My latest: in an interview with @science.org, new NASA administrator Jared Isaacman promises a big uptick in lunar robotic missions, another potential Mars 2028 mission beyond comms, and continued support for earth science observation.
(Sorry astro and helio folks, time went fast.)
Good words of warning here. AI models are generally designed to read and incorporate (and, in a sense, believe) virtually everything they find online, with very few guardrails. The information can get divorced from its original source, context, & rebuttals or retractions. That's a really big problem
The gutting of NASA Goddard has had a devastating effect on high energy astrophysics. The AXIS probe mission proposal was rejected without review. (The Goddard X-ray mirror lab was significantly impacted by shutdowns and pressured retirements, against the congress approved budget for NASA.)
Those who have tamped down concerns about the SAVE Act’s chance of passage in the Senate are wrong. Keep your eyes on the prize. The potential for a blowout in 2026 is top of mind for Trump, and there are only a few ways to avoid it.
Call your Senators. 202-224-3121.
I want to emphasize that AXIS's demise largely arose from Goddard being forced to align with FY26 president's budget request (PBR) which zeroed the Probe program. Goddard lost SO MUCH following the PBR, even though the Congressional budget kept that funding! Remember that as FY27 PBR comes soon. 🔭🧪
this is horrible. I am so sorry. thank you for sharing this email. It is a role model email.
Email from Chris Reynolds to the AXIS Team. Subject is disappointing AXIS news. Text of e-mail reads: Dear AXIS Friends, The AXIS team has received some very disappointing news – we have been informed by NASA HQ that AXIS is not eligible for selection and hence the Concept Study Report (CSR) will not be subjected to the full review process. AXIS represents the scientific aspirations of a large international community. As a member of one of the AXIS science working groups, you deserve a candid explanation from the PI of what happened and why. That is the purpose of this note. NASA’s decision was programmatic and not based on a review of the technology or science; the mission profile described in the submitted CSR was over the allowed budget and schedule. How was such a thing possible? In short, with NASA-GSFC as the AXIS managing center, the mission formulation process was critically compromised by the seismic shifts occurring in NASA and the Federal government. The AXIS study team was hit hard by three unprecedented challenges: NASA’s Deferred Resignation Program (DRP) and the pressure at GSFC to resign/retire created a rapid and uncontrolled loss of over 20 personnel with key expertise during a critical mission formulation period, including the main GSFC Project Manager (Jimmy Marsh) and the X-ray mirror lead (Will Zhang) and many discipline engineers.
GSFC priorities rapidly realigned to the FY2026 President’s Budget Request (PBR) that eliminated the Probe program, further reducing the availability of GSFC engineering and mission formulation personnel (incl. cost analysts and schedulers) over the critical Summer and Fall months. Key work was halted for almost seven weeks when the core GSFC AXIS study team, dominated by NASA civil servants, was furloughed during the government shutdown. NASA HQ’s extension to the CSR submission deadline (from 18-Dec-2025 to 29-Jan-2026) was inadequate compensation for the disruption and lost time. Taken together, these factors disrupted the basic grass-roots costing process (which requires extensive “reach back” to the discipline engineers to assess labor requirements) as well as the cost-design iteration process that is central to the formulation of a cost-capped and schedule-constrained mission. While the mission design was finalized in April, our initial grass-roots costing (which was ~10% over budget) could only be completed in September due to the lack of assigned resources. With the subsequent government shutdown and then “pens down” in early-December forced by the GSFC Executive Review process, there was no opportunity to work through the set of cost/schedule savings that had already been identified by the AXIS team. Ultimately, the GSFC executive council gave AXIS leadership the choice of submitting a CSR with a non-compliant schedule and cost, or not submitting a CSR at all. We of course proceeded with the submission, including a narrative that we understood the path to a cost-compliant profile (that we would have discussed with the review panels during the Site Visit). NASA HQ has ruled this stance to be unacceptable. It is important to stress that NASA’s programmatic decision was before any technical review had been conducted. The decision was NOT due to any concerns about AXIS technology. Indeed, the AXIS Phase A work had major successes with furthering
Indeed, the AXIS Phase A work had major successes with furthering the key technologies. GSFC’s Next Generation X-ray Optics (NGXO) team successfully demonstrated iridium-coated, stress-compensated mirror segments that meet AXIS baseline requirements (i.e. segment-level performance at sub-arcsecond level). NGXO also built the first AXIS demonstrator mirror module, learning critical lessons about mirror alignment, mounting and bonding. On the detector side, MIT quickly moved to fabricate AXIS-like CCDs and, working with our colleagues at Stanford, recently demonstrated that they achieve the required readout rate and spectral resolution. Similarly, NASA’s decision was NOT a judgment of the importance of AXIS science. The AXIS science case was rated excellent in the Step 1 review, and it only became stronger during our Phase A study. The AXIS Community Science Book, which many of you contributed to, is an extremely powerful demonstration of the relevance and importance of high-resolution X-ray observations to all areas of astrophysics. The Science Book is one of the most important legacies of the AXIS Phase A study and, I believe, will help define future mission concepts for many years to come. I thank you all from the bottom of my heart for all of your work on this. AXIS has been a long journey; we started under the leadership of Richard Mushotzky more than nine years ago. During that time, it’s been an enormous privilege to work with amazing people; the AXIS science team, the incredible/brilliant GSFC and Northrop Grumman engineers, and the wider astrophysics community. I am, quite frankly, livid that AXIS ultimately fell victim to the programmatic chaos of 2025. The astronomical community deserves better. I hope that NASA leadership, especially at GSFC and HQ, can have an honest discussion about how to better support and protect programs during extraordinary times.
For now, as a community, we must look forward. There is still one excellent mission under consideration for the Probe program, PRIMA, and we wish them a smooth and speedy path to selection and flight. In X-ray astronomy, the SMEX and MidEX programs represent concrete pathways for focused, high-impact missions, and the scientific case we built for AXIS provides a strong foundation for those concepts. The technologies we advanced in Step 1 and Phase A, particularly the NGXO mirror work and the MIT/Stanford detector demonstrations, can anchor the next generation of proposals. Most importantly, the AXIS Community Science Book, representing more than 500 scientists across, is a living document and a powerful signal to NASA leadership that this community is organized, serious, and not going anywhere. I encourage everyone to use it actively, as a resource for future concept development, for Astro2030 engagement, and for building the next mission that will deliver high angular resolution X-ray imaging to address the fundamental questions about black hole growth, galaxy evolution, and the hot universe that motivated AXIS from the beginning. This community built something remarkable over nine years and that doesn't end here. Thank you again for your support of AXIS over these times. Best Chris and the AXIS leadership team
The @axisprobe.bsky.social team learned that the phase A concept study report of AXIS (the Advanced X-ray Imaging Satellite) will not be reviewed because the lost personnel at NASA Goddard and government shutdown impacted our schedule and budget. 🔭 Here is the PI's e-mail with the explanation.
yes, we need to confiscate and tax as much income as we can from billionaires and millionaires and give working people a break, but democrats need to reclaim the idea of taxation as a civic good. the things we all benefit from — schools, roads, libraries, etc. — are paid for with taxes.
And of course, OF cOUrSE they are using Lord of the Rings names for the satellites
Layered, red sandstone buttes, with snow capped mountains behind. Photo: Bill Dunford.
Sometimes I have to explain to people who know me: I don’t love Utah because it reminds me of Mars. I love Mars because it reminds me of Utah.
Meanwhile affirmative action "meritocracy" manosphere tech bros wasting our taxes:
"OMG they released the deposition videos where they revealed that these two DOGE bros were just feeding grants into ChatGPT and saying "tell me if this is DEI in less than 120 characters."
bsky.app/profile/masn...
Readily shareable "cheatsheets" that summarize both context and recommendations (not a substitute for reading the white paper itself, of course!) are available here: pictureanastronomer.github.io/whitepaper
Cover of "Picture an Astronomer: Best Practices for Retaining Talent in Astrophysics", which features an illustration of a 19-year-old Vera Rubin looking through a telescope over a backdrop of a first light image of spiral galaxies from the Rubin Observatory.
Happy International Women's Day!
Perfect time for me to (re)share our white paper on increasing the retention of women in professional astrophysics (really full of suggestions that broaden participation in academic science in general).
arxiv.org/abs/2512.24465
🧪🔭☄️👩🔬
teewatterss on Threads: “losing an hour on international women's day feeling very 75 cents on the dollar”
10/10 take. no notes
Today's delight: wantmymtv.vercel.app - 27,000 music videos to stream
Oh Michele, I am so so sorry (((hugs)))
There is a Simpsons clip for every occasion
youtu.be/XjV-KByy0GA?...
Is there life on Mars? For decades, America was in pole position to find out with its multi-mission Mars Sample Return program.
But MSR is now officially dead. And in the race to find alien life on Mars, it’s now China’s to lose.
Me @technologyreview.com www.technologyreview.com/2026/02/26/1...
Flexible schedules enable many people to accomplish real work outside of what others would consider “business hours.” I think I took from your article is that checking email is symptom of a larger issue of unrealistic and unmanaged expectations.
Would love your thoughts on this article I just wrote" The Great Debate: Check Work Email On Weekends Or Not? This is a bit outside of the weather, climate and science things I normally write about in Forbes, but it is certainly relevant to many of us.
www.forbes.com/sites/marsha...
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11423 representatives - one for every 30,000 persons. Once you exceed the capacity of a room, there is no reason to cap at an arbitrary number, which will always lead to lopsided representation.
ahhhh memories of all eyes on LCROSS
I mean, yes of course, but before we formulate that, could we just go over here for a minute to talk about Mars? You got kinetic energy, I got things that need to be lofted from the surface.
While we wait for additional pieces to gain various approvals, I want to shout out some folks: Marco Micheli, Julien de Wit, Artem Burdanov, and Dave Tholen, who performed independent positional measurements, Bryan Holler for image processing, and Davide Farnocchia for orbit determination. 1/
I can't say enough about #JWST (which I'd link if they had an account?) and the folks at @stsci.edu, who made the faintest-ever observations of a solar system object a breeze, using only about 5 hours of integration on each of two observing sessions. 2/
So, yeah. It's not going to hit the Moon. But, importantly, we demonstrated that as a species we have the capability to discover, characterize, and track tiny objects, even if they're halfway to Jupiter. And I suspect that a lot more YR4-like objects could be found by @vrubinobs.bsky.social. \end
I can't like this enough times
Booooooo (but nice work @asrivkin.bsky.social and team!)
I really wanted this to happen while we have an active seismonometer on the Moon
