This week’s episode was a special treat! I sat down with former NASA scientist and astrobiologist Keith Cowing, the creator and editor of NASA Watch and Astrobiology.com. Keith’s extensive experience as an industry insider and a scientist has made him a trusted news source for millions of people, including myself. In his time, he witnessed many developments and advancements and played a major part in advancing the fields of astrobiology and space exploration.
He is a trained biologist, a specialist in payloads and biospecimen containment, and was part of the -Space Station Freedom Program. He is also very well-traveled, having been to Nepal and the Arctic Circle and even participated in centrifuge training and zero-g flights. I only got to hear a bit about all those experiences during our chat, but we got deep into discussing the current state of things at NASA. Our talk went so long, I had to break it into two segments to do it justice.
Follow the links below to hear Part I of our interview.
Stories by Williams 
I’ve been wondering what’s going on at NASA right now. I hadn’t heard much about NASA, specifically, in the news. I’d been hoping NASA might be spared, due to Musk’s own interest in space. I’d hoped there might be some silver lining in that. But I guess that hope was naive.
I know what you mean, and I think we all did. From what I could tell, NASA was bracing for the shit to hit the fan ever since Musk was turned loose. But this is what some expected, that he would decimate the agency so SpaceX can take over the American space sector. I am hoping like hell this all comes crashing down on him and Trump and the things they are doing will be undone before the next election. But, as you aptly pointed out, that is likely a naive hope.
Did you check out the second installment? Cowing can maintain an interesting conversation for hours 🙂