This Is NOT the Milky Way. Except It Is.

Philadelphia Perigee Full Moon

A supermoon sets over the metropolis of Philadelphia in this twilight snapshot captured on November 14 at 6:21am Eastern Standard Time. Within hours of the Moon's exact full phase, that time does correspond to a lunar perigee or the closest point in the Moon's elliptical orbit around our fair planet. Slightly bigger and brighter at perigee, this Full Moon is still flattened and distorted in appearance by refraction in atmospheric layers along the sight-line near the horizon. Also like more ordinary Full Moons, it shines with the warm color of sunlight. Joined by buildings along the Philadelphia skyline, the perigee full moonlight is reflected in the waters of the mighty Cooper River. via NASA http://ift.tt/2f7q2wQ

HiRISE coverage of the Opportunity field site, version 1.0

As she did before for Curiosity, Emily Lakdawalla has searched through the HiRISE image archive for photos of the Opportunity landing site and sorted them all out so that you don't have to.

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NASA Administrator Names: Getting Stuck In The Rumor Mill

Keith's note: A cautionary note with regard to possible NASA Administrator names being circulated, self-promoted, and otherwise tossed around - from the Book "New Moon Rising" that the late Frank Sietzen and I wrote back in 2004:

"As the new Administration continued to fill in open positions, the job of NASA Administrator seemed to get scant attention. One name had circulated with some frequency in late 2001: former New Mexico Senator and Astronaut Harrison "Jack" Schmitt. It wasn't so much that Schmitt was seen as an obvious answer as much as it was the fact that his name had been tossed into the round robin that the media tends to stir up at times such as this.

In this case this happened in an AP wire story just before Christmas. With everyone heading out of town, no one was around to knock Schmitt's name off the list. As such the story continued to circulate - and Schmitt's name stayed in play. People started to get used to hearing his name. Schmitt would later say that he had gotten several calls during that period - but that they were from mid- to low-level staffers that were seeking to confirm his location and how to contact him.

A rather humorous consequence of this way of circulating names occurred in January 2001. The National Air and Space Museum had hosted a special event honoring science fiction author Sir Arthur C. Clarke and the film "2001: A Space Odyssey". Part of the festivities included a showing of the newly restored film at the old location of the Newseum in Rosslyn, Virginia.

Opening the showing was a taped presentation made several weeks earlier by Clarke at his home in Sri Lanka. Not knowing precisely who would be in attendance, Clarke had spoken to who he thought might be there. Clarke welcomed "Dan Goldin" adding "I understand your successor Jack Schmitt is there with you." This resulted in a large chuckle in the audience given that Goldin was not present - and Schmitt was - and he was as much in the dark about the process as anyone else.

The explanation for Clarke's comments may be what Space Frontier Foundation's Rick Tumlinson has suggested. Tumlinson had visited Clarke in Sri Lanka several weeks before and had given Clarke a lay of the land with respect to the political landscape. At the time Tumlinson was traveling Schmitt's name was still echoing in the media."

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NASA Awards Space Studies Board Contract

NASA has awarded a sole-source contract to the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine of Washington to conduct studies on questions of national importance within the domain of NASA science and technology programs relating to space science, Earth science, and biological and physical science in space.

November 18, 2016
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NASA Just Confirmed That Their Whole #JourneyToMars Thing Is Broken

NASA realizes SLS and Orion are too expensive, opens door to competitors, Ars Technica

"Specifically, the document requests responses about: "Competing exploration services in the mid-2020s timeframe and beyond if the market demonstrates such services are available, reliable, and consistent with NASA architectural needs." Ars understands this to mean that if private competitors such as SpaceX, Blue Origin, United Launch Alliance, or other companies produce less expensive rockets and spacecraft within the next five to seven years, NASA will consider using them in lieu of SLS and Orion."

NASA OIG Reiterates Issues With SLS/Orion

"... Program officials are working toward an optimistic internal launch date of August 2021 for EM-2 - 20 months earlier than the Agency's external commitment date of April 2023. While we understand the desire to meet a more aggressive schedule, this approach has led the Program to defer addressing some technical tasks to later in the development cycle, which in turn could negatively affect cost, schedule, and safety."

Keith's note: What is odd about this SLS RFI and the earlier one concerning Orion is the timing. NASA is releasing them at the very end of the Obama Administration - days after an election that will result in a certain amount of tumult - at a time when White House and NASA senior staff are either gone, leaving, or on travel so as to avoid being in their office. Usually NASA does document drops in this way in the hope that no one will notice.

Is NASA trying to squeeze its contractors ahead of a new administration that may pivot more toward private sector solutions? Is NASA trying to curry favor with a new administration in the hope that they will get budgetary relief to fix their problems? Or is NASA just plain embarrassed that they have to admit the obvious? There seems to be a pattern emerging. Just the other day Greg Williams from NASA HQ told a NASA Advisory Council subcommittee that NASA did not know what it would actually cost to send humans to Mars because they had only worked out the costs up to a cis-lunar mission. Seven years and NASA does not know how much #JourneyToMars will actually cost? Really?

These RFIs could have easily been issued several years ago since they ask for commercial alternatives to SLS/Orion. Indeed, if anyone at NASA had bothered to read the Commercial Space Act of 1998, Title II - P.L. 105-303 (this is posted on NASA.gov) - specifically Title II (a) - they'd see that they should have been seeking commercial alternatives all along: "Except as otherwise provided in this section, the Federal Government shall acquire space transportation services from United States commercial providers whenever such services are required in the course of its activities. To the maximum extent practicable, the Federal Government shall plan missions to accommodate the space transportation services capabilities of United States commercial providers."

Only now, after 7 years of delays, cost overruns, an inexplicably absent mission architecture, and false advertising via social media, does NASA admit that it may need to rethink how it is going to send humans to Mars. This has to be due to the fact that the whole plan (or lack thereof) is not going to work as "planned". Otherwise, why would NASA be asking for alternate ways of doing it?

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NASA Under Trump

NASA under a Trump Administration will be hard times for Earth Science, and human spaceflight to the Moon will likely get renewed focus. However, NASA won't go anywhere if massive cuts to spending are enacted as promised.

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