Space Quote: Everything Normal Here, Please Get Back to Work (In the Office, Of Course)

Posted on by onespaceman2000

“President Trump recently issued a Presidential Memorandum (PM) titled “Return to In-Person Work,” the text of which is included below. NASA intends to fully comply.

‘Heads of all departments and agencies in the executive branch of Government shall, as soon as practicable, take all necessary steps to terminate remote work arrangements and require employees to return to work in-person at their respective duty stations on a full-time basis, provided that the department and agency heads shall make exemptions they deem necessary.‘

…Please continue to remain focused on the mission. Right now, we have dozens of spacecraft studying different aspects of our solar system and the distant universe. We have four American astronauts living and working in space, with several crew members on Earth training for upcoming missions. And we have engineers and researchers working on technology development that will advance the future of flight and space exploration.”

-Information emailed to NASA staff on January 24, 2025 from NASA’s acting Administrator Janet Petro (see below). This follows a message earlier in the week shutting down all diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts. The earlier email also asked employees to report on one another if DEI appeared anywhere. This latest email orders everyone back to work and then is nice enough to remind them that they left four astronauts in space who still need tending to. Not exactly a good week a NASA workforce that “already exceeds…expectations.”

Image (Credit): Email to NASA staff on January 24, 2025 from the acting administrator. (NASAWatch)

NASA Gets to Work Under the New Administration by Shutting Down DEI

Posted on by onespaceman2000

Almost the first words the NASA employees heard from their acting administrator was the end of the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts within the agency.

In an email earlier today, Acting NASA Administrator Janet Petro stated, in part:

Notice the use of “Radical” in the executive order and the Office of Personnel Management email address including “truth,” favorite words of the incoming administration. Are we using federal dollars for this latest “witch hunt” (to use more of the favorite words)? None of this will help to calm the fears of hard-working NASA employees trying to focus on space missions rather than the political silliness in Washington, DC.

It does make you wonder what is coming down the road. For example, the Artemis mission on NASA’s website is pretty clear in terms of what it hopes to accomplish:

Will the goal of landing the first woman, person of color, and international partner be seen as encouraging too much diversity? The Artemis II crew, shown below, already meets the mission profile, but maybe that will change with the Artemis III crew that lands on the Moon. At this point, it would not be too surprising ito find the Artemis III crew consists of four white billionaires using a rover as a golf cart to hit balls across the lunar surface.

We’ll see what happens, as they say.

Image (Credit): NASA’s Artemis II mission crew (left to right): NASA astronauts Christina Hammock Koch, Reid Wiseman (seated), Victor Glover, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen. (NASA)

Space Stories: Farewell to Bill Nelson, an Unpredictable Universe, and Ponds and Lakes on Mars

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Bill Nelson appearing before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation on April 21, 2021 as the nominee to be the 14th administrator of NASA. (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

Here are some recent stories of interest.

—WESH.com: “NASA Administrator Bill Nelson Writes Letter to Next Leader, Reflects on Legacy and Future of Space Exploration“

In a heartfelt letter addressed to the 15th Administrator of NASA, Bill Nelson expressed his admiration for the agency’s workforce and the immense honor of leading the organization dedicated to space exploration. Nelson, who has a rich history with NASA, having flown on the Space Shuttle Columbia and served as a U.S. Senator from Florida, emphasized the exceptional nature of the NASA team. He noted that the agency embodies a “can-do spirit” that exemplifies American ingenuity and leadership in space.

—Duke University: “Dan Scolnic Shows that the Universe Is Still Full of Surprises“

The Universe really seems to be expanding fast. Too fast, even. A new measurement confirms what previous — and highly debated — results had shown: The Universe is expanding faster than predicted by theoretical models, and faster than can be explained by our current understanding of physics. This discrepancy between model and data became known as the Hubble tension. Now, results published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters provide even stronger support to the faster rate of expansion. “The tension now turns into a crisis,” said Dan Scolnic, who led the research team.

—Caltech: “Signatures of Ice-Free Ancient Ponds and Lakes Found on Mars“

Researchers have discovered two sets of ancient wave ripples on Mars, signatures of long-dried bodies of water preserved in the rock record. Wave ripples are small undulations in the sandy shores of lakebeds, created as wind-driven water laps back and forth. The two sets of ripples indicate the former presence of shallow water that was open to the Martian air, not covered by ice as some climate models would require.

Space Quote: Next Step Mars?

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Credit: NASA

“We will pursue our manifest destiny into the stars, launching American astronauts to plant the Stars and Stripes on the planet Mars.”

-Inaugural statement by President Trump on January 20, 2024. He may want to check with NASA on the Artemis program given that the planned trip to the Moon has already cost taxpayers billions of dollars. He might also want to read a recent Politico story that discusses congressional preference for a Moon first program. The story quotes Texas Republican Brian Babin, who stated, “To bypass the moon would be a mistake.” It might also look bad to give the Moon to the Chinese long before we figure out a way to safely get to Mars. For all of Musk’s talk on this matter, the loss of a Starship rocket last week was not encouraging. We are having trouble enough getting ready to return to the Moon.

Blue Ghost Lunar Lander on its Way to the Moon

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Artist’s rendering of the Blue Ghost lunar lander on the Moon. (Firefly Aerospace)

Earlier today, a SpaceX rocket successfully launched Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost mission. If it makes it to the lunar surface, it will be the second US mission to land on the Moon since the end of the Apollo program in the 1970s.

Firefly Aerospace issued a press release noting its the initial success of the mission:

Firefly’s Blue Ghost lunar lander launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, successfully acquired signal, and completed on-orbit commissioning. With a target landing date of March 2, 2025, Firefly’s 60-day mission is now underway, including approximately 45 days on-orbit and 14 days of lunar surface operations with 10 instruments as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative.

Blue Ghost Mission 1, named Ghost Riders in the Sky, launched from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, at 1:11 a.m. EST on January 15, 2025. Blue Ghost separated from the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in a highly elliptical Earth orbit at 2:17 a.m. EST and established communications with Firefly’s Mission Operations Center in Cedar Park, Texas, at 2:26 a.m. EST. On-orbit spacecraft commissioning was then completed by 5:30 a.m. EST, which included verifying attitude determination and control capabilities, increasing the data transfer rate, establishing a power-positive attitude, and completing initial lander health checks.

This is a big step for Firefly Aerospace, which hopes to build on the success of this mission to launch other lunar missions in the next few years. But we need to take it one step at a time given the two US commercial lunar missions that failed earlier last year.

Note: The SpaceX launch also included a Japaneses private sector Moon mission – iSpace’s HAKUTO-R M2 “Resilience” lunar lander. This is the second Moon mission for iSpace. The first mission crashed into the Moon’s surface back in 2023.

iSpace has shown resilience after the previous attempt. A successful mission will be a good sign for the company and the private lunar industry as well.

You can read more about the mission particulars here.

Credit: iSpace