Weekly Update from the NASA Administrator – May 4, 2020
The agency is increasing our role in the response to finding solutions to the COVID-19 pandemic and ensuring our mission continues. For example, just last week NASA’s Science Mission Directorate and some of our international partners teamed up to invite coders and others to join our virtual hackathon, dedicated to developing solutions to issues related to the coronavirus. Additionally, our agency’s internal crowdsourcing platform, NASA@WORK, accumulated hundreds of proposals by utilizing the expertise of thousands across the agency in less than a month.
Top News: Last week, we announced the new name for the Mars Helicopter, which will launch to the Red Planet this July aboard our Perseverance rover. I was impressed by the essay submitted by an Alabama student, Vaneeza Rupani. “Ingenuity is what allows people to accomplish amazing things,” she wrote, “and it allows us to expand our horizons to the edges of the universe.” Ingenuity—what a perfect name for the aircraft that will attempt humanity’s first powered flight on another world! I am sure our work would make the Wright brothers proud.
Next Up: Earlier today, I sent an email notifying you of a virtual town hall I will host with agency leaders on Wednesday, May 6, at 10:30 a.m. EDT to answer your questions about NASA’s plan to increase on-site work. Please thoroughly review the email I sent, then, to submit questions to the town hall, go to this link and click on the session titled “Ask the Administrator: Return to On-Site Work.” I look forward to answering your questions on how we plan to safely and responsibly return to on-site work.
Shout Out: Big News! Last Thursday, NASA announced the selection of three companies, Blue Origin, Dynetics, and SpaceX, to build a human landing system for the Artemis program. Over the next 10 months our team will select one of these designs to carry our astronauts to the Moon in 2024. America now has all the pieces in play needed to land the first woman and the next man on the lunar surface in four years.
The monumental effort poured into last week’s selection of companies to build human landing systems was tremendous. Our team’s persistence to reach this milestone, even in the midst of a pandemic, is nothing short of remarkable. Thank you to everyone across the agency who made this possible from the human landing system program management team at Marshall Space Flight Center to leadership in the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate to our outstanding procurement team and communications team, and so many others. This was a great win!
Last week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorized the use of a COVID-19 ventilator developed by our team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California; some of them are pictured below. This ventilator is one of the many examples of how NASA’s expertise in space exploration can be used to improve life on Earth.
Ad astra,
Jim Bridenstine
