NASA: “Fuel is GO, Oxidiser is GO, Guidance is GO, HOLD HOLD HOLD—Pronouns are…IN WORK”

https://twitter.com/NASA/status/1501723660926787585

Here is the 2022-03-10 “NASA Statement on Gender Pronouns IT Project” press release.

Through an effort to create a more inclusive workplace, NASA recently completed an IT project at Goddard Space Flight Center that allowed approximately 125 employees to test the option of including their gender pronouns in NASA’s email display fields — which currently includes each employee’s name, center, and an organizational code. The learnings from this test will be used to inform the advancement of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility.

NASA is fully committed to supporting every employee’s right to be addressed by their correct name and pronouns. All NASA employees currently have the option and flexibility to include their gender pronouns in their customized email signature blocks. This option remains unchanged and is supported by NASA leadership so that employees can share their gender identities and show allyship to the LGBTQIA+ community.

If they can put a man on the Moon, why can’t they use the “learnings … to inform the advancement” … and “show allyship”, whatever those phrases mean in whichever language they came from?

Meanwhile, in ancillary matters unrelated to the central mission of Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity, the NASA Office of Inspector General reports on 2021-11-15 “NASA’s Management of the Artemis Missions” [PDF],

When aggregating all relevant costs across mission directorates, NASA is projected to spend $93 billion on the Artemis effort up to FY 2025. We also project the current production and operations cost of a single SLS/Orion system at $4.1 billion per launch for Artemis I through IV, although the Agency’s ongoing initiatives aimed at increasing affordability seek to reduce that cost. Multiple factors contribute to the high cost of ESD programs, including the use of sole-source, cost-plus contracts; the inability to definitize key contract terms in a timely manner; and the fact that except for the Orion capsule, its subsystems, and the supporting launch facilities, all components are expendable and “single use” unlike emerging commercial space flight systems. Without capturing, accurately reporting, and reducing the cost of future SLS/Orion missions, the Agency will face significant challenges to sustaining its Artemis program in its current configuration.

By comparison, the Apollo 11 lunar landing mission was estimated to have cost US$ 355 million in 1969 dollars, or around US$ 2.74 billion BidenBucks. Thus, the Artemis missions and its Space Launch System rocket, Frankenstitched together from legacy Shuttle hardware, will cost around 50% more per shot than the purpose-built Saturn V Apollo.

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But Apollo was only aimed at putting a man on the Moon. Artemis has the much higher goal of landing the first transgendered lesbian single mother of color on the Moon. That does not come cheap!

To be serious, it seems that the US Congress is in the process of passing a bill (which no-one has read) to spend $1,200,000,000,000 which they do not have. (Roughly $8,000 per taxpayer). The underlying problem is that there is an unending supply of freshly-printed Bidenbucks. Thus, the (not very bright) people spending the money do not have to do the normal thing of making serious choices, and avoiding wasting scarce real money on failing (failed?) projects.

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But why are we landing only on the white part of the moon?! We need to be inclusive and put BIPOCS on the dark side to show that we really down fo’ da shrtuggle.

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