NASA - Updates Only

NMaude said:
What are the odds that that partisan ideologue hack, Russell Vought...
Click to expand...
https://spacenews.com/proposal-to-dismantle-ncar-would-have-space-science-impacts/
Vought behind labs...out-of-shape Homelander tearing up the White House.

...no Billy Butcher.

Instead of a Space Odyssey, we got 9/11 in the year 2001 thanks to Dubya and the Grail.

I grew up watching Gene Roddenberry, but got Garth Ennis instead.

Thanks a lot Vallon...drunk so and so's :)
Jared could always go back to selling diamonds—he and his love that carbon.

DOGE's victims
https://spacenews.com/exodus-the-shrinking-federal-space-workforce/
 
Last edited:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/12/29/musk-trump-vance-maga-alliance/
How Vance brokered a truce between Trump and Musk
December 29, 2025 at 5:00 a.m. ESTToday at 5:00 a.m. EST
By Elizabeth Dwoskin, Natalie Allison and Faiz Siddiqui

SNIP

The Gor dynamic would prove the most troublesome. On Musk’s final day as a special government employee, Gor, a White House aide involved in personnel matters, provided Trump with printouts showing that Jared Isaacman, a billionaire with ties to SpaceX whom Musk had pushed to lead NASA, had donated to Democrats, said a person familiar with Musk and Trump’s falling-out. Gor was aware that Trump was sensitive to hires that did not share his political ideology, the person said.

Trump pulled Isaacman’s nomination, announcing the decision in a Saturday night post on Truth Social. Three days later, Musk railed on X against Trump’s signature tax and immigration legislation, the “One Big Beautiful Bill.”

SNIP

Meanwhile, the White House began discussing ways to bring Musk back into the fold. Vance and others knew a top priority for Musk was the confirmation of his friend Isaacman as NASA administrator. Vance pushed for Isaacman to have the position again, speaking with relevant members on the Senate Commerce Committee to make sure Isaacman had the support he needed and would receive a quick confirmation. Wiles also worked behind the scenes to get Isaacman’s nomination restored, despite objections from acting NASA administrator Duffy, the people said.

SNIP

Then the White House reassigned Gor, the official who had intervened against Isaacman, to a foreign posting.

“[Gor’s ouster] made it easier for everyone to go back to liking each other,” said one of the people familiar with the dynamic.

Before long, Musk was back.
Click to expand...
 
What looked bad was Musk wanting subsidies while also wanting to leave Old Space workers destitute. That's a bad look. Doug Jones (D) might be one of the few Democrat Governors my state has had in the past few decades on account of that. Besides, I don't see "Bamas" voting for Tubby this go-around.

(Bamurs)

I guess Gor can go back to wandering.

What's Throngor doing these days?
 
Last edited:
publiusr said:
The new NASA Chief is proof of the latter--as to the former:
Click to expand...
That is not proof. Just another case seeing something that isn't there.
publiusr said:
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/24/trump-musk-federal-subsidies-cuts-00473570
WAPO reports $38 billion going to Elon...subsidies, contracts, whatever.

Heaven forbid North Alabama get a dime.
Click to expand...

None of that is SpaceX.


publiusr said:
Heaven forbid North Alabama get a dime.
Click to expand...
North Alabama already gets too much from SLS. And it gets enough with just Redstone, it doesn't need Marshall.
 

NASA’s Largest Library Is Closing Amid Staff and Lab Cuts
Holdings from the library at the Goddard Space Flight Center, which includes unique documents from the early 20th century to the Soviet space race, will be warehoused or thrown out.
By Eric Niiler
Dec. 31, 2025Updated 1:28 p.m. ET

The Trump administration is closing NASA’s largest research library on Friday, a facility that houses tens of thousands of books, documents and journals — many of them not digitized or available anywhere else.

Jacob Richmond, a NASA spokesman, said the agency would review the library holdings over the next 60 days and some material would be stored in a government warehouse while the rest would be tossed away.

“This process is an established method that is used by federal agencies to properly dispose of federally owned property,” Mr. Richmond said.

The shutdown of the library at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., is part of a larger reorganization under the Trump administration that includes the closure of 13 buildings and more than 100 science and engineering laboratories on the 1,270-acre campus by March 2026.
Click to expand...
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/31/climate/nasa-goddard-library-closing.html
 
NMaude said:
That building should've been classified as an historic building with a preservation order.
Click to expand...
A. it is already a National Historic Landmark.
B. Preservation costs too much money. NASA doesn't have millions to "preserve" unneeded structures. NASA has a hard time just maintaining needed facilities.
 
BlueAbyssal said:
@martinbayer the literal translation is different, but would the American idiom for that essentially be 'birds of a feather flock together'?
Click to expand...
In terms of the general meaning, the US expression roughly captures the same sentiment, but the German one conveys a certain level of derision/condescension/contempt that gets lost in translation :).
 
Last edited:
Last edited:
Via Blackstar on NSF. From Grant Tremblay on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/x/status/2008631848847728869
View: https://twitter.com/astrogrant/status/2008631848847728869/photo/1


A *really really* helpful chart re: NASA/Minibus from my dear friend @JackKiraly at the @exploreplanets Planetary Society. Because the CJS Joint Explanatory Statement gives the House and Senate CJS reports equal standing (unless contradicted in the Conference Report), you really have to "combine" the Senate, House, and Conference CJS reports to understand what is funded and what is not for NASA Science in the Minibus. Here it is (and thank you buddy!)
Click to expand...
https://twitter.com/x/status/2008640904974987645
View: https://twitter.com/astrogrant/status/2008640904974987645


Remember that in this Bill the NASA *tables* are made statutory - literally law - while the line items not included in the tables are merely, ahem, a very strong expression of bicameral bipartisan congressional intent, if you know what I mean ). In a Normal Universe™ Agency LegAffairs offices typically list "don't piss off the appropriators" as Rule #1, and demand that Op Plans are largely compliant with all line items in a signed approps bill). We are further from a normal Universe than any time in recent memory, so implementation still matters, but line items still really aren't "suggestions" even if they don't have the full force of law.
Click to expand...
 
https://twitter.com/x/status/2008743740127801843
View: https://x.com/MostlyAnger/status/2008743740127801843

https://twitter.com/x/status/2008747210586882457
View: https://x.com/astrogrant/status/2008747210586882457

https://twitter.com/x/status/2008747533003354622
View: https://x.com/astrogrant/status/2008747533003354622

https://twitter.com/x/status/2008748068926357778
View: https://x.com/astrogrant/status/2008748068926357778


"the line items not included in the tables are merely, ahem, a very strong expression of…congressional intent"

If Congress cares that much, why *aren't* they statutory as well? Is there some legal reason they can't be? Thanks.
Click to expand...

It's because Appropriations bills are not meant to be policy-heavy statutes but rather temporary, fiscal, and conditional. It is more the role of the *Authorization* committees to write bills that set Agency policy/direction (and/but those bills are weightless without approps money)

So *in principle* Authorization committees create programs, define missions, set ceilings, and write permanent law. Appropriations committees fund (or don’t fund) those programs. The reality is more complicated (Auth writes unfunded mandates if Approps doesn't agree)

Also, in a weird way, making all Approps report language statutory might gut some of the committee's leverage, because an Agency can always lawyer around it. So "The Committee expects ..." preserves Approps supremacy and exerts plenty of pressure without pissing off Authorizers
Click to expand...
 
Byeman said:
False narrative.

https://twitter.com/x/status/2007210690587557905
View: https://x.com/NASAAdmin/status/2007210690587557905?s=20
Click to expand...
You were saying.

Goddard Space Flight Center staff says library's closure degrades NASA's mission
JANUARY 6, 20264:47 AM ET

https://www.npr.org/2026/01/06/nx-s...-says-librarys-closure-degrades-nasas-mission
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

NASA's plans for the new year include sending a spacecraft near the moon. Some of the work for missions like that takes place at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, and that is where the Trump administration is closing a library where scientists did a lot of work. What's the connection between high technology and an old-style center of learning? NPR's Katia Riddle reports.

KATIA RIDDLE, BYLINE: Over the course of his 30-plus-year career as a planetary scientist, Dave Williams estimates he spent thousands of hours in the library at Goddard. He recently retired, but he can still return to that building in his mind.

DAVE WILLIAMS: It's got basically two floors, and maybe two-thirds of the first floor is this big collaboration area.

[snip]
Click to expand...
 
Flyaway said:
https://spacenews.com/minibus-provides-24-4-billion-for-nasa-for-fiscal-year-2026/

Great News for NASA in the House-Senate FY2026 Appropriations Report:
https://spacepolicyonline.com/news/...he-house-senate-fy2026-appropriations-report/
Click to expand...
I believe I’ve made the point here before that people should not rush so quickly to panic when the White House doesn’t propose funding all their favorite programs-though I will also note that unless funding is attached to a specific program, the White House isn’t obligated to spend appropriated funds on something.

As far as NPR goes, their credibility has taken an enormous hit over the last decade. Their CEO openly said she deprioritized truth in favor of other things. Anything it publishes should be taken with a huge grain of salt.
 
The whole expeditionary crew has to come back.

I would hate to be sick and ruin plans. Living single and alone—they could just shove me out an airlock…no great loss.

This is what X-38 was supposed to be for.
 
https://www.ifpte.org/news/ifpte-re...on-for-closing-nasas-largest-research-library
IFPTE President Matt Biggs:

“I want to chalk up NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman misguided explanation for the closing of NASA’s research library at the Goddard Space Center to his being new to the job and to the poor advice that he has received from his staff. His public statement regarding the library, released on X, is patently false and must be challenged.

The rapid and haphazard shutdown of the library at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, reported on by The New York Times, decimated this valuable collection housed at NASA’s largest research library. This was not part of some “long-planned facilities consolidation” as Isaacman claims. The Goddard Master Plan, written in 2022, does not call for the library’s closure. Building 21, which houses the library, was scheduled for renovation, not elimination.

Isaacman goes on to say that “NASA researchers will continue to have access to the scientific information and resources they need to do their work.” That’s simply not true. Much of the material that was available in the library in Greenbelt, Maryland, is copyrighted or unique out-of-print material that cannot or has not been digitized and will no longer be available to researchers.

The Goddard facility was a central site for collections from other NASA libraries. The most recent additions have come from the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama and the NASA headquarters libraries.

NASA’s press secretary Bethany Stevens went beyond Isaacman’s X statement, again describing the library shutdown as a “consolidation, not a closure.” Where is the consolidation? The material is not being consolidated with other holdings; it is simply being lost to Goddard and to the broader research community, much of it is being sent to storage or to the dumpster.

NASA’s scientists and engineers shouldn’t have to be dumpster divers to do their work. We expect better from NASA and its managers. The American public and the scientific community beyond also expect and should demand that NASA work to expand our knowledge of space, science, and engineering, and not to contract it. “
Click to expand...
 
The junior league version of that is flying in X-37….the Phantom Works guys are awesome. Falcon Heavy perhaps could lift an HL-42 sized craft up one day.

Dream Chaser just needs its own billionaire tech bro.
 
 
Last edited:
Isaacman opens door to alternatives to moving shuttle Discovery to Houston
by Jeff Foust December 30, 2025

WASHINGTON — NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman suggested he would be open to transferring a spacecraft other than the space shuttle Discovery to Houston.

In a Dec. 23 interview on CNBC, Isaacman said moving the shuttle orbiter from its current home at the National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia would depend on whether it could be done safely and within budget.
Click to expand...

…

In the CNBC interview, Isaacman said he would be open to Houston receiving another spacecraft, such as an Orion capsule, if cost or safety issues make moving Discovery impractical.

“If we can’t do that, you know, we have spacecraft going around the moon with Artemis 2, 3, 4 and 5,” he said. “One way or another, we’re going to make sure Johnson Space Center gets its historic spacecraft right where it belongs.”

Transferring an Orion spacecraft to Space Center Houston would likely be far simpler and less expensive than moving a shuttle orbiter. Orion capsules are routinely transported by truck and could be displayed in a smaller, less costly facility than what a shuttle would require.
Click to expand...

https://spacenews.com/isaacman-opens-door-to-alternatives-to-moving-shuttle-discovery-to-houston/
From here:

https://www.thespacereview.com/article/5130/1
"But practically, the damage is done. Generations of public officials and private donors have entrusted priceless cultural artifacts to the Smithsonian believing that this independent organization is shielded from the intrigue and idiosyncrasies of everyday DC politics. Now, Cornyn and Cruz’s maneuvering might have broken that aegis, which bodes poorly for both the Smithsonian’s current collection and the generosity of future donors. If Kansas’s tourism numbers are a little low, what’s to stop Senator Jerry Moran from shipping Dorothy’s ruby slippers to Topeka? If Muhammad Ali had known Congress could transfer Smithsonian artifacts to a private entity, would he ever have entrusted it with his prized gloves and robe?"
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
Washington Post: New NASA head appears to slow controversial Discovery shuttle move [Jan 10]

Terry White, who worked on the shuttles from 1978 through the end of the program in 2011, and helped maintain the thermal protective tiles, said they are “more fragile than an egg shell” and extraordinarily expensive to replace — a single one can cost thousands of dollars. The equipment to move the shuttles has also long been retired.

White said that he does not think the Smithsonian deserved the shuttle — he would have picked Ohio’s Air Force museum — but short of teleportation, he said, “there’s no easy way to move them.”

He is not so convinced that Artemis will meet the appetite from Texas lawmakers or those who felt Houston was overlooked. “They already have previous space capsules,” he said, adding, “that’s nothing compared to the size of the orbiter.”

“I don’t think they would turn it down,” he said, “but they won’t be impressed that they just got something that went a loop around the moon and came back.”
Click to expand...
 
It seems like there are factions that have placed themselves along different historical/political/ideological lines. What is going on? There seems to be some very legit concerns and criticisms with Trump's people and "tech brah" types. There also seem to be those who have taken their grievances against guys like Trump and Musk and bring their political and ideological ire to the table which further muddies the waters. Anyone with no major dog in the fight able to divide by two and explain the factions at war here and what their concerns are and what their ultimate aims are? I would be thankful for any kind of answer. I know I have ruffled feathers in the past and some would never answer me for various reasons but I think my questions are legitimate and there should be some individuals here who see the strangeness that I am seeing.
 

Similar threads

Back
Top Bottom