The New York Times' Kenneth Chang has an informative article about big changes at NASA...including the privatization of launches: Mr. Obama’s request, which will be announced on Monday, would add $6 billion over five years to the National Aeronautics and Space ...

The Washington Post's Joel Achenbach reports on science, government, politics, and a lot of other things, but mostly he tries to be a humorist (he doesn't try too hard, so sometimes he's actually funny).  His wit shines through in his look at a critical review -- by a ...

The stimulus bill means more money for federal agencies and, along with that, hopefully improved scrutiny of how that money is spent. So it seemed appropriate today that lawmakers renewed their long-dormant calls for Robert "Moose" Cobb, the inspector general at NASA, to resign from the space agency. CNN ...

The New York TImes' John Schwartz has a really comprehensive piece laying out the challenges and controversies facing NASA heading into the Obama administration. The main issue is that after the Columbia shuttle exploded in 2003 the Bush administration gave the go ahead for the ...

You might think that that due to the recession, two intensive Middle East ground wars, global warming and 47 million U.S. adults without health insurance that Obama's transition team has not formulated a coherent mission for NASA. And you'd be on the money.

The Washington Post's Joel Achenbach ...

Sort of. The Washington Post's Marc Kaufmann gives as detailed a look as one can about the two presidential candidates' plan for NASA. Both candidates were once lukewarm about more NASA funding, but now support an additional $2 billion or so in new cash.

The ...

By covering federal agencies, Understanding Government hopes to identify problems before the next disaster. An under-funded Food and Drug Administration is an A-10 story now, but what if a few deaths from uninspected food and drugs become a few hundred?

That said, few better represent the non-linear project of preventing disasters ...

So concluded the space agency’s inspector general in a report made public yesterday on spinning global warming science. The New York Times’ Andrew Revkin reports that NASA’s press office worked in 2006 to silence the work of James E. Hasen, the agency’s top climate scientist who blew the whistle on ...

Gregg Easterbrook presents a classic example of preventive journalism in The Atlantic.  It turns out that the threat from comets and asteroids that could strike the earth is far greater than is generally reported.  Large rocks from space have been responsible for massive climate disruption and species extinction in the past, and scientists have expanded estimates of the number of space rocks that could seriously threaten life on earth from 240 to 740 in just the last decade.

As far as understanding government's response, Easterbrook's reporting shows that the science sometimes known as struthiology (the study of ostriches) may be more relevant than astrophysics.  NASA is avoiding the save-the-world mission of identifying potential threats from comets and asteroids in favor of sending more astronauts to the moon.

Thanks to the Associated Press and the New York Times for pointing out a critical source of information about the dangers of American aviation -- and it's not the FAA.