Ep. 559 - GMMB Monday 28 Apr 2025

In Good News we heard of a rare tree from Australia that is producing fruit in England for the first time, a boy who saved a calf, and the recent successfull running of the Big Sur International marathon.

Mark Mozena had lots of topics, not all of which we got to, so perhaps some will spill over into our next visit.

• Leadership and heads of launch safety in the FAA’s Commercial Space Office announce that they are leaving
• White House pushing NOAA to dramatically reduce its weather satellite program. 
• NASA Administrator nominee calls proposed science cuts ‘not ideal’. He will likely be voted out of Senate committee this week.
• White House announced they have cancelled the lease for NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Science - an institution in NYC dedicated to studying climate and earth science. Unclear where / if scientists will be moved. 
• China positioning itself as a science and exploration hub and attracting new partners to work with them. Sharing moon samples with foreign universities, hosting other countries’ payloads on lunar missions, and a new exploration and science plan for the moon, mars and science 
• Big potential future investments in security space!  Congress is suggesting increasing Defense budgets by $150B including support for Golden Dome and for updating space systems. 
• It is International Dark Sky Week this week!

Michael Olson told us a bit about the Hirahara house in Watsonville. If you would like to hear a more in depth discussion of that, listen to this episode of the Community Matters show.