August 2, 2025

Trump Administration Firings Mount as Staffers’ Loyalty is Called Into Question (Source: Politico)
More than a dozen high ranking officials across the administration have been forced to leave their jobs or had their nominations or promotions derailed in the first six months of Trump’s return to Washington. Nearly all of the ousters have come after individuals were targeted by outside allies who convinced the president that they weren’t sufficiently loyal. And in many of those cases, the axe came down after officials found themselves in the crosshairs of right-wing activist Laura Loomer.

“I’m happy to take people’s tips about disloyal appointees, disloyal staffers and Biden holdovers,” Loomer said. “And I guess you could say that my tip line has come to serve as a form of therapy for Trump administration officials who want to expose their colleagues who should not be in the positions that they’re in.” Loomer has emerged as a blunt enforcer of allegiance to Trump.

The purges have rippled through the Pentagon, the White House national security council and several other executive branch agencies. Editor's Note: Trump today also fired the labor statistics chief (originally assigned by Pres. Biden) who produced the latest negative jobs report. So if you're a US adversary and want to weaken the DoD, or a US industrialist upset at an agency's oversight of your business, anonymously provide the names of difficult agency personnel to Laura Loomer. (8/1)

Lightning on Earth is Sparked by a Powerful Chain Reaction From Space (Source: Live Science)
Scientists already knew that lightning is an electrical discharge between thunderclouds and Earth's surface, but exactly how storm clouds obtain an electric field powerful enough to hurl a bolt has remained a mystery for centuries. Now, a new study has used computer models to reveal that lightning strikes as the result of a powerful chain reaction that begins in outer space.

Simulations show that electrons produced by high-speed protons are accelerated along electric-field lines and multiply as they strike molecules in the atmosphere, such as nitrogen and oxygen. This leads to an avalanche of electrons, producing the high-energy photons that initiate lightning. The model also explains why flashes of gamma-rays — high energy photons — and X-rays occur before lightning strikes. (7/31)

DOGE Wasted Tens of Billions While Chainsawing the Government in the Name of 'Efficiency' (Source: Common Dreams)
The Department of Government Efficiency wasn't so efficient after all. In fact, it was extraordinarily wasteful, according to a Thursday report by the U.S. Senate's investigations subcommittee. When Elon Musk spent the early part of this year ransacking the federal government, the billionaire promised that his mass layoffs of federal employees, his choking off of critical foreign aid, and his gutting of consumer watchdogs all served a greater purpose: saving the government—and by extension, the American people—money by rooting out waste.

Musk is already known to have wildly exaggerated the amount that his initiative was saving the public. Government spending in 2025 has been higher than previous years despite Musk's dramatic cuts. Meanwhile, some analyses after the fact have estimated that the initiatives might actually cost taxpayers money in the long run by slashing funds for tax collection and other forms of spending that increase economic activity.

As economics writer Maia Mindel summarized: "Okay, yeah, so DOGE was illegal and didn't cancel any big-ticket items and also it didn't increase government efficiency and it lied about all its accomplishments and also none of its staff were even remotely qualified. (7/31)

Moonbound Artemis II Astronauts Stay Focused Despite NASA Uncertainty (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
A second human spaceflight of Orion is slated for as early as summer 2027 that would return humans to the lunar surface. After that, though, just how the Artemis program continues its efforts to support moon and Mars missions has been in political crosshairs. “We don’t know what a year from now is going to look like — a year and a half from now — but we know exactly what we have to do for the next six months,” Victor Glover said. “We’re a part of a team that is focused and knows what we have to do.” (7/30)

SpaceX Launches Crew to ISS From Florida Spaceport (Source: Florida Today)
A Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from the Cape Canaveral Spaceport on August 1, carrying the four astronauts of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-11 to the International Space Station. Launch of the rocket was delayed 24 hours due to weather. (8/1)

DOE Scientists and Engineers Craft Radio Telescope Bound for the Moon (Source: Brookhaven National Lab)
The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory has completed the “major item of equipment” phase for the Lunar Surface Electromagnetics Experiment-Night (LuSEE-Night), a moon-based radio telescope set to make history.

Comprising the overall design of the telescope as well as the procurement and construction of its components, this project phase was a significant undertaking. Scientists, engineers, and technicians were tasked with developing a one-of-a-kind scientific instrument with strict, and often competing, mass and energy consumption limits for each component. The successful completion of the phase marks a substantial scientific and engineering achievement — and a key milestone for the entire LuSEE-Night project. (7/24)

Investing in Space: You’re In or You’re Out (Source: CNBC)
Building on the successful, upright landing of its Blue Ghost rover back in March, Northrop Grumman-backed Firefly Aerospace has now set sights on financial light-off and seeks a $5.5 billion valuation for its upcoming initial public offering. It boasts a backlog of roughly $1.1 billion and a sixfold jump in revenue to $55.9 million at the end of March. But it competes in a landscape of increasingly more advanced and cheaply-made satellites, orbital congestion and high developmental costs — with titan rivals ranging from Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin to SpaceX and national governments. (8/1)

Senate’s $852 Billion Defense Budget Keeps Space Force Flat (Source: Air and Space Forces)
Senators this week advanced a $852 billion defense spending bill for 2026 that would give the Air Force nearly $5 billion more than it asked for. While the Air Force would benefit from the spending boost with a $233 billion windfall, the Space Force would come in just shy of its full request at $26 billion. The bill does not include money for military construction, which is handled separately. (7/31)

High-Profile Washington Fellowship Helps Embry‑Riddle Professor Explore Critical Space Policy Questions (Source: ERAU)
Dr. David Canales Garcia, assistant professor in Embry‑Riddle Aeronautical University’s Department of Aerospace Engineering, expanded his expertise in space science this year by going beyond his usual research and delving deeply into the world of policy.

Canales joined 21 science and engineering colleagues for the selective Christine Mirzayan Science and Technology Policy Fellowship Program, a 12-week program in Washington, D.C. that began in March. During the fellowship, Canales collaborated with the Space Studies Board of the National Academy of Sciences. He said the program equipped him with essential insights to support the National Academies’ mission of delivering expert advice to those who make policy. (7/31)

Trump is Dropping the Ball in Second-Term Space Policy (Source: The Hill)
The first Trump administration was the best for space policy in decades. From the creation of the Space Force to pathbreaking international agreements such as the Artemis Accords to stronger protections for outer space property rights, America reasserted itself as the world’s premier space power. None of this would have been possible without a team of space policy experts and political leaders in key roles.

But this time is different. Many important space policy and leadership positions remain vacant. Qualified personnel have been nominated, but the Senate has yet to act. Nor has President Trump chosen to force the issue. Personnel is policy, as the saying goes — and there is a real risk that a policy of passivity will undermine the gains America has made in space. (7/31)

Fort Huachuca Recommended for New U.S. Space Force Mission (Source: KVOA)
Congressman Juan Ciscomani is urging the U.S. Air Force to consider Fort Huachuca in Cochise County for a new U.S. Space Force "mission system and squadron". On July 30, in a letter to U.S. Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink, Ciscomani, along with Rep. Andy Biggs and Rep. Abe Hamadeh, highlighted the strategic advantages of Fort Huachuca for enhancing space domain awareness and early threat detection. (7/31)

Poised for Growth, Millennium Prioritizes Efficiency and Capacity (Source: Defense News)
Millennium Space Systems is on track to double its small satellite production next year, and as it prepares for growth, the firm is looking for ways to balance manufacturing capacity and expansion with efficiency. CEO Tony Gingiss, who’s been in the role since last December, told Defense News that much of his initial focus has been on managing the firm’s growth. The Boeing subsidiary has around 70 or 80 vehicles in its backlog to deliver over the next four years. (7/31)

Young Talent Will Replace Departing NASA Workers, Alabama Congressman Says (Source: AL.com)
U.S. Rep. Dale Strong (R-AL) said he is concerned about the impact of nearly 4,000 employees voluntarily leaving NASA through two Trump administration separation programs. But he feels younger talent will fill the roles being vacated at the space agency, including at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, which is in his district. It’s unclear how many of the 4,000 leaving are from the Marshall Space Flight Center. (8/1)

Roscosmos, NASA Agree to Extend ISS Operations Until 2028 (Source: France24)
The head of Russia's space agency Roscosmos said Thursday that he had agreed with his NASA counterpart during talks in the United States to extend the International Space Station's (ISS) operation until 2028. Space is one of the final areas of US-Russia cooperation amid an almost complete breakdown in relations between Moscow and Washington over the Ukraine conflict. (7/31)

UAF Satellite Facility to Manage Massive NASA Data Surge (Source: GI Alaska)
Years of preparation by the Alaska Satellite Facility will ensure that a flood of freely available data from a NASA-India satellite mission that launched Wednesday will be easy for the global public to use. ASF is one of NASA’s 11 Distributed Active Archive Centers and has the task of archiving synthetic aperture radar data. It will archive and distribute all NASA-collected L-band SAR data and some selected S-band SAR data acquired over the U.S. The Alaska Satellite Facility is a unit of the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute. (7/31)

Elon Musk Pretty Much Has a Monopoly on Space. Thanks, Obama (Source: Slate)
Musk's interest in space benefitted from incredible timing because NASA, in the early 2000s, was beginning to start to think about phasing out the space shuttle. But it still needed a system to transport astronauts and cargo back and forth to the ISS. It’s desperate. Almost off the bat, before he’s done very much of anything, he starts to get grants from the Pentagon, then starts to get contracts from NASA, when he hasn’t even actually launched a rocket yet.

During the Obama administration, Musk is really having a hard time successfully launching rockets. He’s burning through huge amounts of cash. But it’s at this moment that the administration decides that, rather than rely on the traditional defense contractors, it’s going to try to find a way to tap into this emerging space capitalism. The Obama administration ends up giving Musk a really big contract to be that provider.

Having these contracts helped make him a very rich and powerful man. He turns around and uses that wealth and power in order to eviscerate the very thing that helped create him. We really should underline the irony of the fact that Musk was brought in earlier this year to slash government spending and fire government workers, but his ventures have been so dependent on the federal government. (8/1)