British astronaut Nicholas Patrick prepares for Nasa space launch, The Telegraph

"The head of Nasa, Major General Charlie Bolden, admitted last night that the task of breaking the news of Constellation's proposed cancellation to staff at the space agency's 10 centres had been badly handled. "Was it screwed up? Yes it was," he said, confessing that he had ignored advice from aides that might have made for a smoother presentation. "I didn't listen to people," he added."

Bolden in for a battle, Florida Today

"A popular former astronaut, Bolden said he made a mistake by failing to brief Congress on President Barack Obama's new plan before the rollout Monday of the White House's proposed 2011 budget. "I don't fool myself that I have not injured some relationships. And so my task now is to try to go in and repair those former, incredibly good relationships because of my ineptness in rolling out this plan."

NASA Admin Addresses Constellation Cancellation, WESH

"I thought I knew better, to be quite honest," he said. "So, we rolled out the budget and rolled out everything in the manner we did. Was it screwed up? Yes. So, I learned a valuable lesson."

Keith's note: You know that the message plan NASA has been trying to roll out is not working when signs carried by protesters outside of KSC today say "Obama lied - NASA died". It gets worse: I also received a link to a YouTube video from someone sitting at their desk at NASA that uses captioned movie footage of an actor playing Hitler to criticise the Obama decision on Constellation. This ain't good folks.

Keith's update: Oh yes - to all of you who are demanding that I post a link to the Hitler video: No way. I find even a casual comparison of anyone to Hitler under any circumstances to be reprehensible and I will not allow this website to be a party to that. If you do not like this policy, then go find another website to read. There will be no further discussion on this topic.

Yesterday, Amiko Kauderer (@amikokauderer), Joel Walker (@joelwalker), James McClellan (@jbmccl) and I (@skytland) had an opportunity to attend the Houston Social Media Club breakfast at the Houston Zoo to talk about NASA’s experiments in social media.  I wanted to share the presentation with the openNASA community and also invite you to the Houston Zoo’s next event!  So, if you are in Houston on Friday, February 26th, make sure to check out the “Tweets in Space” event at the Houston Zoo to meet some “twittering astronauts”!  Here’s some information:

On the evening of Friday February 26, 2010, we’re bringing the sights and sounds of space to the Houston Zoo. Expect an evening of learning, food, drink, entertainment and surprises from NASA and our community.  Our program will begin at 7:30 pm and afterward we will mingle, enjoy great music and get to know each other better.  Grab your tickets while they still last - on sale now!

WHEN: Friday February 26, 2010, 7-10 pm
WHERE: The Houston Zoo’s George R. Brown Education Hall (enter at Gate 5 - directions here)
HOW MUCH: $40 (Proceeds from the event will go to support the Houston Zoo) partners.

Photo credit: Mainline Mom

We are Ready for Commercial Human Spaceflight, Leroy Chiao

"Many of my colleagues and peers have written articles and pieces, deriding the idea of commercial LEO access. Indeed, the track record of the self-described "New Space" companies has thus far, been marked generally with failure and arrogance. Not all, but many of these folks, before they run their companies into the ground, seem to spend the bulk of their time attending self-serving, self-aggrandizing conferences where openly slinging mud at NASA is sport. This is hardly constructive, and it brings discredit to others who have serious aspirations for the future of commercial spaceflight."

Launching NASA on a Path to Nowhere: Analysis, Tom Jones

"The new budget, announced Monday, seems merely an attempt to disguise the demise of U.S. leadership in space. The president does away with Constellation, its Orion spacecraft, and its Ares I and Ares V boosters. The abrupt cancellation means the U.S. no longer wishes to send its explorers to the frontiers of knowledge and spacefaring skill. We are deliberately choosing to have no better space capability than do Russia, China, or India."

Boosters Flare in Space Debate, MSNBC

"Another former shuttle astronaut, Ken Bowersox, is more bullish on the commercial prospects - perhaps in part because he's now an executive at one of those companies, California-based SpaceX. Today Discovery News quoted him as saying that space contractors "should be able to come up with new and innovative ways" to fill NASA's needs for resupplying the International Space Station."

Vision Impaired, Paul Spudis, Air & Space

"I have previously discussed what I perceive as the most significant problem with FP, namely, that it is activity without direction. The administration's budgetary version of this path confirms this perception. Much verbiage is thrown around about multiple missions to all sorts of destinations, blazing new trails with new technology, trips to Mars that last weeks instead of months, and "people fanning out across the inner solar system, exploring the Moon, asteroids and Mars nearly simultaneously in a steady stream of firsts." But nowhere in the budget documents or agency statements is there anything about the mission that we are undertaking. So we're going to an asteroid. What will we do there? Why are we going there? What benefit accrues from it?"

Plan for NASA lacks vision, editorial, St. Petersbrug Times

"But the 2,000 jobs the administration expects private companies to create in Florida under the plan is far less than the 12,000 NASA and private jobs that Florida's east coast expects to lose when the shuttle is retired."

Give NASA Back, The Crimson White

"Most importantly, this achievement of the International Space Station proves, definitively, the existence of the worlds' potential for cooperation. Nations can peacefully work together towards a common goal--not unlike, say, Obama's goal of eradicating nuclear weapons. If NASA were to go commercial, as Obama hopes, the country would lose its ownership, and cooperation between multinationals--only concerned with their bottom lines and profits--wouldn't be nearly as idealistic as the cooperation between nations we have now."

Abandoning human space flight is shortsighted, Rep. Pete Olson, The Hill

"The administration would like to foster commercial providers with our human space flight capabilities. Commercial participation is a good thing, and something that everyone agrees with, but it's simply not ready to take humans into space safely, and should not be the sole means for our country's access to space."

Space to thrive, The Economist

"Much has been made of the fact that NASA will, as a consequence of Constellation's cancellation, have to rely on private firms to send its astronauts to the international space station once the space shuttle is withdrawn. In many ways, though, this is the least interesting aspect of what is happening, for what Mr Obama proposed is actually a radical overhaul of the agency."

One step back for mankind, Financial Times

"That is what makes the debate over Constellation symbolic. The decision to abandon moon exploration has "decline" written all over it. Americans often profess astonishment that the Chinese of 600 years ago failed to take full advantage of their technological superiority. They invented gunpowder and, on the eve of Columbus's discovery of America, their ocean-going vessels were bigger and more seaworthy than Europe's."

This video of NASA JSC's "Project M" depicts a Robonaut-based, tele-operated mission to the Moon - one that JSC claims could be accomplished in 1,000 days once the go-ahead was given.

If you haven’t read “Who Moved My Cheese?” this might be a good time to go pick up a copy or steal one from your neighborhood “change and transition” specialist. It’s the story of two mice (named “Sniff” and “Scurry”) and two ‘Littlepeople’ (named “Hem” and “Haw”) who are beings who are as small as mice but who “looked and acted a lot like people today.”

The four are in search of cheese in a maze. Don’t ask why these “Littlepeople” don’t have access to alternative means of sustenance like water, tacos, or Snickers bars. Or why they’re the size of mice. They’re stuck in a maze and they just want cheese. (You wouldn’t crave a block of meuster if you were 5 inches tall and confined to a labyrinth of hallways with only mice as company?).

Anyway, the two mice and two Littlepeople find a supply of cheese in the maze and get fat and happy and then the cheese supply vanishes and they are forced to deal with the changed access-to-cheese situation. I won’t spoil the story (it’ll take you 45 minutes to read), but the gist is that there are four types of people when it comes to change: 1) people who “scurry” to get things done no matter what the situation and adapt quickly and aggressively to change; 2) people who “sniff” out change and are perceptive to warning signs to see it coming, thereby positioning themselves to adapt; 3) people who “haw” and fear any change to their comfortable routines but ultimately learn to laugh at their fears and adapt; and 4) people who “hem” themselves into stubborn routines, resisting any change to their habits or behaviors, even when it is clear the only way to survive is to change.

The paradigm in space is clearly changing. Our cheese has been moved. Even if a strong resistance from Congress saves the Constellation Program, the writing on the wall is clear: change or cease to exist.

The cheese is moving, but what cheese are we talking about here?

Is the administration saying that the “cheese” is the ability to put people into space and that NASA, with its 50 years of spaceflight heritage and founding principles built around ensuring safe access to space for human space explorers, is hemmed into a stubborn routine incapable of change?

Is the message that the values and technical competency of our workforce are no match for the new, nimble players in the completely unproven commercial spaceflight sector—or the minds of competing nations like Russia, China and soon to be India?

While I consider myself a “sniff”, at least occasionally perceptive to change and willing to adapt to search for new cheese if that’s what’s needed, something doesn’t sit right with me here. Maybe I’m actually a “haw” who fears change because it threatens my routine of assumptions about NASA’s purpose, competence and value to the nation…

But isn’t looking for new cheese what NASA’s all about?! It’s in our very charter! Our existence is a bold statement by this country and humanity itself that we are not content to sit back, get fat, and accept the world as it is in spite of overwhelming bureaucratic and technical hurdles, or the cynics who label such endeavors as “impossible”. We will not rest on our laurels, nor stand on the edge of a frontier and shy away from the unknown.

The very thought of complacency should strike deep, bone-chilling fear into the hearts and minds of those whose passion is Exploration. NASA stands for the highest standards of integrity, discipline, responsibility and technical excellence and our existence is an example of the best of what our species is capable of.

So while the space access swiss may be moving, don’t tell me the exploration Monterey Jack is moving too and that our values—those same bedrock principles that formed this nation and still represent the enduring nature of the human spirit—don’t tell me those are all of a sudden obsolete or worse, irrelevant.

Don’t tell me that NASA is dead, that our role is to play second fiddle to other nations and companies whose ambitions are greater, whose resolve stronger, whose leadership better adapted to change.

Don’t tell me its acceptable to stand on a new frontier and choose to back away.

No, NASA represents something rare and very much relevant for us now and in the future. We represent change itself. We represent that bold proclamation to the universe that we cannot stand on the edge of a frontier and not act. We will seek new horizons and in doing so, we will lift up the human race.

If we lose that, we’re doing future generations a grave injustice.

If we can build on that unrelenting resolve that Exploration is itself an act of searching for new cheese, we just might stand on the shoulders of giants, and see new light.

And so, I don’t like giving up our commitment to create what was billed as the ‘exploration infrastructure’ of the future. But I’m behind this new search for new cheese ONLY if it truly frees us up to do more of what we were created to do—explore, explore, explore. I think it will and I’m going to help make it happen.

Because the cheese that’s moving isn’t just a destination, like that pie in the sky we once visited many, many years ago. The real cheese that’s moving is our reliance on “old, moldly cheese”. It’s the inability to change that put us in this situation. And if this change brings about a renewed culture which takes along with it the best of what made us great and creates a new atmosphere of innovation and discovery, built around the ability to never stop looking for that new cheese, what could be more in line with the spirit of exploration than that?

So if we’re really going to abandon this stinky limburger for a fancy gold palate assortment of bries, cheddars, provolones, and colbys, we’d better remember that it’s the act of finding new cheese that we’re all about in the first place.

The best laid schemes
O’ mice and men
Often go astray.

Robert Burns

“Don’t Stop” by Fleetwood Mac

The new NASA budget is a fundamental challenge to the way we operate in the human spaceflight community.  It asks us to stop expecting Washington or another JFK to tell us what to do and demands that we determine what we can offer the nation and set out to break as many boundaries as we can, while respecting the fiscal realities this country faces.

We can either fight this “paradigm shift,” as some have called it, or we can embrace it and make it our own.  Human space exploration is not going to die because of the cancellation of the Constellation program.  The American human space program itself will only die if we fail to rise to this challenge.  The NASA community has core assets and capabilities, such as the premier ability of JSC’s Mission Operations Directorate to conduct launch, ascent, and reentry of human crews, that must be conserved and shared if we are to succeed.

No, the commercial space entrepreneurs are not ready to fly astronauts yet.  However, NASA is chartered by the Space Act to foster commercial enterprises in space.  Go look at it if you don’t believe me. The agency is obligated by law to help them grow, while still meeting its own needs.  The question before us is how we can bring the best of NASA and its people to create this new public-private partnership in LEO and determine a more innovative and sustainable path for exploring the rest of the solar system.

Yes, these are uncertain times.  I know I prefer certainty as an engineer. Given that the most common complaint I’ve heard about the new budget is the lack of an explicit destination or timeline, it would seem I’m not alone in that preference.  The adversity to risk that is endemic in our professional culture and, frankly, our society only compounds the anxiety.  I ask you, my friends and colleagues, to not despair, though.  We may never have an opportunity like this again.

We have a chance to break down the institutional barriers that have stymied further advancement into space time and time again.  We have a chance to escape the overbearing current of organizational inertia and find enabling processes, systems, and technologies that can take us further than we even imagined.  We have an open horizon and the Administrator has asked us to help him chart the course.

I think the choice is straightforward: Adapt and thrive or go find something else to do.  There are many problems to solve in the days, weeks, months, and years ahead.  There is no lack of work to be done.  We need serious, dedicated, and passionate people to  turn this very high-level view of NASA’s future into a cohesive, coherent reality.  There is no one right answer to be handed down from on high.  That’s why we need everyone’s ideas and inputs.

I got into this field because I believe our species’ future depends on exploring space and settling the solar system.  I know that many of you share this view.  The military doesn’t quit their core mission when one of their programs gets canceled.  They find a way to get the job done with the parameters they’ve been given.  So must we.

President Obama's JFK Moment, Buzz Aldrin, Huffington Post

"Thank you, Mr. President.

That's what we should say to President Barack Obama in light of his Fiscal Year 2011 space budget for NASA. The President courageously decided to redirect our nation's space policy away from the foolish and underfunded Moon race that has consumed NASA for more than six years, aiming instead at boosting the agency's budget by more than $1 billion more per year over the next five years, topping off at $100 billion for NASA between now and 2015."

IFPTE: A new day at NASA - a rebirth at Ames

"More specifically, there was truly terrific news on Monday as the Obama Administration has addressed many of IFPTE's NASA-budget recommendations:

1.  Full-cost recovery has been cancelled (IFPTE's #1 workforce priority).

The Agency will be going to a single unified CS labor account in FY11. In a letter from Administrator Bolden on Monday, he assured the Union that: "Going forward, it is also NASA's intention to work with the Congress to implement a unified labor account for FY 2011.   NASA remains committed to full-cost workforce planning, to including labor estimates in our project baseline, and to complete transparency in workforce utilization at HQ and the Centers; however, we think it very valuable to unify labor into a single account for budget purposes."

Technoarcheology and Earth Sciences, the Recovery of Nimbus II High Resolution Infrared Radiometer Data

"In 2008 the Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project (LOIRP) began a NASA ESMD sponsored project to resurrect 43+ year old Ampex FR-900 instrumentation tape drives for the purpose of recovering, before the capability to do so becomes impossible, the last surviving master tapes from the five Lunar Orbiter spaceraft that orbited the Moon in support of Apollo in 1966-67. Our project is proceeding on our task to do so. During our research on the Ampex tape drives we scoured the NASA Technical Reports Server as well as any other source we could get our hands on.

During this search, we found, through a Cadillac (yes the car) user group, a gentleman from Alaska who had worked on these drives during the 1960's. We were able to connect and while he had retired and the units were long gone to that great scrap yard in the sky, he told me something interesting. He said that during his time working on the drives that they had sent "miles and miles, thousands of tapes" to NASA during the Nimbus weather satellite program. This is where our new tale begins.

One of the things that the LOIRP team is going to do is to take the Nimbus II HRIR data from August 23rd 1966 and overlay that with the Lunar Orbiter 1 data on the same date for a composite mosaic. There is potential for a significant synergy between Lunar Orbiter, Apollo, and Nimbus II and III data sets. This type of synergy could provide many benefits to the Earth sciences community."

I, like many others here at NASA, have spent the past few days reading and thinking about the new plan the president has proposed for NASA and what it really means. I work in science research, so part of this new plan makes me happy. But other parts of this plan were harder to digest. Since its inception, NASA has always had a vision to achieve the impossible and push the boundaries. I feel that hasn’t changed with the new proposal. But I can see why people think it has.
 
Two years ago, I was fortunate enough to be a part of the group that came up with the 20 year vision for JSC. It was for “JSC to be a collaborative, innovative, and integrated space center, boldly expanding the frontiers of human space exploration.” I can’t help thinking that this new plan the president has laid out is the first step to get us exactly there.
 
I then started thinking about how we got to that vision. It was hard. Lots of long nights, frustration, arguments and running around in circles until one day it finally clicked. What are wonderful mentors were trying to get us to do was open our minds, erase the boundaries and think outside the box. Why was this seemingly easy concept so difficult? We are all trained in a system of rules, boundaries, goals, processes, etc. These aren’t bad things, they are needed to succeed. But they can come at a price. Some of these can hinder innovation, slow creativity and have so strong a focus that the big picture is lost. And yet we are so tied to them that the thought of going beyond them or even questioning why they exist is not something that crosses our minds often. After several months, our group had opened our minds and started to think about the big picture, started questioning and started really thinking. In the end we came up with something that was new and exciting. Many of my colleagues have continued to innovate and inspire and I see no signs of them stopping! I call upon them now to help make others see that NASA has now been given the same chance the 30 of us got 2 years ago.
 
Although at first glance the lack of a “mission” may feel like we have lost something, really look at the opportunity we have been given. It’s not going to be easy, harder for some then for others, but here at NASA we have people who really do achieve the impossible every day. With the knowledge and passion that every person in this agency has for the dream of exploration, we might even surprise ourselves in how far we can go when we are allowed to open our minds and let the creative process happen.

A few days ago, I woke up, half-dreading the 6-mile run I needed to complete in preparation for the half-marathon I’m signed up to run in just under two months. Whenever runs get torturous, or I’m having a terrible day and just don’t want to get out there, I tell myself that this is all in preparation for one day achieving my ultimate goal of becoming an astronaut. Somehow, that provides some internal inkling of motivation that gets me going every time. For many months, perhaps a year now, I’ve had a secret desire to run the internal perimeter of JSC – from gate to gate to gate…to gate (I think)…if not to just prove to myself that I could do it. That day, I decided, was the day, and I set about mapping my route and subsequently out the door.

It was, in some fashion, much like a glimpse through the evolution of the space center. From its inception as the Manned Spacecraft Center, the buildings, the employees, the land that Johnson Space Center rests upon have trudged through the beaten course through programs and changes galore.

New buildings dot the outskirts of the center, while recognizable structures, like MCC, remain sturdy and discernable from distances. I imagined what life was like 40, 30, even 10 years ago. And as I made my way past the Saturn V rocket, I couldn’t help but think of it as a fascinating display of our intellect, perseverance, and determination.

Then, I rounded the corner.

An inconspicuous trail sets off to the right of one of the outer roads of JSC, one I’ve driven past what must be hundreds of times. At first, I ran past it, but something made me glance over my right shoulder at a couple of dozen trees, arranged in a circular pattern. I doubled back and entered the memorial garden. Wreaths and flowers adorned the trees planted in remembrance of the men and women who have given their lives to human spaceflight. Robert Gilruth, Frank Caldeiro, Gus Grissom, Rick Husband, Judith Resnik were only some of the names I jogged past. As I paused briefly to pick up the fallen memorial wreaths placed at the trees of the commanders of the Apollo 1 and Columbia crews (the one for the Challenger crew braved the winds), I couldn’t help but think about where we’ve come in the 50 years since NASA’s inception…the feats we’ve accomplished, the goals we’ve set, achieved, and surpassed. I couldn’t help but think about the sacrifices these men and women, along with countless others, have made in order to further our innate desire and yearning to explore.

And now, as we stand at the foothill of one of the most challenging and difficult moments in our nation’s space program, I believe it’s imperative to take on the responsibility of seeing the big picture. This new direction will commit the US to 10 more years on the International Space Station; it will restore funding and focus on life and earth sciences; it will allow NASA to undergo a complete paradigm shift in order to work closely with commercial entities to get crews safely into LEO.

I’m not sure about you all, but that to me is very specific, very distinct direction that, though detracts from our previous programmatic goal of reaching for the moon, has a very clear purpose. I see this as a stepping stone to free NASA resources to concentrate on beyond-LEO exploration. If we can prove that we can work well with our commercial partners to get humans into LEO, and subsequently allow them to maintain that capability, our boundaries are expanded ten-fold at minimum, and we’re free to allocate resources towards getting humans back onto the moon, onto Mars, and throughout our solar system. Sure, the timeline is a bit delayed, relatively, but there’s no proof (nor will there ever be) of what our timeline to get to the moon would’ve been with Constellation.

Though this proposed budget has not yet been approved, I think it’s inevitable that little can be done to drastically change the policy that eventually gets implemented. This reality, then, begs the question: what can we do?

Over the past few days, I’ve spent countless hours (literally) thinking about the implications of this significant change. Many of us will be displaced; many centers will likely see rearrangement; we will undoubtedly see the culture change that many have indicated NASA has needed for a good, long time.

So, where does this leave us? It’s imperative that we embrace this change and put forth the effort to work with the commercial space industry to accomplish the goals set out by the Administration; after all, if we don’t – we’re done for. Ultimately, the more resistance to this change we put in as an agency, the further we set ourselves back.

However, if we can prove our merit and ability to enable the commercial space industry to do what we do now, I hold onto hope that we will eventually be rewarded for our efforts with an inspiring, exciting new vision that gets humans beyond LEO and exploring the unknowns.

With this in mind, I believe it’s absolutely essential that we prepare for this future today. I’ve heard countless times over the last few days that, if adopted, this new direction will drive our talent and resources out the door, leaving the agency with no experience, knowledge, or expertise (you know, the ones we already have right now) to get us beyond LEO someday. If this is, in fact, even remotely a possibility, it’s crucial for us to work to make sure the good isn’t lost. We should make it a priority to cultivate and capture ALL of the lessons learned, experiences, and knowledge in order to utilize it when the time comes. We should identify and infuse this new culture with all of the positive aspects of our existing culture. And most importantly, we should be optimistic about our futures and see this entire reshuffle as an opportunity to REALLY contribute to our space program and help steer how we all handle the coming years. I imagine this to be an opportunity much like the founders of our agency had in creating Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo – to be bold and innovative, as we expand the frontiers of human space exploration.

Even now, a few days after that visit to the memorial garden, I can’t help but think about the amazing feats we’ve accomplished and the men and women who’ve helped get us to this very moment in time. Despite political decisions dictating our agency’s very being, I think it cannot be denied that NASA is home to some of the most intelligent and driven people who have true passion for space exploration. Let’s not allow this change of pace to derail that motivation and passion for contributing to human space exploration. Though times are changing, and we no longer have a clear timeline to beyond-LEO exploration, I urge everyone to keep an open mind about the implications of this lack of direction. What we do know is that we all are here for the same reason; and if we put forth that passion and effort into our forward work, there is no doubt in my mind that we can make the legends of our past proud of the accomplishments of our future.

NASA Plan Faces Turbulence in House, WS Journal

"NASA's proposed budget "essentially decimates America's human space-flight capacity," said Democratic Rep. Donna Edwards of Maryland Rep, Ralph Hall of Texas, the ranking Republican on the full Science and Technology Committee, said "it is naive to assume that a do-over will somehow deliver a safer, cheaper system faster than the current path we are on." The reaction portends an uphill fight for the Obama Administration, partly due to sentiment on Capitol Hill that it failed to consult members before unveiling such a dramatic shift in direction In an interview Tuesday, NASA's Administrator, Charles Bolden, accepted part of the blame. "I could have done a better job of communicating" with Congress, he said. "I will take the hit for that."

Proposed NASA budget plots entrepreneur-friendly course, LA Times

"The potentially seismic shift for the aerospace industry was announced Monday, the seventh anniversary of the loss of the space shuttle Columbia, and came as defense companies were bracing for a pullback in the Pentagon's spending on weapons."

Obama Gets Space Funding Right, Steven Weinberg, WS Journal

"Giving up on manned space flight doesn't mean we have to give up on the exploration of the solar system. The president's budget calls for spending $19 billion on NASA, and for much less than the cost of sending a few astronauts once to a single location on Mars we could send hundreds of robots like Spirit and Opportunity to sites all over the planet."

Keith's note: The NASA IPP NASA Commercial Space Initiatives Team Meeting is meeting on 9 Feb. Who knew? No Federal Register notice, no mention on the NASA IPP home page - no mention anywhere at NASA.gov. You would think that with all of the recent emphasis on commercial space in the new Obama space policy that NASA would want these events to be widely known and heavily attended. Guess not.

The right way forward on space exploration, OpEd, James Cameron, Washington Post

"... the president and NASA have crafted a bold plan that truly makes possible this nation's dreams for space. Their plan calls for the full embrace of commercial solutions for transporting astronauts to low Earth orbit after the space shuttle is retired this year. This frees NASA to do what it does best: deep space exploration, both robotic and human. By selecting commercial solutions for transportation to the international space station, NASA is empowering American free enterprise to do what it does best: develop technology quickly and efficiently in a competitive environment."

Keith's note: The director of the highest grossing movie of all time - a movie overtly about space exploration, a former member of the NASA Advisory Council, writes a glowing OpEd in a prominent national newspaper in support of the new White House's space policy - and yet NASA cannot find a way to make mention of it - any where? Not even a single Twitter posting? At a time when a lot of people are hammering NASA and the Administration over this new space policy, one would think that NASA would be looking for good news wherever they could find it. Guess not.

James Cameron Endorses Commercial Spaceflight, New NASA Plan, Commercial Spaceflight Federation

Pluto's White, Dark-Orange, and Charcoal Black Terrain Captured by Hubble

"NASA has released the most detailed and dramatic images ever taken of the distant dwarf planet Pluto. The images from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope show an icy, mottled, dark molasses-colored world undergoing seasonal surface color and brightness changes. Pluto has become significantly redder, while its illuminated northern hemisphere is getting brighter. These changes are most likely consequences of surface ice melting on the sunlit pole and then refreezing on the other pole, as the dwarf planet heads into the next phase of its 248-year-long seasonal cycle. Analysis shows the dramatic change in color took place from 2000 to 2002."

Mementos from canceled NASA moon plan flying on space shuttle, Collectspace

"Together with a piece of Everest's summit, also retrieved by Parazynski, the plaque-mounted moon rocks will be displayed inside Tranquility's new seven-windowed Cupola to inspire the astronauts working there. "Imagine being in the Cupola and looking out this huge series of windows and looking at the Moon and having a piece of the Moon right next to you. What's that going to be like? I have no idea. I'll come back and tell you," said STS-130 mission specialist Stephen Robinson. Robinson had a role in including aboard the flight another, albeit subtle, nod to NASA's lunar exploration history in the form of his and his crewmates' mission patch. The six-sided emblem, which was shaped to resemble the Cupola viewing port attached to Tranquility's side, depicts the Earth as it was first seen in a photograph taken from the Moon by Lunar Orbiter I."

Keith's note: Not only is STS-130 carrying the Moon rock that I carried to Nepal and slept with for a month and Scott then carried to the summit of Mt. Everest, but I just learned that the STS-130 patch was inspired by the "earthrise" photo that Dennis Wingo and our team at the Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project released in Nov. 2008. It usually takes quite a lot to leave me speechless - this comes very close to doing so. How do we expand on such resonant opportunities so as to allow not just a few - but rather millions of people to have a similar, personal connection to what we do in space?

NASA and GM Create Cutting Edge Robotic Technology

"NASA and General Motors are working together to accelerate development of the next generation of robots and related technologies for use in the automotive and aerospace industries. Engineers and scientists from NASA and GM worked together through a Space Act Agreement at the agency's Johnson Space Center in Houston to build a new humanoid robot capable of working side by side with people. Using leading edge control, sensor and vision technologies, future robots could assist astronauts during hazardous space missions and help GM build safer cars and plants."

Keith's note: I certainly hope that NASA and GM are going to create a road show for these cool-looking robots. Once you have built one or two then building multiple copies starts to get cheaper. NASA and GM should put them on display and then invite the public into GM plants across the U.S. to see them in action. Show how NASA technology is going to help the U.S. auto industry thrive and rebound as well as explore space. Take the robots to local schools and local chamber of commerce events and let people try them out for a drive, so to speak. Make certain that flyers and other promotional materials are in EVERY GM dealership in America and that very new GM car has something in the drivers sear about these robots to go with it. Put the robots in a GM TV commercial. Work with Mattel or other toy companies to make action figures. Work with Legos to make small hobby versions of the robot - indeed have school competitions where kids are encouraged to make their own copies.

This is a Education and Public Outreach activity that is just begging to be implemented. If NASA can lavish lots of attention on a fake robot like Buzz Lightyear one would hope that they could do the same for the real thing.

Most people think that the end of the Constellation program, will impede NASA’s ability to go to the Moon and beyond. I believe that we can use the change in direction to get to the Moon or Mars faster than if we stuck to the Constellation program (at the very least we can get to Mars faster). The Constellation program, was projected to get us to the Moon by 2020. However, the program has been over-budget, and behind schedule. Given the lack of proper funding, I predict that if we choose to go through with the Constellation program we would not get to the moon until after 2020, maybe 2022 or 2025 if at all.

Eventhough, I agree that lack of proper funding is a major source of problems with the Constellation program, I still think that the Constellation program is a bad strategy for NASA. The reason that I think it is a bad strategy is because there are too many unknowns, too many things that need to be developed that can’t be developed until later in the program (or at the very least verified), and too rigid a box to get it done (it doesn’t help that we also don’t have the proper budget to get this done, but when you add physical constraints it makes life very difficult). Further the long development time, requires us to develop and work on technology that will be severely outdated by the time we get to use it.

What the Constellation program has given NASA is the strong and clear realization that we need to leave near earth orbit and go to the Moon, Mars and Beyond; while providing a clear path to doing it. The goal of going to the Moon or Mars has to remain central to any planning that NASA does.

• What technologies can NASA work on now, so that if we were to fund a program in the future to go to the Moon, Mars, etc it would reduce the amount of time needed to get the project done?

• What technologies can NASA work on now, that can be used as leverage in international partnerships, and commercial partnerships?

Do not be deceived, NASA has a real customer. The customer is the political market. As Mike Coats pointed out, in a recent All-Hands, around every eight years the political party in power changes, and with it comes new direction. Policy defines the priorities that NASA has to be concerned with, and the budget that we have for those specific priorities. Our objective is to explore, WE define that, independently of any policy direction that Congress and the President gives us. When a new direction is given by the President, we get to determine the method of implementing the direction. What we must be able to do is get a significant victory (several preferably) in the pursuit of going to other planets, every time that a new administration and direction is given to us.

For example, with the Constellation Program, the path to get anywhere took too long. Part of the path to the moon could have been to get to the ISS, as a first step, with the CEV capsule, in a method that would have gotten us there before the President was scheduled to leave office.  Scheduling this way would prohibit the project from being stopped by the next President. If we had a second method of getting to the ISS we could comfortably retire the Shuttle, and more funds would have been able to go to funding the path to the Moon or Mars. Also, it is very difficult to argue with success. If we show that we are making progress, the president has less leverage/reason to change the direction. Also, going to the ISS with a new vehicle would have been a great way of getting the public around our mission. Hindsight is 20/20, but this is a lesson that we must learn: there are real timelines (political ones), we must strategize to these timelines.

With the new budget and direction (Robotic Precursor Missions), we could develop a robotic expedition to go to the Moon and return. This would develop critical intelligence, that we have likely lost, in how to return to earth from another planet. By doing it through a robotic expedition, we can minimize the cost of getting this project done. If we do it in such a way that we could one day take cargo to the moon with the capsule, then we could use this project as a stepping stone for new projects in the future (like sending animal experiments to the Moon or Mars). We wouldn’t have to (or want to) develop new rocket technology, it would be wise to use existing technologies to get this done. If it is possible to do it with a stripped down version of the CEV capsule, then we can leverage the work we have already done for the Constellation Program. I don’t know enough, to say if the weight and size (geometric dimensions) would make using the CEV cost prohibitive.

With the “Heavy Lift and Propulsion R&D” money in the budget we could develop technologies that allow us to launch from on-orbit. Launching in space, reduces the amount of thrust and fuel needed to get to our destination. Launching on earth, requires a huge amount of thrust just to move, which causes the launch to go through extreme accelerations. The accelerations cause increased load, which requires stronger structure, which increases the weight. If we launch in space, we can develop rocket technology that has a more steady thrust release. We don’t have to accelerate as fast as we would from earth (we just accelerate for a longer time).   This would reduce the structural strength required (lowering the mass), while still having the ability to get to velocities that get us there quickly.

I guess I will leave with:

We don’t define policy, but we do get to define the approach of implementing the applicable policy. We have to maximize victories needed to explore space, within the political schedule. By showing progress within the political schedule, the policymakers have less leverage to change our direction, increasing the speed that we get to go to the Moon and Mars (or whatever other destination).   Also, the progress helps us get the public around our mission, which increases our chance of getting our budget increased.