NASA Watch
nasawatch.com · Group blog · on HN since 2008
NASA Watch is a news and commentary site covering NASA, its management, budgets, policy and spaceflight events.
What HN saysHN links it for internal NASA memos, policy news and context on NASA leadership, spaceflight and budget events, with comments worth reading too.
40HN people shared it
14linked it in comments
29stories submitted
491story points
5 months agolast shared
2008people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Nearby Star Has 7 Earth-Sized Worlds3 people · 8 points · first shared 2017 · discussion on HN
- 2You Can Still Read NASA's Deleted "First Woman" Graphic Novels2 people · 43 points · first shared 2025 · 27 comments on HN
- 3NASA Is Now Primarily an Intelligence and National Security Agency2 people · 13 points · first shared 2025 · 8 comments on HN
- 4SpaceX Releases Preliminary Analysis – Strut Failure Likely Cause [With Audio]2 people · 9 points · first shared 2015 · 3 comments on HN
- 5Homepage2 people · first shared 2008
- 6Phosphine detec2 people · first shared 2020
- 7Hubble Space Telescope Is In Safe Mode After Gyro Failure1 people · 274 points · first shared 2018 · 132 comments on HN
- 8SpaceX is Building a Vertical Take of and Landing, Reusable Launch Vehicle1 people · 40 points · first shared 2011 · 13 comments on HN
- 9SpaceX Launch Scrubbed – But No One Could See It Happen1 people · 36 points · first shared 2014 · 6 comments on HN
- 10The NASA RIF has begun1 people · 18 points · first shared 2025 · 1 comments on HN
- 11Internal NASA Memo on Diversity Erasure1 people · 10 points · first shared 2025 · 5 comments on HN
- 12Let's Destroy American Science1 people · 6 points · first shared 2026 · 1 comments on HN
- 13NASA Puts SpaceX HLS Contract on Hold1 people · 5 points · first shared 2021 · 1 comments on HN
- 14NASA center director attends reception with an Anybot1 people · 3 points · first shared 2010 · discussion on HN
- 15NASA Is Removing Space Station Sighting Website Info1 people · 3 points · first shared 2025 · 1 comments on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
tom_rath · 2008-03-27
From an internal e-mail ('someone'@smd.nasa.gov):
"Today Alan Stern announced that he had resigned his position as AA. In his talk to the Science Mission Directorate he said that the management issues were about cost control and that he did not see a way for him to do what needs to be done. He didn't go into details. Evidently there are extremely strong opinions about all this. ... Staff reaction to the resignation was I think a bit of a shock and a great sense of loss. Alan brought a breath of fresh air and a new spirit to the organization that was a lot of fun for me to share."
I pinched that from http://www.nasawatch.com/ , where this and a few other touchy topics are discussed as they unfold.
kens · 2011-11-21
A few random comments:
There's a video of the Soyuz explosion mentioned above at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyFF4cpMVag&noredirect=1 that shows the escape system saving the crew.
The use of solid rocket boosters for human space flight (as was planned for Ares I) is hugely controversial because they can't just be shut down in the event of a problem, as regular engines can, making survivability more difficult.
Personally, I think NASA is overly risk-adverse, to the point that nothing gets accomplished (see Constellation / Ares I). An interesting article on this is http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/space/news/4330356
On the topic of aircraft turbine failures, there's the interesting case of a DC-10 engine that disintegrated in flight due to a pilot experiment, killing a passenger. For details see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Airlines_Flight_27
Finally, if you're interested in SpaceX, NASA budgeting, and so forth, I recommend http://nasawatch.com
basementcat · 2025-01-29
NASA Watch has a copy of the "resume work" order.
https://nasawatch.com/transition/omb-memo-about-payment-freeze-retract…
The State Department has issued the following guidance
https://www.state.gov/emergency-humanitarian-waiver-to-foreign-assista…
However, someone in charge is interpreting programs like PEPFAR as not "life saving" so all data systems needed by medical personnel and researchers are still down.
https://data.pepfar.gov/
https://www.datim.org/
nfg · 2010-04-14
Some context: http://nasawatch.com/archives/2010/04/is-a-human-spac.html
(definitely worth reading the comments on that too)
AIorNot · 2026-01-11
I used to work in ISS mission control, this is not an emergency return but an early return
Also coming down on the Soyuz is pretty routine and only takes a few hours- I’d say it was overall a far less risky situation than being in Antarctic on a deep ocean vessel with appendicitis etc
We have dozens and (hundreds behind them) of men and women monitoring those folks from a global network of control centers 24 hrs a day- The station is mostly commanded from the ground and plans and procedures exist for everything
- if anything its all over orchestrated and over-planned in my opinion, owing to national politics, corporate contracts and international bureaucracy
Is it risky- yes obviously-but I’d argue its less risky then being out at the south pole in winter
See: https://nasawatch.com/iss-news/crew-medical-telecon-summary/
thangalin · 2025-07-14
In March, 2024 the US Department of Defense fiscal year 2025 budget request was $849.8 billion. The 2024 JWST budget was 0.022% of that.
https://nasawatch.com/exploration/ernst-stuhlinger
ChrisArchitect · 2025-03-27
HuShifang · 2020-09-14
He does seem like a bit of a "character." But maybe he had a webscraper that just happened to catch the premature post, and is just trying to self-aggrandize on a real scoop? Nasawatch [0] is saying that several sources have confirmed it to them...
[0]: http://nasawatch.com/archives/2020/09/phosphine-detec.html
dang · 2020-09-14
Url changed from http://astrobiology.com/2020/09/phosphine-detected-in-the-atmosphere-o… which points to this.
Edit: changed from http://nasawatch.com/archives/2020/09/phosphine-detec.html to what appears to be the canonical source.
gruturo · 2020-04-05
Oh, welcome back to the worm, and f* off to Dan Goldin who wasted taxpayer money in his obsession to get rid of it, and would get mad at people when he saw it:
https://www.nytimes.com/1999/01/10/magazine/on-sunday-january-10-1999-…
http://nasawatch.com/archives/1999/12/
webmaven · 2017-02-22
Looks like NASAWatch has come to a similar conclusion based on various (and extensive) open sources: http://nasawatch.com/archives/2017/02/spitzer-discove.html
Rather than signs of an oxygen atmosphere (which was rather anthropocentric of me) it now looks like they may have found evidence (ie. escaping hydrogen) of liquid water oceans on one or more of the planets.
P.S. Ain't kremlinology fun?
beltex · 2015-07-21
“Now before every flight I always send out an email company-wide saying, ‘If anyone can think of any possible reason to hold off on launching, they should call me immediately on my cell phone or send me an email, whether their manager agrees with it or not.’ But thats sort of something I’ve always sent before every flight, but the 20th time I send that email it just seems like… you know, ’There’s Elon being paranoid again’, so maybe it doesn’t resonate with the same force. But I think now everyone at the company appreciates just how difficult it is to get rockets to orbit successfully and I think we’ll be stronger for it.”
Elon at 36:15
http://nasawatch.com/archives/2015/07/spacex-releases.html
nawitus · 2013-08-14
The problem with single-stage-to-orbit (SSTO) is mainly weight. I think using composite tanks is enough to make a SSTO rocket. X-33 was supposed to use a composite tank, but the fuel tank failed during testing in 1999. Recently, NASA has succesfully tested a composite tank[1].
1. http://nasawatch.com/archives/2013/07/composite-cryog.html
randomnumber314 · 2017-02-22