Because it's all I can find. Big one first:
NASA Layoffs Cancelled
Unlike workers at many other federal agencies this week, probationary employees at NASA were not terminated on Tuesday.
Nobody really knows why, but when has that stopped speculation? The speculation is that most of the 1,000 probationary employees that would have been the target were not typical, probationary government employees and some were specifically recruited into the organization.
A NASA spokesperson in Washington, DC, offered no comment on the updated guidance. Two sources indicated that it was plausible that private astronaut Jared Isaacman, whom President Trump has nominated to lead the space agency, asked for the cuts to be put on hold.
This could all be a temporary reprieve until the confirmation hearings for Isaacman are held and he (or whomever) is in the job and can review the lists. The administration could reverse the decision and there have been reports that directors at the agency's 10 field centers have been told to prepare contingency plans for a "significant" reduction in force in the coming months.
Firefly's Blue Ghost sends back a beautiful little video
It's only a minute long, take a look.
Last Friday, Feb. 14, Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lander entered into lunar orbit after a four-day transit from Earth and started to gear up for a lunar touchdown. To slide into lunar orbit, Blue Ghost did a three-minute, 18-second engine burn to lower its orbit around the moon to 75 miles. The scheduled date for the lunar landing is Sunday, March 2, 10 days from now as I type. The landing will be in Mare Crisium (the "Sea of Crises") on the eastern limb of the Earth-facing side of the moon.
In a post on X, which included a video of the probe's new close-up view of the lunar surface, Firefly suggested intermittent communications blackouts with Blue Ghost would occur as the lander circles around the far side of the moon. While the lander is still on the near side, Firefly's team is continuing to receive data and finalize the probe's next engine burns and landing patterns. "That will get Blue Ghost even closer to the lunar surface and keep us right on track for landing on March 2," the post says.
Both topics are pretty huge. Looking forward to the next instalment on each.
ReplyDeleteWaiting till Jared takes over makes sense. Let's hope he gets rid of a lot of the grift and graft.
ReplyDeleteAh, c'mon SiG.
ReplyDeleteThat Firefly Blue Ghost video clearly doesn't show any stars in the background, which, as any good tinfoil hat conspiracy theorist knows, proves that the video was shot on a soundstage in Pasadena, because we never got to the moon, and it's all fake.
When it overflies one of the six Apollo lunar landing sites, and there's half a lunar lander still there, along with science experiment packages, scattered detritus, a laser reflector, copious astronaut footprints and a sun-bleached flag standing right where we left them, that will just prove beyond all argument that the whole Moon Landing program was obviously faked, and thousands of people are in on the subterfuge, and maintaining flawless radio silence for 50+ years. {\sarc}
8-)
DeleteIf you dig down to Firefly's X post that has this video, too many of the comments are seriously ignorant. Yes, the "where are the stars?" stupidity was aired, several times, plus too many don't grasp what a wide angle lens does to what it looks like. For instance, the horizon isn't that curved to our (30 degree FOV?) eyes. But I like how it emphasizes the terrain. It looks seriously rough down there...hope they stick the landing.
ReplyDeleteThats a rather hi def video feed of moons features as these go. Perfection of remote landing sequence has got to be pretty thick soup the closer to contact you get, that few seconds delay due to distance of earth-moon, you really have no other option than autonomous landing system, so many things to go wrong cant be all planned for. Makes me recall watching the Apollo landings how those last thousand feet look pretty hairy, and those guys where the best of their breed, orbital mechanics up close and personal indeed.
ReplyDelete