagues, The NASA Planetary Science Division (PSD) Director recently announced that the PSD will cease formal support for various Analyses and Assessment Groups (AGs) effective in May 2026.” Full email below.