Latest news with #NASAWatch
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
NASA Announces It Will Be Randomly Searching Employees
As NASA reels from massive budget cuts by Donald Trump's White House, the space agency seems to be clamping down hard on physical security measures. An internal memo shared by Keith Cowing, a former NASA astrobiologist who now blogs about the agency at NASA Watch, shows that all personnel and their property are now subject to random inspection by security officers. The random searches went into effect on July 30, the day the memo was sent out, and encompass the inspection of "individuals, belongings, and vehicles entering or exiting the premises" of all NASA centers. Employees at the NASA headquarters in Washington DC, sometimes called "the little White House," received a specific notice tailored to the facility. "When randomly selected in the West Lobby, individuals will be asked to walk through the metal detector," the memo declares, presumably addressing both incoming and outgoing workers. "In the East Lobby [home to the Earth Information Center], an officer will use a hand-held metal detector." "If the individual is carrying personal effects, those items will also be searched by the officer," it continues. Vehicles are likewise subject to random probes. "When randomly selected, individuals will be notified upon entry to pull over and asked to step out of the vehicle," the memo says. "Once the random search is complete, the individual will return to their vehicle and proceed to the parking garage. The estimated search time will be less than 5 minutes." That memo comes months after NASA was caught purchasing a license to use Clearview AI — a controversial digital surveillance startup — throughout its facilities. Random searches aren't necessarily unheard of in industries deemed critical for national development. Private companies like DOW Chemical, Genentech, and Lockheed Martin routinely engage in random employee inspections, often employing x-ray scanners, canines, and even autonomous drones to surveil workers. While the scrutiny may seem reasonable from a corporate point of view, random employee searches are legally dubious. They've led to lawsuits like Boutin v. Exxon Mobil Corp, in which a contract worker alleged Exxon had fired her in retaliation for complaining about sexual harassment on the job site, using a random inspection as justification. Some legal groups argue that employee inspections serve to reinforce employer's control over their workers, blurring the lines between personal and private property. Random searches are especially problematic, because the employer has no justification for suspecting the chosen workers of any type of misconduct. As far as NASA is concerned, the timing of the new security initiative is noteworthy, coming as thousands of senior employees are being asked to pack their bags and leave the agency for good. That in mind, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see how NASA leadership could justify the move. For example, a career Extravehicular Activity Suit Systems Engineer might have few other job prospects outside of NASA, and insider secrets can fetch a pretty penny. (In 2023, a lawsuit filed in federal court accused Boeing of stealing "billions of dollars" worth of trade secrets related to NASA's Artemis program.) However, there's an easy way to prevent the leak of NASA secrets, as Cowing notes: "treat [your remaining workers] as the valuable individuals that they are — not sheep for you to scare whenever you get a memo from the White House." More on NASA: NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory Reportedly Holding "Going Out of Business Sale" for Satellites Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
12-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Sen. Rick Scott urges Trump to relocate NASA headquarters to Florida
On Tuesday, Senator Rick Scott made a pitch to relocate NASA Headquarters from D.C. to Florida's Space Coast. He sent this letter, signed by the entire Florida Delegation, to the Trump Administration asking the President to consider the move. But this afternoon, NASA Watch Founder Keith Cowing told me it's unlikely. He told us, 'I've read the letter, and everybody signed it. Who's a Republican from Florida. They want to move with the Florida because a lot of space people work there. That are isolated from the political environment in DC. Okay, well, you have a big political environment down there. So, I own the lobbyists. Well, they'll just set up new offices. It'll take years.' In his letter, said the lease on Headquarters is expiring, and there's a 500-million plan for a new facility in the National Capitol Region. Scott says Space Florida has build to suit options. He called the state the undisputed leader in space operations and talked about leveraging a world-class workforce. Dr. Don Platt, an Associate Professor of Space Systems at Florida Tech said, 'We do have to remember that the people that work in NASA headquarters are people that interface with Capitol Hill. They interface with budgets, national space policy. They do not build rocket engines. They do not program software. Not engineers, they're more likely to be someone with a business background or a master's in management or finance or any of those areas.' Platt also said that if the Trump administration really was contemplating an HQ move for NASA, several states would be vying for that prize. Scott's letter follows the introduction of the CAPE Canaveral Act earlier this year. Scott co-sponsored the bill, which calls for the relocation of NASA headquarters from D.C. to Brevard County. Click here to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And click here to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live.
Bloomberg
06-06-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
How Does Trump Musk Feud Impact US Space Exploration?
NASA Watch Editor, Keith Cowing, weighs in on how the current rift between President Trump and Elon Musk could impact US space exploration as Musk says he will decommission SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft following the President threatening to end government contracts for Tesla and SpaceX. Keith speaks with Kailey Leinz and Joe Mathieu on the late edition of Bloomberg's "Balance of Power." (Source: Bloomberg)
Yahoo
25-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
NASA Deletes Comic Book About How Women Can Be Astronauts
NASA has deleted two comic books about women astronauts from all its websites, NASA Watch reports, in what appears to be the latest victim of the Trump's administration's purge of "DEI" content from federal agencies. The online comics, titled "First Woman: NASA's Promise for Humanity," and "First Woman: Expanding Our Universe," tell the stories of young women training to become astronauts, in anticipation of NASA's upcoming Artemis missions, which had been set to see the first female astronaut to set foot on the lunar surface. Oh, except that promise has been dropped, too. The two volumes have been featured on NASA's website since being issued in 2021 and 2023, respectively. But as of March 2025, both have now been conspicuously wiped from the space agency's online presence. Shortly after Trump took office in January, NASA leadership issued a directive ordering employees to scrub a whole host of terms that the administration would deem "woke," including any content "specifically targeting" women. The space agency's acting administrator Janet Petro, who was hand-picked by Trump, also threatened employees with "adverse consequences" if they didn't speak up about any DEI efforts happening without official approval. It should come as no surprise, then, that the sweepingly discriminatory policy is censoring content with messages as wholesome and harmless as "women can be astronauts, too." Even more grimly, NASA pages about the Artemis mission no longer boast the promise that it "will land the first woman, first person of color, and first international partner astronaut on the Moon." This dragnet censorship approach is being used in other wings of government, producing blunders that expose the racist and misogynistic underpinnings of its raison d'etre. Last week, for example, the Pentagon sparked an uproar when it deleted a webpage about the baseball player and civil rights hero Jackie Robinson — a supposed error officials blamed on an AI tool. A little known comic like "First Woman" won't have quite as many rallying to its aid. But it has found itself at least one notable champion: the Iceland Space Agency. Daniel Leeb, the Executive Mission Director at the Iceland Space Agency, responded to the NASA Watch on LinkedIn, lambasting the censorship and vowing to platform the comics. "The Iceland Space Agency will host and post First Woman issue one and two on our website come Monday morning," Leeb wrote, per NASA Watch. "We will also start an initiative to have this translated into Icelandic... and to continue the story." "I hope for my daughters and all the daughters on Earth, that we can all begin to use our voices to push back and say clearly Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion is not the boogyman some would have you believe," Leeb added. "In fact it is a foundational strength in geopolitics, economics, and in society as a whole." More on NASA: Trump's Anti-DEI Agenda Could Put Astronauts in Real Danger
Yahoo
04-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
NASA Employees Reportedly Started Booing When Elon Musk Was Mentioned at an All-Hands Meeting
Elon Musk has been something of a thorn in NASA's side since long before he became an unelected government official — but it sounds like anger is now bubbling over at the space agency. According to former NASA astrobiologist Keith Cowing, who for years since his service at the agency has documented its internal politics and drama online, a "round of boos was heard" upon mention of Musk's name during an all-hands meeting at the agency's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland yesterday. Those jeers, Cowing wrote on his NASA Watch blog, were in response to mention of Musk's newly reiterated directive demanding all government employees explain what they did the week prior in bullet points to justify their jobs — or risk being fired. Over the weekend, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) sent a second threatening email to federal employees, instructing on Musk's behalf that they explain what they did at work last week to keep their jobs. While that first missive was amended to say that the demand was "strictly voluntary," this new one has no such language. "The NASA administrator will not be providing any further guidance to NASA employees regarding the latest [five] bullet email that everyone got over the weekend," Cowing wrote, "so NASA employees are pretty much left to make a personal choice." During the meeting, the NASA staffers were also warned that the youthful hatchet men from Musk's Office of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have badges to enter the facility at any time they choose, without needing to inform anyone of their entrance. That's not all the bad blood Musk has kicked up at NASA lately. The billionaire also enraged a cadre of former astronauts last month by issuing repeated digs, including the erroneous claim that Boeing Starliner astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams had been left stranded on the International Space Station for "political reasons." "When you finally get the nerve to climb into a rocket ship, come talk to [us]" former NASA astronaut and senator Mark Kelly tweeted in response to the world's richest man amid insults about his colleague, former ISS commander Andreas Mogensen, and his twin brother and fellow astronaut Scott Kelly. And even actions at NASA that aren't directly tied to Musk, like reports of leadership at the space agency ordering employees to throw out their LGBTQ pride swag, feel tightly bound up in his ideological mission to crush "wokeness" out of the federal government. All told, it's an extraordinary villain arc. Just a few years ago, Musk's work at SpaceX was a shining example of NASA working with the private sector to push the frontiers of America's space capability. Now, it seems that a mention of his name at a NASA meeting is enough to draw heckling. More on Musk cuts: Even NASA's James Webb Space Telescope Is Getting Its Budget Slashed
