PrairiePundit

 Daily Mail: NASA staff are calling on Elon Musk to 'clean house' as it is revealed the agency blew millions of taxpayer money on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs. Spending reports from 2020 to 2024 showed NASA awarded grants to universities and consulting firms to support 'environmental justice' and initiatives that 'embrace greater diversity and inclusive practices.' LMI consulting received over $2 million in 2023 for NASA to 'embark on a venture to incorporate and deeply engrain diversity, inclusion, equity and accessibility in the culture and business.' Another $3 million went to Booze Allen Hamilton in March to support NASA's 'office of diversity and equal opportunity DEI data analytic specialty,' and $ 7 million was announced last month for six 'minority-serving institutions.' Amid these expenditures, staff have voiced concerns online about budget shortages, citing struggles with 'limited funds' due to ...

Telegraph: America is preparing to land a robot on the moon for the first time in four decades. Nasa is looking for private partners to participate in the project that will see a new generation of rovers wandering across the moon’s surface. The American space agency has set up a programme called Catalyst to exploit commercial opportunities offered by the moon. It believes that eventually there will be a market for commercial cargo trips to the lunar surface. "As Nasa pursues an ambitious plan for humans to explore an asteroid and Mars, US industry will create opportunities for Nasa to advance new technologies on the moon," said Greg Williams, Nasa's deputy associate administrator for the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate.  ... “After the Apollo programme we did amazing things with robots in space. “We went to every planet in the solar system and we rather forgot the moon, we rather felt we had been there and done that. “In terms of human flight we re...

Washington Examiner: NASA employs 118 Chinese nationals in "remotely-based" information technology jobs that may enable them to penetrate the space agency's national security database servers, The Washington Examiner has learned. But NASA administrator Charles Bolden said nothing about these individuals during his testimony last week before a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing on cyber espionage threats against the space agency. Bolden told the panel he counted 192 Chinese nationals in positions with "physical access" to NASA facilities like its Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., and Ames Research Center near San Francisco. The 118 employees with remote access were described in a sensitive but classified NASA document given to the subcommittee separately from Bolden's testimony. The Washington Examiner obtained a subcommittee summary of the document, which described the 118 individuals as having "varying degrees of access" to...