Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s annual financial disclosure reveals he has received two lucrative book advances and free flights from a friend while in office.

(Image credit: Jim Watson)

Rates have climbed more than a full percentage point since the U.S. war against Iran started.

(Image credit: Joe Raedle)

Despite lower poverty overall, the rate for seniors has been steadily rising in recent years. A new AARP survey sheds light on how those over 50 are struggling in the crucial time before retirement.

(Image credit: Eva Marie Uzcategui)

On Thursday, the two leaders will hold meetings where Trump and Xi are expected to talk about artificial intelligence, rare earths, trade and geopolitics such as Iran and Taiwan.

(Image credit: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds)

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Travel

The NSSC provides travel reimbursement services for all authorized Agency travel including: domestic, foreign, local, ETDY, and Change of Station (COS).

References

Federal Travel Regulations (FTR)
Traveler Extended TDY and Taxes
Domestic Per Diem Rates
Foreign Per Diem Rates

Change of Station

NSSC Travel now has another way that a transferee Traveler may submit his or her vouchers. Please see, submitting Change of Station Process Steps

If traveling CONUS, review: NASA’s Guide to a Successful Move (CONUS)

If traveling OCONUS, review: NASA’s Guide to a Successful Move (OCONUS)

Change of Station References

Change of Station Voucher Information And Samples

GSA Smart Pay State Tax Information

Change of Station and RITA

Change of Station ServiceNow Instructions

Change of Station Forms

NSSC Change of Station Form

OF 1012 Travel Voucher 

SF 1038 Advance of Funds Application and Account

NF420  Service Agreement-First Duty Station Appointment

NF513 Service Agreement and Duplicate Reimbursement Disclosure Statement OCONUS Employment

NF1204 Employee’s Claim for Damage to, or Loss of, Personal Property Incident to Service

NF1337 Service Agreement-Transferred Employee

NF1338 Employee Application for Reimbursement of Expenses Incurred upon Sale or Purchase (or both) of Residence upon Change of Station

NF1449C  CONUS-Information Covering Persons Transferred or Appointed to First Duty Station

NF1449O OCONUS-Information Covering Persons Transferred or Appointed to First Duty Station

NF1450C CONUS Change of Station Authorization

NF1450O OCONUS Change of Station Authorization

NF1500 Claim for Temporary Quarters Subsistence Expense/Temporary Quarters Subsistence Allowance Reimbursement

NF1807 Househunting Trip Binding Decision

NF1808 Property Management Binding Decision

NF1810 Employee Agreement to Repay Withholding Tax Allowance (WTA)

NF 1811 Temporary Quarters Subsistence Allowance (TQSA)

NF1812 Temporary Quarters Subsistence Allowance (TQSA) Preceding Final Departure

NF1813 Temporary Change of Station (TCS) Duplicate Reimbursement Disclosure Statement

NF1814 Temporary Quarters Subsistence Allowance (TQSA) Predeparture Binding Decision

Related Tax Information:

Check out the latest Taxability Change Notice for Change of Station travelers.
To learn more, see: Relocation Income Tax Allowance Information

Domestic Travel

POV Mileage for NASA Travelers
For Privately Owned Vehicle (POV) Mileage Reimbursement Rates for TDY and ETDY Travel please refer to the GSA Web site: http://www.gsa.gov/mileage   

NASA Domestic Travel: Day that Travel Ends
For the day travel ends (the day a traveler returns to the PDS, home, or other authorized point), the per diem allowance is 75% of M&IE. 

NASA Domestic Travel Rental Car Liability

When making a reservation for a rental car, please remember the Government is only responsible to pay for rental car charges for official travel time.  If a traveler decides to take annual leave in conjunction with official travel and keeps the rental car during annual leave, the portion of the rental rate applicable to annual leave is the responsibility of the traveler.  Please refer to 41 CFR 301-10.453

What is my liability for unauthorized use of a rental automobile obtained with Government funds?

You are responsible for any additional cost resulting from the unauthorized use of a commercial rental automobile for other than official travel-related purposes.

NASA Domestic Travel: Tax Exemption

Prior to traveling, refer to the GSA State Tax Information webpage: https://smartpay.gsa.gov/smarttax. Select your State/US territory of interest to see the exemption status and download the appropriate form, if required.

Extended Temporary Duty (ETDY)

Reduced Per Diem rate

NASA’s standard reduced per diem rate for ETDY travel is 65 percent under the current policy as defined in the NASA Procedural Requirements (NPR) 9750.1-3.1.2.

     a.   Consistent with 41 CFR 301-11.200, an ETDY authorization can include reasonable further reductions from this standard rate or limitations on approved lodging for unique circumstances, to the extent it can be  determined in advance that such will substantially lower costs without mission impact.  For example, if lodging is obtained at 50 percent per diem, the ETDY authorization should be adjusted to authorize a lower rate. 

    b.   The reduced rate of reimbursement begins on the first day of travel regardless of the mode of transportation, except as noted in 3.1.3.  Allowances are covered by the reduced per diem rate; therefore, NASA will authorize the employee a per diem rate (up to 65 percent) to reasonably cover expenses for a one bedroom furnished apartment.  For ETDY greater than 90 days, first consideration should be given to long-term lodging facilities.  Long-term lodging facilities are available on the GSA schedule at http://www.gsa.gov.  If a long-term facility is not selected, proper justification should be provided. 

Find more about Allowable ETDY Expenses Included in Reduced Per Diem Rate, please see the following document: 

Allowable ETDY Expenses Included in Reduced Per Diem Rate

GSA Long-term Lodging (Schedule 48)

GSA’s Schedule 48 is designed for lodging needs of 30 days or more. This program provides housing accommodations for temporary or permanent relocation. Typical facilities include apartment or condominium type properties that may be furnished with all the amenities of a regular home. The current list of vendors is available by clicking on the link above. Most of these properties will accommodate NASA Extended TDY travelers within the 65% reduce per diem rate and will allow use of the government charge card.

Foreign Travel

Please consult the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), NPR 9710.1, and NPR 9750.1. Please call the NSSC Contact Center using this form for additional information.

NASA announced the winners of the Deep Space Food Challenge: Mars to Table Thursday, with the top $300,000 prize being awarded to Chinyere Ukeje of Philadelphia, Pa. for the Adaptive Nourishment Infrastructure (ANI) food system concept. This competition challenged solvers to explore innovative solutions for integrated space food systems that would provide safe, nutritious meals to astronauts living and working in space.   

Mars to Table launched in January 2026 as a follow on to the Deep Space Food Challenge, which NASA ran from 2021-2014 in collaboration with CSA (Canadian Space Agency). The original challenge focused on prototyped novel food production methods, while the 2026 competition asked teams to conceptualize space meals not as individual technology components, but as a complete food-production system that would offer a variety of food with limited crew time and work needed to maintain the food system. After judging 113 submissions by teams hailing from 33 countries and 28 U.S. states, the agency selected five winning teams for the 2026 challenge, awarding a combined $650,000. 

“We’re thrilled to keep advancing the future of space food systems with this challenge,” said Jennifer Edmunson, program manager for Centennial Challenges at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. “The future of human space exploration will rely on innovative food systems, and it is amazing how much ingenuity this challenge has helped us identify from participants near and far.” 

Currently, astronaut meals are almost entirely cooked, packaged, and sent to the International Space Station from the Space Food Systems Laboratory at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. A one-way trip to Mars will take at least nine months, so bringing all required meals will not be sustainable for such missions. From shelf stability issues to mass restrictions, pre-packaged foods cannot be the default option for future Martian astronauts.  

In search of viable solutions for future space food operations, teams were tasked with ideating and designing systems in response to a mission scenario that addressed a 15-person astronaut crew for 500 Martian sols, or about 513 Earth days. The challenge focused on surface operations and system integration, and each team delivered a design layout, meal plan, concept of operations, and walkthrough video. 

“The criteria we laid out for this competition were challenging, but intentionally so,” said Mars to Table head judge Dr. Alexander Meyers, who supports NASA Centennial Challenges through Noetic Strategies from the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. “This challenge spotlights the complexity of a complete space food system and the human ingenuity required to solve these problems. Every new idea presented in this challenge represents a possible new tool in NASA’s plans for the future of space exploration. 

NASA named five winners of the Mars to Table Challenge. These technologies provide NASA with inspirational launching pads for future deep space food systems. 

The first-place winner, Chinyere Ukeje, developed the concept of ANI, a modular food ecosystem combining controlled-environment agriculture, fermentation and fungi cultivation, and closed-loop nutrient recycling through bioreactors with limited Earth-provisioned foods to produce 50% of the food away from Earth. ANI, named after the Nigerian Earth goddess of harvest and fertility, envisions a system that cooks fresh meals daily and has provisions to work through shortages of power, water, equipment, or crew time. 

The second-place prize of $200,000 was awarded to Cislune of Rosemead, Calif. for the Fresh, Ferment, Reserve food infrastructure. The proposed system grows model-selected crops, converts part of the harvest into familiar foods in instrumented culture cassettes, and uses a protected Earth-loaded reserve to supplement in cases of biological variability, utility curtailment, and rejected batches. 

Additional prizes include: 

• Applied Frameworks Award ($50,000): Ohā Kanu from Hilo, Hawaii with ʻOhā Kanu: An Ahupuaʻa-Inspired Food System for Mars 

• Mission Simulation Award ($50,000): Orbital Health Systems, Inc. from Evansville, Ind. with New Lunar Settlers Cookbook (Mars Edition) 

• Human-Centered Design Award ($50,000): Autonomic Resilience Collective from Bentonville, Ark. with Adaptive Endurance and Growth through Integrated Sustenance (AEGIS) Mars 

NASA also recognized one international team: 

• International Winner: Astrofood from Ellezelles, Belgium with Food Resilience Ecosystem for Space Habitats (FRESH) 

The Deep Space Food Challenge: Mars to Table is managed at NASA Marshall by Centennial Challenges, part of the Prizes, Challenges, and Crowdsourcing Program within NASA’s Research and Technology Mission Directorate. The challenge is also supported by NASA’s Division of Biological and Physical Sciences, Heliophysics Division, Planetary Science Program, Human Research Program, and Earth Science Division.  

Centennial Challenges have a legacy of more than 20 years engaging the public to solve complex problems that benefit NASA’s broader initiatives. Past challenges have spurred advances in robotics, additive manufacturing, power and energy, textiles, chemistry, and biology.  

The Deep Space Food Challenge: Mars to Table is also supported by subject matter experts at NASA Johnson and NASA Kennedy. The Methuselah Foundation and Floor23 Digital support the administration of this challenge.  

To learn more about the challenge, visit: 

go.nasa.gov/marstotable  

In 2021, Maine Beer Company’s carbon dioxide supplier ran short on carbon dioxide.

“There was potential for our beer to go stale in the tanks,” said Dave Love, the brewery’s sustainability manager. “We wouldn’t be able to use CO₂ for any of our bottling, kegging, or centrifuge operations.”

The solution the company settled on originated on Mars — or more specifically, in NASA’s plans for harvesting resources from the Red Planet. Now it’s saving money and reducing emissions for wineries, distilleries, power companies, helium producers, and more.

Beginning in the 1990s, the company Pioneer Astronautics won multiple Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contracts from Johnson Space Center in Houston to build systems that could generate resources on Mars. The technology could, for example, capture carbon dioxide from the Martian atmosphere and combine it with hydrogen to produce water for life support and methane for rocket fuel. These capabilities weren’t entirely new, but Pioneer’s systems were compact, efficient, and automated.

Later, Pioneer Astronautics founder Robert Zubrin created Pioneer Energy to rearrange these subsystems into technology for the oil and gas industry (Spinoff 2015, 2020). He soon realized technology for capturing and purifying carbon dioxide on Mars could do the same in a brewery, capturing CO₂ from the brewing process for use in carbonation. By 2015, the Craft Brewery Recovery System was in production (Spinoff 2016). In the end, though, the company put the system up for licensing.

Amy George founded Earthly Labs of Austin, Texas, in 2016 to develop small-scale carbon capture. She discovered the Craft Brewery Recovery System and obtained an exclusive license. 

Since the pandemic reduced its availability, carbon dioxide has continued experiencing shortages and volatility, and George said these have emerged as major drivers of interest in the technology. 

And it isn’t just helping brewers. After expanding into wineries and distilleries, Earthly Labs started discovering other markets. Energy companies often generate carbon dioxide as a by-product, which they can sell if it’s captured. Several are now customers.

Another application finding new customers is helium production. Helium, which is used to make microchips and fiber-optic cables, among other applications, is found in underground deposits, mixed with other gases, such as methane and carbon dioxide, that need to be separated. 

In 2021, Earthly Labs was acquired by Chart Industries Inc., which specializes in cryogenic equipment engineering and has helped scale up the technology for applications like power plants.

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Researchers at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston developed SPLICE, which successfully completed simulated lunar descent and landing maneuvers during recent testing. Its technologies provide safe and precise landing for the Moon, Mars, icy worlds, and other destinations using specialized navigation, guidance, and processing techniques. It enables landing in hard-to-reach and unknown areas that are of high scientific interest.

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