nasa needs new publicist

NASA Needs a New Publicist

Sean, over at Cosmic Variance, posted a great story on how the current

generation is being spoiled by immediate technology and information

access to the point of losing interest in the Space program. One of

the major themes was the need for better PR, and I couldn't resist

posting a comment on one of my own NASA PR experiences. Here it is for

your reading pleasure...

I LOVE the suggestion about leveraging celebrities and the media to

sell the space dream. Having worked at NASA back in the eighties

and actually having built and handled a few instruments that

reached orbit and even other planets, I am definitely sold on the

dream and, at the same time, frustrated with the current realities

of a largely underfunded bureaucracy that is today's NASA. Despite

all the frustrations, though, it has been a banner year for the

agency results-wise with Hubble continuing to perform, the

unstoppable Mars rovers, and the Nobel prize nod.

Yet with all of that, most of my friends and colleagues are simply

unaware of what is really happening. It is no wonder nobody is

interested or supportive of expanded budgets. They never even hear

the science news amidst the clamor of popular celebrity-driven

culture. (this, in fact was one of the key motivators to start my

own science and technology blog.)

This post reminded me of a rather sad moment that supports the need

for celebrity spokespeople. Back in the mid nineties, when I was

the CTO at MicroDisplay, my girlfriend of that era, also a fine

product of MIT, was recruited to present at the Discovery Magazine

technology awards ceremony at Disney World, and I got to tag along

and chat with some other folks from the MIT mafia that happened to

be around the show. Several other luminaries and celebrities were

recruited to present, including Bruce McCandless, the first

Astronaut to pilot the MMU without any tether. Here is the link to

the canonical image from his first untethered space walk. How cool

is that?

The grand irony for me was that after the show, I happened to be

sitting next to McCandless as we watched LeVar Burton, then playing

Giordi Laforge on Star Trek: TNG get absolutely swarmed with fans,

while nobody even gave McCandless a second glance. I turned to

McCandless and asked him if he thought it was odd that people

seemed more interested in the person that pretended to be in space,

rather than the first person to actually fly a jet pack in space.

He chuckled rather ruefully,and we just shook our heads together.

The power of celebrity indeed. At least I had a great chat with the

real space jockey all to myself.

Posted by Phillip Alvelda at 2:59 PM

Labels: Astronomy