• NASA Staff Flee and DOGE Starts its Audit – What Could Go Wrong?

    The Associated Press reports that “hundreds” of NASA employees have decided to leave the agency. This follows layoffs last year at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory as well as recently announced layoffs at Boeing associated with the Space Launch System. This does not instill confidence in NASA’s ability to meet its upcoming mission goals. The same…

  • Pic of the Week: 30 Doradus for Valentine’s Day

    Yes, NASA has an image ready for Valentine’s Day. This image comes from three sources – the Chandra X-ray Observatory, the Hubble Space Telescope, and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array. Here is more from NASA (and even more can be found at the linked site): Otherwise known as the Tarantula Nebula, 30 Dor is located…

  • Space Stories: Monks and Space, the Largest Structure in the Universe, and a Large Cache of Exocomets

    Here are some recent stories of interest.. —Vatican News: “Vatican Astronomer Releases ‘A Jesuit’s Guide to the Stars’“ Br Guy Consolmagno, the director of the Vatican Observatory, has published a new book entitled A Jesuit’s Guide to the Stars. Published on the 4th February, the book charts the long history of Jesuit engagement with astronomy. As Consolmagno notes…

  • Where Is This? Feburary 11, 2025 Quiz

    Take a look at the image above. Can you determine where this image originated? Take a guess and then check your answer by going to the “Where is This? The Answer Sheet” page.

  • The USAID OIG Review of Starlink

    While Elon Musk has done everything he can to make the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) disappear based upon fabricated tales, he has yet to eliminate USAID’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG). In fact, it is the OIG that may be real threat to Mr. Musk given that it initiated a review of…

  • Moonshot: Russia and the Costs of Failure?

    Yuri Borisov, who has red Roscosmos since July 2022, was dismissed from his position last Thursday. It was called a normal rotation. However, you may recall the failed Russian attempt to put its Luna-25 lander on the Moon in August 2023, which happened during Mr. Borisov’s tenure. His replacement is Dmitry Bakanov, who served as a…

  • Boeing Layoffs are Bad News for NASA’s Artemis Program

    As if things could not get worse over at NASA, it now has to contend with Boeing’s financial problems. Boeing is considering laying off about 400 employees working on the Space Launch System (SLS), or about one third of the employees working on the system. The SLS is the backbone of the Artemis program returning…

  • Space Quote: Astronaut’s Comment Shows Musk’s Statement is Unnecessary Drama

    “I don’t think I’m abandoned. I don’t think we’re stuck up here…We’ve got food. We’ve got clothes. We have a ride home in case anything really bad does happen to the International Space Station. We’re in a posture … where we have the International Space Station fully manned and doing what the taxpayers wanted, to…

  • Pic of the Week: The Sombrero Galaxy

    This week’s image, released late last year, comes from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Messier 104 (M104), called the Sombrero galaxy, shines in all its blueness. It is about 31 million light-years away. It would have been interesting to see this galaxy from above (or below, for that matter). Here is more about the…

  • Moon Rock Moves from White House

    As the new administration decorates the White House’s Oval Office, it was determined that a lunar rock no longer needs to be present. The rock from the last Apollo mission, labeled “Lunar Sample 76015,143.” was provided to the Biden administration back in 2021 to remind him of U.S. efforts to return to the Moon. The…