NASA is stuffy. NASA has no use. NASA is a waste of money. NASA doesn’t speak to me.
NASA is old media.
Sound familiar? It might. I’ve heard it a few times. In fact, I know lots of people who feel this way, or at least I’ve seen these sorts of things said on bulletin boards and other venues.
A lot of folks don’t connect with NASA. And while that can be stated simply, it opens up a huge mess of problems for NASA. The space agency is run by people who are my age and older, people who were inspired by Apollo. The thing is, to people under the age of about 35, Apollo is ancient history. Some NASA administrators can’t grasp that fact.
When I was still doing contract work for NASA, I was knocking on doors trying to get them to modernize their public outreach. I was trying to tell them that they were disconnecting with youth. Specifically, I wanted them to sexy up the Moon missions. I wanted a rover that could be controlled by a console at a theme park. I wanted games online based on the Moon, school projects where kids designed their own colony.
I was met with a pretty cold silence — A few years ago I arranged a meeting with people at NASA HQ to discuss NASA lunar outreach effort, and when I arrived, literally one person showed up. One NASA top banana, when asked about the lackadaisical support for a return to the Moon, said that when we go back to the Moon, people will naturally be interested. Build it, he said, and they will come.
I LOL’ed. My first reaction to that was: what generation does this guy live in?
Not Gen Y, that’s for sure. But NASA does have some younger folks working for them, 20-30-somethings who are keyed in, who use Twitter, and Facebook, and (shudder) MySpace. These younger NASAians know what their age group responds to, far better than their bosses do.
A quartet of them put together a PPT presentation about how NASA can join the rest of us in the 21st Century, and they called it Gen Y Perspectives. I think everyone at NASA should read it, and moreover, they should take it to heart.
When I was a kid, NASA stood for adventure, exploration, cutting edge science, pushing back frontiers. It stood for people walking on the surface of another world.
It’s hard for a lot of people my age and older to understand this, but NASA doesn’t mean the same thing to kids these days.
And it should. They’re NASA.
March 5th, 2008 at 11:38 am
Even the space shuttle looks, well, old. I agree heartily. NASA needs to jazz up it’s image.
March 5th, 2008 at 11:44 am
Hey, the rover controlled by kids on a theme park is a really nice idea.
March 5th, 2008 at 11:45 am
NASA doesn’t mean the same to us old farts either. Something happened to the Manned mission after Apollo, and something happened to the rest of NASA after Gallileo, something bad.
If those at NASA who were there in the beginning were truly “inspiried” by Apollo, then why was that the last time we went to the Moon? Why was the X-15 project, killed to make way for the Apollo missions never restarted, ever?
I’m sorry, but the problems with NASA are bigger than a gender gap and can’t be solved by making the agency “cool”
I’m 40. I was a kid when Apollo was launched, barely old enough to know what was going on, but I always wondered why we stopped. I was hopeful when we put up Skylab because I thought “Hey, this is the beginning of a space station.” It fell out of the sky. I was hopeful when the Shuttle was announced. It was supposed to be cheap and reusable and usher in a new era of space-flight. It was an expensive ship with so many problems it actually slowed down our launch capacity and was barely half-reusable. I was hopeful when they put ISS up. Here was an international endeavor that will allow so many cool new experiments and it was going to be used as a platform to service satellites and even launch our deep space probes. It’s an expensive sytem that has only reached a tenth of it’s design goals. If we tried to sell it we wouldn’t be able to give it away.
No. Being “cool” just isn’t going to cut it.
March 5th, 2008 at 11:47 am
I;m 27, born in Feb 1981. I am generally considered one of the first Gen Yers, and my first ‘wordly’ memories are of the first gulf war. Learning about space and technology in the early 90s, the contemporary things that were interesting were Mir and Hubble. For my kid brother and cousins, their first interest was probably Sojourner. These days, anything pre-Hubble is just another part of history.
March 5th, 2008 at 11:50 am
I agree %100. I would also add that in the same vein, you need to update the look and feel of your blog.
March 5th, 2008 at 11:52 am
The thing is, to the rest of us, Apollo is ancient history too.
Since Apollo, NASA has ruined every aspect of the Manned mission they’ve tried to do. Skylab, the Shuttle, ISS and now we’re supposed to be hopeful about going back to the moon.
I’m 40 years old. I was barely aware of my own a** when Apollo went up, but if we had stayed on the moon, I would have become an astronaught, no contest. NASA lost the public a long time ago. It’s only through federal pork that the shuttle stayed running as long as it did and if we tried to sell the ISS, we couldn’t give it away.
Being “Cool” is the least of NASA’s problems.
March 5th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
I’m pretty impressed by the presentation myself. These four seem to have pretty good handle on the cultural and social circumstances of their (and my) generation. And I couldn’t agree more. I’ve been threatening to go all the way and get a doctorate in astrophysics for most of undergrad, and while grad school is sure to shake me up a bit, I’ve never seriously considered working for NASA a possible career.
Why? That’s complex. For myself, and quite a few of the other sci-tech inclined in my generation, I think the concept of “working for the government” is a big turn-off. That’s addressed briefly in the PowerPoint. Also, NASA doesn’t seem like a great place for the highly ambitious to pursue personal goals, what with the bureaucratic perception that many (or at least I) have of its organization.
But if Mike Griffin gets on Facebook…well, I just might friend him.
March 5th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
You said it Phil. I recently watched “Roving Mars”, a nice little documentary about the rovers on Mars.
It’s funny what some well done PR can do. Just that same day, I was telling a coworker how I was bored with the rovers. I’m no geologist, and once you’ve seen one part of Mars, you’ve really seen it all. It’s red, it’s rocky.
In today’s age, where I can video conference with people across the globe, look up anything instantly, etc… I personally take it all for granted. I’m not in the least bit impressed by these amazing leaps and bounds we’ve taken. I expect them as the norm. of course we can land rovers on mars. I’d be more likely to give you an astonished look if you said we couldn’t.
But when I watched Roving Mars, it brought tears to my eyes with how well it portrayed the accomplishment that it really is. NASA needs more of that.
NASA’s blessing and its curse is that it’s chock full of engineers. Obviously that’s a good thing in many ways. But it’s a very bad thing in that most engineers don’t know how to relate to the general public.
March 5th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
NASA’s too caught up in doing tiny experiments that don’t affect the people they’re supposed to be working for: US. We need to be advancing science for the people’s sake, not for science’s sake. When you have a space station that can hold 5000 people, people are interested. When you have one that can hold 5, they aren’t. A new lab tacked onto the ISS doesn’t mean anything to anyone. The only big press NASA’s gotten since Apollo has been when they screwed up royally and people die. NASA needs big events to be in the public eye again. Don’t build labs that no one can see, build a tourist attraction in the sky. Build a skyhook so that it costs me $3k to go into space, not $3 million. We think to small.
March 5th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
My NASA launches a probe to explore another planet or moon every other year (perhaps, every year even). My NASA is as wonderful and engaging as Carolyn Porco is in this TED talk, Fly me to the moons of Saturn. My NASA pushes the edge of technology. My NASA has a YouTube channel. My NASA is with it. It’s hip. Tucka, tucka, tucka, tucka…
I just feel like the 80s and 90s could have been so much more in terms of space exploration. I mean, how many more times are we going to explore our own orbit? =p
The Mars probes, Hubble, the Cassini misson are examples of where I’ve seen something wonderful and tangible from NASA. They’ve even begun to engage the public via various X-prize like competitions. Wasn’t there a story about someone building a space glove on the cheap? That sounds exactly like the things NASA should be doing more of.
March 5th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
Yea!!! As a guy who did over 100 films for NASA back in the Gemini/Apollo era and now as a gray beard who returned after a 20 year absence, I feel the same frustration with the management not realizing what it will take to keep things going. Heck, we were doing things back in the 60s and 70s that “sold” the program to congress and the public, that they won’t consider now.
When I left the NASA contractor in ‘72 it was because the “gray men” were taking over. They hamstrung the “hot shots” like Gene Kranz with an overwhelming bureauocracy. Most of the people left were far more interested in their retirement and investments than in the excitement of what we were doing (or trying to do).
I’ve tried to suggest things similar to what you did for years and could get nowhere. I was called in to do a series of films after I had moved on and was told that was what sold the Shuttle program to congress when it was in trouble. Not hype, just the facts. But, I’m still here and feel the fire (although at 73 the fire does not burn quite as bright) and go plodding doggedly onward making a difference where I can.
Keep the faith. (Ooops, improper political correctness slant in the BA venue)
March 5th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
Why not make NASA cool for everyone, and not just a particular age group or demographic? This attitude of “appealing to the youth” reeks to me of the standard approach that advertising agencies use, which tends to appeal to one group while completley alienating another.
I have been a supporter of NASA for many years, but if they were to go the same path as most television advertising does, which occasionaly makes me feel “too old” to even be watching it, then why would I want to continue supporting them? Yes I agree, we need to get the younger generation involved, but I don’t think we need to leave out another generation in the process.
March 5th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
Yea!!! As a guy who did over 100 films for NASA back in the Gemini/Apollo era and now as a gray beard who returned after a 20 year absence, I feel the same frustration with the management not realizing what it will take to keep things going. Heck, we were doing things back in the 60s and 70s that “sold” the program to congress and the public, that they won’t consider now.
When I left the NASA contractor in ‘72 it was because the “gray men” were taking over. They hamstrung the “hot shots” like Gene Kranz with an overwhelming bureauocracy. Most of the people left were far more interested in their retirement and investments than in the excitement of what we were doing (or trying to do).
I’ve tried to suggest things similar to what you did for years and could get nowhere. I was called in to do a series of films after I had moved on and was told that was what sold the Shuttle program to congress when it was in trouble. Not hype, just the facts. But, I’m still here and feel the fire (although at 73 the fire does not burn quite as bright) and go plodding doggedly onward making a difference where I can.
By the way, if you trace why Skylab fell and why the Space Station is low on capacity and the Shuttle doesn’t work as well, take a look at how politics “redesigned” each away from its basic purpose in the name of false economy.
Keep the faith. (Ooops, improper political correctness slant in the BA venue)
March 5th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
People are too busy watching reruns of “Home Improvement” and “Married with Children” to pay attention to a boring launch. How about we find an average joe from an average town, and send him up on the shuttle.
Buzz Aldren:
“Request permission to sedate cargo ahead of schedule.”
March 5th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
The people at NASA today are not the same ones who sent men to the moon. They are just occupying the same desks.
March 5th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
Well, at least NASA attempts to engage with the public. ESA on the other hand…
March 5th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
Wow. Wiseman makes ME feel young, and my FATHER worked for NASA at JPL until after gallileo.
Like I said: NASA is not only out of touch, but in completely the wrong direction. NASA should be doing projects like Space Ship One, the DC-X. If the shuttle and ISS were budgeted by anything besides drugged out monkeys, NASA would be known for something other than how expensive a project they can create. I shudder to think what’s going to happen when the final bill comes back for this new Moon mission, assuming it happens at all considering the state of the economy.
March 5th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
NASA blew it for the young generation when they played golf instead of skateboarded on the moon.
March 5th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
I too am a post apolloite (born ‘74). I was still interested - growing up I had a one hour cassette tape outlining the history of space exploration from around sputnik onward that I must have listened to over a hundred times. I’d read stuff now and again. But, as mentioned, it was “history”, not “history in the making”. Sure, cool stuff was happening then too, but nothing that over the top just shot me now flipping cool. It’s understandable that those trying to explore the universe would be more into going after the more scientific aspects as opposed to the wow factor. Tight budget, probes getting so sweet having humans on site seems like a mosnterous luxury most of the time in terms of data gathering. Humans still needed, but if it costs X to send a human and Y to build a better probe, “X<Y?” will seem like a question you have to ask very carefully. But, as mentioned, that’s a greedy algorithm and one that might lead to that the greater minds of this era are developing a better peanut roaster and bitching about having to fork up for NASA rather then working there. The best choice for next step may not always be the best path to the final destination and here no one is even that sure what the final destination actually is, just hazy waypoints people may or may not be itching to reach.
March 5th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
It goes back to education. If people had the background to appreciate what science does for people then they wouldn’t have attitudes like “do experiments for us not just for science’s sake”. They would realize that those are the same thing and be interested in what the future would bring.
March 5th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
NASA’s problems go way deeper than lack of cool.
When Mercury, Appollo and even the space shuttle were designed, engineers and engineering were the core values, very focussed and productive.
Now NASA has sclerosis in its massive arterial system and is over-departmented, over-managered and bureaucratised. Its focus is risk avoidance, containment criticism almost any creativity. Its goals are committee-design to appeal to people who know nothing about space science or indeed science of any kind, ie the government who pasy for this massive organisation.
It is not age that does this. I read a great article in The New Yorker about Max Faget and Caldwell Johnson some years back. Faget designed, among many other things, the Apollo Command Module. This symbiotic-joined pair of engineers had left NASA after many years and were working in private industry. One of their designs was a wake shield that was used I believe. These were aged men, but still agile, creative and extremely productive. But their ideas and designs were now routinely rejected by NASA as “not invented here”.
I don’t know what surgery would fix this mess, but I believe it would involve stripping back about ten layers of management and letting engineering back into the picture.
(Disclaimer: yes I am an engineer)
March 5th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
I was born in ‘73, and I just had a conversation about the moon landings with my friend last night. I mentioned that no one has landed on the moon in our lifetimes, and I feel like crying. Her reply? “Why should we go back?”. She was very serious, so I had to explain to her what they actually DO at the space station. My friend really didn’t know, not because she didn’t want to, but because it’s never really talked about. And my friend isn’t even one of those that believes in conspiracy theories. She’s just a normal person, with a normal job, that has never been given the opportunity to *connect* with science in general.
I think I gave her some food for thought, though.
March 5th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
I’m not sure when I lost interest in NASA. I’m 22 now, and I grew up with books about the moon missions, watching Apollo 13 multiple times a year and spending hot Texas nights looking through an old, barely functional telescope. NASA, at one time, excited me about the future; if we were on the moon almost twenty years before I was born, I always assumed that within 20 years after I was born the moon would be set up as a ready-built space station, and we would be well on our way to Mars.
I, obviously, was a little off track, and when I realized that we were nowhere near interplanetary travel I admit I became deluded. I remained, and am still, interested in astronomy and space exploration, but NASA no longer holds the wonder it once did for me. This may well be my fault, and the fault of my “generation,” but I agree that NASA isn’t doing much to keep us tuned in.
I feel BA has done more to keep me interested in astronomy and space on the whole than NASA has done in years.
March 5th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
This presentation is absolutely brilliant. Hopefully it will not fall on deaf ears (to the extent that metaphor applies to a ppt briefing).
March 5th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
BA,
Just curious why you think NASA needs a better Gen-Y image? Is it for funding, or a more general outreach getting the next generation science literate?
I am reading Steve Squyres book Roving Mars and I am loving it. Better than any reality TV show. I love all of the engineering problems they faced and overcame, like the weight of the payload, the parachute failures, etc. I bet every mission has cool stuff like that.
I dig that stuff, plus most all of the topics you post here. Except for the shuttle. I think the shuttle is amazing, but the shuttle and the ISS seem like big waste of money to me. I happen to be in agreement with Bob Park on the shuttle. Manned space flight may be sexy, but I prefer missions that produce science, and I think manned flight is a diversion of money from non-manned flights (or perhaps not - it may not be an either-or choice).
Not sure how you make non-manned flights sexy. Maybe more rovers exploring other worlds like Europa?
Personally I think a space race with the Chinese may do the trick because it will threaten our national technology ego.
- Doug
March 5th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
I agree with Will 100% - not too surprising since I’m also around 40.
We want NASA to be cool? Then we need to get congress to stop micro-managing it. The stupidest aspects of the space shuttle design stem from congress’ pork barrel funding. NASA needs to spec out a project and go to congress for the funding. Congress can say yes or no, but shouldn’t be able to say “Change the design so you can buy these components from that vendor.”
Things NASA should do ASAP to become a real kick in the butt:
1. Bring back the DC-X and use it to further develop a SSTO launch platform. Said platform should be as cheap to build as a 757, have the turn-around time of a 757, and the required ground crew of a 757. Then NASA needs to build 50 of them.
2. Establish permanent manned stations on the moon, Mars, and at L5.
All of these are possible, and should have been done at least 10 years ago. I love NASA, but when I think of what should have been I really hate NASA.
March 5th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
The problem with NASA is it’s a big government project that’s as much about satisfying voters in Texas and Florida, and giving money to Lockheed and Boeing, as actually doing any space exploration. They’re great if you want to know what happens to spiders in 0g, but if you want a chance to walk on the moon yourself, start saving your pennies for when Richard Branson opens his lunar resort.
March 5th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
IMHO, there is only one thing that justifies manned space flight. Everything else can be more effectively done with machines.
That one thing is colonization. But the justification for it is a whopper, the long term survival of our species. Because, let’s face it, on the longest time scales, it just ain’t safe here on earth.
When nasa starts talking about manned programs whose ultimate goal, even if only peripherally, is permanent and ultimately, self-sufficient colonization of space, then I’ll be interested.
March 5th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
The problem is not the lack of connection with “Generation Y” (which is just another media invention, anyway). It is that NASA does not have a clear brief what to do: the ISS is widely perceived as a waste of money (and nobody, incluing NASA, knows what to do with it), we don’t know what’s going to happen after the shuttle retires, are we going to send people to the moon or to Mars? And another favourite of mine: Probes that are announced and then dropped (and then reinstated, and then…).
I suspect that public support for NASA will improve when they have a proper long-term mission again.
And that PPT presentation was just TOO annoying! (See p.80…)
March 5th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
To be the problem with NASA is that it appears as nothing much more then wasted funds. I mean, aside from some pretty cool images from missions and crafts like the Mars rovers, Cassini, Hubble, etc., nothing seems to REALLY happen. And even those generally don’t make it to the sit on my couch, drinking a Coke and watching American Idol crowd. Heck, If not for this site and APOD, *I* wouldn’t even know about a lot of this stuff.
And then what in NASA does get press? Accidents, disasters and budget overruns. ISS? [sarcasm]There a good use of money[/sarcasm]. It’s grossly behind schedule, the supporting nations seem to be *just* getting along as far so the project goes, it won’t be complete for, what, another two years, is not going to have all the gadgets that were planned for it, and if the time tables I saw are correct, it’s only going to inhabited for something like six years. Surely there could have been either better management of the project or a better use of those funds by NASA.
Well, that’s how I feel at least. When I watched the mission control team in the Apollo 13 movie, I think, These people are awesome. Especially when they come in with all this junk and have to get the scrubber to work. Brilliant ingenuity! Now, we seem to through away millions to billions on good ideas that either get bogged down in bureaucracy, gets divvied up into “pork barrel” projects for congressman to schoomze some campaigns funds with, or just plain out aren’t thought through very well. This all make NASA look less like inspiration and more like waste.
March 5th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
As a guy who was once a kid going to school with the sons and daughters of KSC staff (sweetheart’s Dad was the Range Safety Officer), I can tell you without reservation that government hiring programs have produced legions of people interested in what they do - not what NASA does or astronauts do.
To elaborate - the hiring process used to screen for people who wanted to launch things, support stuff that launched things or build stuff that got launched. That’s a lot different from “getting a job at the space center” - interchangeable with any other job, so long as there is pay.
The Columbia Accident Investigation Board found NASA was wasting $1 to 5 billion a year on stuff that would never get used, because they didn’t have clear goals. I hope they can do that - and tell people that think their job is portable to take a hike.
March 5th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
I think Doug makes a good point about competition with China. It was largely competition with Russia back in the day that, at least to my uninformed mind, seemed to have driven funding and interest in the space program. There just isn’t anything like that going on now. And, like Aerimus, the only way I learn about what IS happening is through this site or when some asteroid is on its way to destroy all life on our planet…y’know, newsworthy facts like that.
So, if NASA really wants to get more recognition and connection with the people, they need to hand off some space secrets to some other rival country.
March 5th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
To be quite honest I could care less what ‘Generation Y’ thinks. All they seem to care about anyway is which cel phone plan to get and who’s on Idol this week. All that ’science stuff’ is for geeks and losers.
At this point I think the only thing that could jumpstart NASA is if China announced a ten year plan to put a man on Mars.
March 5th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
One thing that bugs the Hell out of me is that I subscribe to NASA’s video podcasts and watch their “This Week @ NASA” things regularly… and I still have no idea what they actually do! The only decent info I get about what NASA does comes from third-party blogs like this one.
By far the worst offender in this case is the manned program. I love to watch video the Shuttle launches and landings, because those are always really cool. But what do they do up there? They keep installing these science modules on the ISS, but what science is actually being done? The interviews with the astronauts don’t help matters at all, because they always fall under the boring old “What’s space like?” “It’s weightless and earth is pretty!” formula. Yaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwwwnnnnnnn. Almost all the astronauts are scientists. Maybe they could actually talk about science? They do science on the ISS and the Shuttle, right?
Bottom line is, I’m way more informed about NASA than 95% of the public, and even I haven’t got a freaking clue what they’re doing up there.
March 5th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
@Doc
“NASA needs to spec out a project and go to congress for the funding. Congress can say yes or no, but shouldn’t be able to say “Change the design so you can buy these components from that vendor.””
Forget NASA. The whole bureaucracy’s should be like that. Why is the military being forced to purchase equipment that they don’t want? Why do manufacturers of faulty gear get to be the ones who replace the faulty gear (at cost to the taxpayer even!)? Because Congress won’t give up pork.
We’ve got a president that wants to write the law has he sees fit using the line item veto, and a Congress that wants to be an administrator by hawking over the executive departments. The president should draw up a planned budget, Congress should appropriate the budget as they see fit, and then the departs should be allowed to use the budgets as they see fit. That goes for the DoD, DoJ, NASA, etc. Why some politician that get elected because of their stance on health care and abortion gets to tell NASA where to buy their computers from is beyond me.
March 5th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
Why did NASA abandon the moon? Politics. People were more concerned with the “problems” on Earth, and they were too short-sighted to see the benefits that would be gained from a strong out space program.
I agree NASA is stuffy. They need to hire a Hollywood PR firm. Heck, get Tom Hanks, Ron Howard, and Steven Spielberg to make films for them.
NASA is stagnant because it is a government bureaucracy, and the people in charge have to pander to the ignorant congresspersons who have their own ideas. NASA should perhaps become privatized.
I always hear about budget problems with mission planning. Why not sell advertising space? Seriously. I could care less if the rocket carrying the upcoming MSL rover said “Pepsi” on it or had the Nike “swoosh.” So the rover’s tires say “Goodyear.” Big deal! If a company is willing to fork over big money for the prestige of advertising not just on Earth, but the solar system, why shouldn’t NASA get the private sector involved?
To me, NASA will always be cool. Of course, I’m one of the “oldsters” (even though I don’t think I am) who was around when Neil & Buzz landed on the moon (I was almost seven).
March 5th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
I don’t think it’s necessary to make it “cooler”, it would be sad, I get really angry indeed when I hear someone saying something like that.
Science, research and investigation it’s what it is no matter how many colors do you put on it, and if somebody needs to see NASA as something “cooler” (a lot of spaceships to the moon, a monkey on Mars, life on other planets and music while it happens…) well, sad for them, science it’s not for stupid ones who can’t appreciate the beauty on it for what it is by itself, those who are always too good to always complain without knowing a thing.
Games and cool online stuff would be nice, either, maybe people will get interested and discard stupid ideas about how boring science is, but that won’t change the thing that only a big mission to somewhere will attract people’s attention. Masses attention.
And that won’t mean they understand a thing.
There’s a HUGE difference between goals and the big results common people always search for. They don’t give a thing about how hard and slow research is, they want us on mars NOW, they want us making contact NOW, they want us to travel at the speed of light on a week, and if we were capable they would say “wow, finally you made something”.
Pffff…
That’s just ignorance and that’s the thing to fight, not how “old” NASA is looking. And there’s no need of another Apollo’s mission to make everybody change their minds, they can’t get enough, never.
The first trip to the moon was about 18 years ago when I was born and that’s not a good enough reason for me to be so small minded and think NASA is odd. I grew up watching Cosmos series, reading about it, I still can get excited when I read NASA’s news, maybe because being there is my goal, my dream, because it has a meaning for me, no matter what others say (like because I’m a girl there’s no future there for me, blah blah) and no matter how stuffy is for other people.
But maybe it’s like that for me because physics and astronomy are my life. Who knows.
March 5th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
Apathy about modern manned spaceflight is because it is becoming increasingly obvious that we personally will never get to do it. Back in the days of Apollo there was the prospect that nuclear rocketry might make space travel cheap and easy. Manned space travel was visibly bringing that closer and it wasn’t too hard to imagine a future only 50 years away with cities in orbit and on the moon.
The true excitement is only going to return when we find something better than chemical rockets for getting into the sky.
March 5th, 2008 at 3:14 pm
Just remember: under-30s = short attention-spans, an unwillingness to make more than the minimum of effort and a self-centred, apathetic & ignorant view of the world.
I suggest letting them redirect asteroids to crash into planets, or on the same theme: space junk wars! No more of this ’science’ stuff. Boring!!!11! LOL
March 5th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
It gets harder and harder to drown out the idiotic anti-NASA noise made by Hoagland, Twietmeyer, etc as NASA continues to appear like a bulky, shadowy bureaucratic lump of un-popular science. As much as we can appreciate the unbelievable strides made and the fantastic data and images that are filling up the screens, the average Joe doesn’t understand the scientific value of it, and is much easier attracted to wild conspiracy theories or some kook’s fanatasy idea of space science. Somehow, NASA needs a couple of WOW! projects that might not fill the need for scientific results and data, but accomplish the task of regaining the public’s attention and imagination.
March 5th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
I’m an Irish person, but I say NASA is cool already. The US education system is uncool.
So science is hard … so’s life. Tell your kids what the founder of New Scientist told his first reluctant publishers, “Science is interesting and if you don’t like it you can F*** off!”
Get a grip USA. You’ve got the best - keep it.
March 5th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
I gave a presentation to a group of third graders about living and working in space, and several kids asked some very intelligent questions. When the class had to leave, one boy was lingering to be last and asking more. His last question before leaving was “When are we going to Mars?” I had not encountered that one before, and off the top of my head sincerely said, “Well, it will probably be several years. You know, you might be just about the right age to go when we’re ready. You could be the first person on Mars!”
…And I saw a light go on in his eyes. Moments like that are rare and exciting.
March 5th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
Re Doug
Mr. Doug apparently is unaware that Dr. Plait is of the view that Bob Park doesn’t know what he is talking about. Apparently, Prof. Sean Carroll is not altogether positive either about manned space flight and hence may be about to join the Bob Park brigade.
http://cosmicvariance.com/2008/03/02/obama-talks-sense-about-nasa/
March 5th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
Those generalizations hurt me bad, BA. I’m fifteen, and I still think NASA rocks!
These guys can fly you past the Karman line in four minutes!
They can find out the composition of rocks on another flipping planet!
They have taken pictures of stars being born!
And they’re going to establish bases on THE MOON! THE MOON!
That’s not just cool.
That’s not even just uber-cool.
That’s NASA cool.
March 5th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
I’m happy to be one of the Gen Y minority that does see NASA as cool.
But I do agree that it does need to work on connecting to the majority.
J.J Abrams could come up with an idea or two.
March 5th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
I’m not even Gen Y. I’m Millenial.
March 5th, 2008 at 6:16 pm
Seems to me that what you’re saying, Phil, is that NASA, unlike any successful marketer today, does NOT have a functioning public relations department. That’s puzzling. They expect to get public support for publically funded projects by ignoring large segments of the public? I mean, you were ahead of your time with a couple of your proposals, I mean, like, totally, homeskillet. Seriously, make it cool for Gen Y/Z, and us creaky Gen X-ers will see the real values and how they will effect Gen Z+.
March 5th, 2008 at 6:18 pm
I have an idea… for a music video…
March 5th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
I wanted a rover that could be controlled by a console at a theme park. I wanted games online based on the Moon, school projects where kids designed their own colony.
Those are some excellent ideas. It’s too bad that NASA has such a lack of vision.
March 5th, 2008 at 7:11 pm
That is an awesome PDF. I’d like to see it in powerpoint format - in front of at least 5000 NASA employees.
NASA had that great trailer (http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2007/04/24/trailer-to-the-moon/) a little bit ago - I have been hoping that was the start of a brand new branding for them, but nothing even close to that cool has come to my attention since then.
March 5th, 2008 at 7:16 pm
[…] Phil Plait at Bad Astronomy blogs that this affects NASA too, with a whole generation of personnel for which Apollo is ancient […]
March 5th, 2008 at 8:58 pm
Mirai, name one scientific discovery made on the ISS. Heck, name even one experiment that has been done on the ISS.
Total up the cost of all the modules and launches to the ISS, and divide that by the number of experiments conducted to arrive at a cost per experiment, or likewise with a cost per discovery. Does the total look anything like value to you?
March 5th, 2008 at 10:01 pm
This talk about generations has made me think up of an analogy.
Picture a rebellious teen from the 70’s and one from today. The 70’s teen had strong political and social motives to be rebellious. When it comes to making a statement, the older generations had it easy. Just run naked, smoke some hemp, and going bra-less, and it was done. What serious social issues are motivating today’s young generation to do crazy stuff? Aside from the Iraq war, just selfish reasons mostly. So now we have kids that are shoving hardware into their skin and covering themselves in leather. They are trying to one-up their parents, but they fall flat in contributing anything that would appeal to a lot of people.
That’s what I think when I think of comparing NASA of today to NASA of yesterday.
March 5th, 2008 at 10:34 pm
I’m one of those people who doesn’t really fit in with the baby boom (even though the baby boom “officially” now ends about 1965, I think anybody born after about 1958 has a hard time identifying with the boomers) and I’m too old for GenX. But I was 7 years old in 1969, staying up past my bedtime to watch Neil and Buzz on the moon; then I was getting up in the middle of the night so I could watch the live feed from the lunar rovers; and I stayed up WAY past my bedtime to watch the Apollo 17 night launch. In college, the engineering club had an all-night party before the first (scrubbed) launch of Columbia, and I was there until the end. When I graduated in 1984 with a bachelors in aerospace engineering, I ended up working on airplanes and missiles, but I always kept my eyes open for a space position. Over the years, I worked with the aeronautics arms of NASA and a couple of times with some of the space guys, and was not exactly overwhelmed.
Then, in the summer of 2005, I was eating lunch with three collegues during the heat of the CEV competition. All four of us are aerospace engineers about the same age, alll of us were hooked on space with Apollo, all working at one of the companies bidding for CEV (I won’t say which one). All of us had the opportunity to work on our company’s CEV proposal. All of us agreed that we wouldn’t touch it with a 10-light-year pole, we saw no chance that the program would actually lead to any flight hardware, we felt the entire premise of CEV was fatally flawed (big honking multibillion dollar program that would take forever instead of smaller bite-sized learn-how-to-do-this-routinely stuff), and that trying to put humans on Mars with chemical rockets was insane. We all support space science (aka robot missions) but are human-centered enough to want humans in space too. The thought of working with NASA on human spaceflight ruined our appetites. One colleague of mine who did succumb to the CEV temptation called working with NASA the stupidest thing he ever did.
NASA needs to go back to basic research (and remember that the first A in NASA stands for AERONAUTICS), start the seed programs to eventually get us beyond chemical rockets, and perhaps build up a small manned space program into LEO based on the premise that small is beautiful - i.e., something that’s not stretched so far beyond its budget that it actually has a chance of being built and working. There’s no mystery to why people are turned off of NASA - they see hidebound bureaucracies full of managers trying to protect their own rice bowls, not willing to stand up and tell Congress and the executive branch that they can’t get the Vision for Space Exploration on the cheap and furthermore that the VSE is not the way to build a truly sustainable future in space. NASA will connect with GenY and reconnect with GenX, boomers, etc. when they get a credible plan that makes sense for the long run.
March 5th, 2008 at 11:10 pm
Ed Minchau: As I said, people always want pompous discoveries. I guess an “experiment” for you it’s to send any kind of life outhere and see what happens, would you be satisfied with another Sputnik 2?
I would like you to tell me how do you think we could know how our bodies and our machines react on space. There are a LOT of differences between life on earth and life on space.
How do you think a Lunar Base could be done without going outhere??
Do you know something about robotic?
Have you ever heard about gravity, solar winds, atmosphere, radiation, etc. and how it works? or something about getting used to something a lot different than earth? If you know a better way to do it please tell me because for me we reached to a point where theory is not enough to understand and as I know we can’t emulate well space conditions (and they are harsh).
About the cost, you want it for free?? oh man, nothing compares the knowledge about the world we live in and if that’s a waste of money for you, indeed you sound as Hyman Rickover about the research underseas, and how wrong was he about not giving support to it.
He, as you, wanted huge discoveries now, something thrilling, something to get amazed, something that changes the world in that moment and that’s not the way it works, you can search on any history book and you will find the same thing a lot of times.
March 6th, 2008 at 1:39 am
Jerry Pournelle has it straight with his Iron Law of Bureaucracy: Every bureaucracy has two groups of people. The first is dedicated to the goals of the bureaucracy, whereas the second is dedicated to the service of the bureaucracy itself. The second group will always take over control, and ensure that the primary overriding concern of the bureaucracy will be to maintain the bureaucracy.
NASA fell to this law long ago, probably even before the last Apollo mission left the surface of the moon. Sure, there are some small science centers that have done the occasional good work, but the overwhelming bulk of dollars given NASA are put expressly towards creating and maintaining an infrastructure dedicated to making sure a bureaucracy is needed to continue maintaining the infrastructure. NASA will never, can never be about getting humans into space on a large or affordable scale. Neither have they any interest in human industry or commerce taking place there. There will never be more than a couple dozen people ever granted access to space in a generation as long as NASA has any say over the matter.
Look, it really pains me to have to say this sort of thing. I’m 45, and the Apollo program was the key piece of my youth that eventually led me to a career in engineering. I even worked as a contractor for NASA for some years until I saw the rot from inside the Shuttle program. No form of public outreach, advertising expertise, or Gen Y/M-TV gloss paint job will ever have any effect on the structural problem that is NASA. Frankly, the best use of the money would be to pay off all the desk jockys to sit out the rest of their careers in Houston and D.C. playing Tetris - the talented ones will move on to better and more productive endeavors. Then we can get serious about finding non-bureaucratic methods of getting the job done.
March 6th, 2008 at 3:42 am
Agree. Years ago NASA was synonym to Star Trek. There was not much out there so any news was exciting. It still is, but nowadays is different. Youngsters play 3D SF shooters and run planetarium software. Space news will show up anyhow. Young people in the information age are used to that.
NASA should actively inspire young people. There are many ways. Education is important since knowing and understanding facts leads to further interest. Personally I think mr. Plait is doing a terrific job. He fills a gap by explaining complex matter in understandable words, by debunking pseudoscience and urban legends, and his enthusiasm when telling about upcoming events worth watching. Why doesn’t NASA have somebody like that? A public face so to speak.
And maybe NASA could consider something else too, something the US army did. Make a massive simulator where people can meet, explore, do missions and learn. Or just experience things virtually, passively. The already excellent space simulator Orbiter, but with better graphics and controls, in combination with i.e. Celestia, plus multi player capabilities and online communities to join, plus a connectivity/port with/to Google Earth would attract a lot of people.
March 6th, 2008 at 5:04 am
Doug said:
That is so easy to say, and so hard to prove. In fact, I doubt whether it is really true.
Don’t forget that you can’t have your engineers sitting in tents when they put together the Mars rovers. Whenever you have a large organization you need a large bureaucracy to keep it working. Building maintenance, security, human resources, library services, etc. Heck, JPL even has its own power plant. All of it is needed; if you don’t want the bureaucracy, you should build your rockets in your garage. Good luck with getting to termination shock from there.
March 6th, 2008 at 6:05 am
Doug G. said:
Pieter Kokon said:
I don’t think its all that mysterious. Go to the NASA website, and you can find the budget summary. For instance . . .
Total FY 2008 budget, $17.3 billion.
Of that . . .
$5.5 billion is to space operations, i.e. Shuttle and ISS.
$3.1 billion for the shuttle replacement development.
There’s another $3.2 billion earmarked for the management and operations functions you cite, but one can presume a significant fraction of that goes to support facilities associated with manned space operations. Call it half of the support budget?
We’re already talking over half of the entire budget dedicated to the single activity of manned space operations. Call it an even $10 billion. Compare that to the entire Science budget of $4.7 billion (and how much of that goes to bogus make-work science needed to justify the expense/existence of ISS?). Even more shortchanged is aeronautics at a paltry half billion. Education barely registers at 150 million.
So, ten minutes of research shows that at a minimum, over half of the budget is being fed into the maintenance of a manned space bureaucracy. Now, you may wish to argue the relevance of that activity, and you may well disagree with my assertion that these are largely wasted dollars. But the numbers themselves are fairly straightforward.
March 6th, 2008 at 6:12 am
When I think of NASA, I think of Bush politics and missed oppportunities.
Now rumour has it that your possible Democrat nominee (Obama) will cut funding if he wins. WHY?? The space program more than pays for itself with new technology discoveries! Politicians should be falling over themselves to fund NASA - it can lead to everything from advanced cancer medications to new designer sneakers to nanotech. All of which could potentially add billions to the American economy.
NASA needs to promote the ‘trickle-down’ results MUCH more than they do. Most people have no idea of how important their discoveries are. How can they be ‘cool’ when the average person cannot appreciate the positive influence NASA could have in their lives?
March 6th, 2008 at 6:12 am
Whoops - apologies for misspelling your name in my quote, Mr. Kok. No disrespect intended!
March 6th, 2008 at 6:41 am
Teri said:
Um, is there an independent source for that figure? I mean, besides NASA? Maybe that was true in the hey day of the Apollo program, but so little of the budget these days goes into any sort of research and development that might generate new technology that I doubt the degree of trickle down.
March 6th, 2008 at 7:56 am
Doug G., you are moving the goal posts! Manned space flight is not “creating and maintaining an infrastructure” for its own sake, no matter how much you are opposed to it. It is a well-defined goal that transcends the mere creation of bureaucracy, which i what we were talking about.
What you have dug up is the breakdown of the budget into its parts, which, as you point out, is a fairly straightforward exercise. Determining how much of that money is dedicated to maintaining the infrastructure for its own sake is complete guesswork.
March 6th, 2008 at 7:56 am
It may be old news in America, in other countries, they couldn’t care less. We’ve had exchange students for years and none of them ever cared about going to KSC. The last one opted to stay home and do laundry then to go with us.
Also, the Astronaut Hall of Fame over there is falling apart. Everything is broken, the place is empty, they had to include it in the KSC pass just to drum up some revenue. KSC, itself, never updates it’s exhibits and they seem to be incapable of hiring competant staff these days. I mean, really, 25 minutes in line to get a drink? And then they get the drink wrong? They just don’t care anymore. Frankly, I’m tired of going because we’ve seen it all to death and my boy hasn’t seen anything new there in his entire childhood. Way to capture the interest of the next generation, huh? This is the part of NASA that we can touch and they have made it pretty clear that it’s not important enough to maintain anymore.
March 6th, 2008 at 8:43 am
I’m a bit late coming to this page (as always) but for my two pence worth, I think that the NASA Moon missions were the greatest achievement of all mankind - and I really mean that. Centuries to come, people will look back at this time and say that that moment was the absolute peak of human civilisation. We’re going downhill from there, despite our superior technology at the moment. Look at the big picture. In 1969 the whole world was tuned in to Armstrong, Aldrin & Collins, thinking that if we can put men on the Moon we could do anything. I was one of them. Now it’s different. I really despair at the amount of people who don’t believe it even happened -and that goes x 100 for Americans. I’m British, and I can’t understand why any Americans would want to deny their own country’s greatest achievement. Shame on you! Buzz Aldrin had the perfect comeback to that - I disapprove of violence but in that case he was right to do it.
Phil is right - NASA is in great danger of being sidelined because they’re simply regarded as not relevant any more. I don’t think we’ll ever see the like of the 60’s space race again, and anyone who didn’t live through it simply won’t understand. That great pioneering spirit seems to have gone for good.
March 6th, 2008 at 8:50 am
BA, I think a lot of your commentators have missed the point. The presentation showed that gen-y people will make up 47% of the workforce by 2014. If NASA doesn’t connect with them, it will likely get thrown out at some future point, as in our lifetimes. “Coolness” isn’t even an issue, it’s the fact that there is literally no value seen in NASA by my generation. People who deride that point by making it about coolness… well, I guess I can’t start name-calling. Also, all the people who stated that they are gen-y and think NASA is cool, well I have to say so what? We’re in the minority and irrelevant, unless we do what the presentation says and find ways to connect! If that means altering NASA’s mission, then so be it
March 6th, 2008 at 8:59 am
K —
Upon reading your post and others above I was reminded that a friend took his two teen boys to Kennedy Space Center on my high recommendation. When he returned I asked him how they liked it — he said they were terrifically bored. I found it hard to believe until I went on a second visit a short time later. Yeah, it could use some “excitement”.
I was particularly appalled at seeing the launching pad for the Apollo mission(s), how worn down it was, and merely a small plaque commemorating what happened there. I thought it should be the centerpiece of a museum all its own.
March 6th, 2008 at 9:30 am
The truth is, most people don’t really give a rat’s behind about space exploration and never did. What you seem to forget: the Apollo project was a Cold War grandstand stunt.
While it was in progress, everybody was interested because “Hey! It’s OUR team!” After we got there, interest was quickly lost because, well, the game was over — what was there to watch? Sure, they’ll oooh and aaaah at the purty pitchers but, when push comes to shove, they don’t want to fund it because they’re not really interested — and never were.
And because of that attitude, NASA and the space program shriveled.
If you want Apollo-like public interest, you will need to capture public imagination in pretty much the same way Apollo did. Yeah, it was “cool” way back when but it wasn’t “cool” because it was space exploration. It was “cool” because 1) going to the moon was viewed as so difficult as being next to impossible 2) but OUR team was gonna do it and 3) there was a presidential mandate.
FWIW: I’ve worked at NASA since 1975 which gives me an interesting perspective. I helped make the toys that make those pretty pictures: OAO-C, aka Copernicus, and Hubble (both owing much to Lyman Spitzer), to name a few and SIRTF, fittingly renamed as the Spitzer Space Telescope.
March 6th, 2008 at 10:41 am
Pieter Kok said:
The entire manned space flight activity, as implemented and executed by NASA, is exactly the infrastructure to which I am referring. It is not a question of how well defined the activity is, but what utility, if any, is gained from the activity as pursued. Unlike discrete science projects like, say, Hubble, or Cassini, which have scientific objectives independent of the organizations that create and run them, the goal of manned space flight is to support and justify its own existence. Why do you need the Shuttle? To get to the ISS, of course. And why do we need ISS? So that we have somewhere to fly the Shuttle (or the follow-on replacement system) to. And to pursue any of these activities, we need a standing army of scientists, technicians, and managers to create and maintain the infrastructure to repeat the activity on a continual basis. Any science performed once up there is incidental to the activity itself, and usually could be performed robotically and remotely at a far lower cost, and over a much shorter timeframe.
I am not opposed to the idea of humans in space, or even the idea of spending tax dollars getting humans to do things in space. Indeed, I’m every bit for reaching a position to be able to do useful scientific and commercial activities in space, and getting humanity to a position where it can extend itself beyond the cradle of the Earth. What I am saying is that if these are the goals, NASA will never be the organization to logically and efficiently pursue those ends - their only interest is in doing things the way they’ve always been done because that justifies the existence of their standing armies of facililties and employees (the bureaucracy), and more importantly, the existence of their budgets.
March 6th, 2008 at 6:25 pm
It looks to me like somebody missed the Apollo launch simulation on their bus tour. Disney and Paramount use real flight hardware to illustrate some things, and Jim Lovell narrates a countdown, as the real, re-assembled Mission Control, retrieved from warehouses and programmed anew goes through the launch sequence.
I surprised maybe two dozen people at the Saturn V exhibit by merely commenting aloud that what they were looking at was the real thing. Clueless people are there, not because they admire the space program, but because it’s something to fight boredom when “vacationing in Florida”.
March 7th, 2008 at 5:05 am
Sayeth the BA :
“:A lot of folks don’t connect with NASA.”
March 7th, 2008 at 5:11 am
Sayeth the BA :
“A lot of folks don’t connect with NASA.”
Well I do.
I think NASA does a dagnarnaed good good job!
Yes, I’m a fan iof their work & I don’t mind saying so!
Are there some problems? Could they do better .. well ..always ..
But let’s not forget what an absolutely superluminous (ie beyond mere brillance) job they’ve doen &all they’ve achieved so far.
Or how far ahead of their compeditors & possible alternatives they really are …
March 7th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
For past couple years I’ve thought NASA should put little cameras all over the stuff they send into space and turn it into a show. The last shuttle landing had a spectacular sequence where the shuttle dives through a layer of dense clouds and then almost immediately breaks through with the landing strip right in front of them. I once saw a camera on a rocket that pointed down while it was leaving the launch pad all the way into orbit. Maybe a lot more is available, I haven’t found it.
March 14th, 2008 at 9:32 am
[Full disclosure: I am not, and have never been, a NASA employee. I am a NASA Solar System Ambassador for JPL, a volunteer position. which performs outreach to the public. I am an astronomer, working on exoplanet detection. I have, in my lifetime, received $150 from NASA, for consulting on an education initiative - I don’t think I’ve been bought off. I speak only for myself.]
I am torn by three facts:
1) It is my deepest belief that it is our destiny for humanity to move beyond this planet into the cosmos.
2) In bang for the scientific buck, robotic exploration of the Solar System is a better bargain than paying the megabucks to get boots on the regolith of distant worlds. Still,
3) The only way we will learn how to live in space is to go out and live in space.
An earlier post commented that we should not proceed with human spaceflight until we can rid ourselves of chemical rockets. A nice dream, which will someday likely come to fruition, but as of today there is NO OTHER WAY to get off this planet.
The greatest science contribution of the International Space Station [ISS] is figuring out how to build and live in space. It would be a foolish risk to proceed to Mars until we have learned the lessons of managing life in orbit.
I have grave concerns regarding exposure to radiation, and with the physiological difficulties (bone loss, muscle atrophy), inherent in a 2.2+ year to Mars and back. I am not convinced that such a mission is survivable; we must gain a better understanding of how the body adapts to the environment of space. The ISS is where we are learning the lessons of living beyond the Earth.
The ISS is the lab, and the astronauts are the guinea pigs. I have spoken to several astronauts* about their role as experimental test subjects; to a person they understand and support the need to subject their bodies to Science.
[*In the past year I have interviewed astronauts Jerry Linenger, Ellen Baker, and Sunita Williams about what they have learned about life in space. My first astronaut interview was with Deke Slayton, 30 years ago - it is wonderful to track the real progress we have made in our understanding of how the body reacts to life off this planet. We still have much to learn.]
Yes, for the price of ONE human mission to Mars we can have DOZENS of rovers crawling all over the planet, with the additional benefit that we can send rovers NOW - human spaceflight to Mars is many years away. But….
I had a chance to to chat with Steve Squyres (rover Principal Investigator), about 6 months after the rovers had landed on Mars. I asked Steve about the utility of sending people to Mars, given how well the rovers were chugging along
[Shameless plug for the Lab - Spirit is now 1492 days into its 90 day mission. - that’s 4+ years! Opportunity is now 1471 days into its 90 day mission. Go Rovers!]
I expected Steve to talk about what a great job our rover robots can do. Instead, Steve launched into a passionate plea for us to get boots on Mars ASAP. The robots are great, but they are a poor substitute for “real” geologist.
Just this week, the Shuttle Endeavor is delivering the Japanese Kibo Science Lab to the ISS, along with the Canadian Dextre Robotic Arm. The European Space Agency has launched the Jules Verne to the ISS, an Apollo-size automated mission that is 3x bigger than the Russian progress missions, and Cassini has flown right though a geyser on Saturn’s moon Enceladus.
A damn good week.
If Mike Griffin (NASA’s administrator) were to by some miracle ask me, I’d suggest a few tweaks to the program, but in general I think we are (FINALLY!) on the right track.
OT- Astronaut Garrett Reisman, when asked about the Dextre robot that he is (as I write this) installing on the ISS, said:
“Now, I wouldn’t go as far to say that we’re worried it’s going to run amok and take over the space station or turn evil or anything because we all know how it’s operated and it doesn’t have a lot of it’s own intelligence.”
Now, there is an image! Dextre, by the way, is 12 feet tall, has 11-foot long arms, and has a shoulder span of 8 feet. After Garrett’s comment all I could think about was Sigourney Weaver in “Aliens”.
http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/images/SPAC_ISS_MSS_Canadarm-2_Concept_lg.jpg
http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/images/SPAC_ISS_Dextre_Arm_lg.jpg
http://i.imdb.com/Photos/Ss/0090605/6053_16_1.jpg
March 18th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
I went to KSC last week to watch Endeavour go up, and while I agree that NASA needs to do a better job of reaching out to the public, I think that if you want to fuel up a flagging enthusiasm for the space program, just go down and watch a launch. I was blown away! You want to talk about getting goosebumps and a flood of emotions, wait until it’s T-1 minute and all the console guys are checking in, running down checklists and everything’s green, they turn it over to Endeavour and BOOM, night turns into day. Holy cow, it was such an amazing experience, unlike anything I’ve ever experienced!! I’ve geeked out on the NASA channel for days watching my friend walk in space (He’s 11th on the list of most time spent EVA all-time, BTW).
My buddy Rick Linnehan (a crewmember on the current mission STS-123) invited a few of us down to see his (likely) final launch, and we were briefed by the head of KSC, Colonel Powell I believe his name was, and this guy led 7k troops into combat in Iraq, and seriously knows how to get his message across. NASA needs to get THIS guy out front and let him tell the American public how we’re going to the moon, he sure sold me!
I know the program is expensive, but it’s 1/2 of 1 percent of our national budget, and I, for one, believe it’s worth every penny spent, even if we never make another discovery up there, if for nothing more than to give us our national identity back, to give us something to take pride in and aspire to. Sorry for the run-on sentences, I’m a lawyer and it’s an occupational hazard. Maybe it’s just me, but while I’m positive that things could be managed better, I think these guys are amazing and deserve mucho kudos for what they accomplish on a daily basis.
March 25th, 2008 at 4:35 am
I’m sure there are plenty of cool things happening there, with lots of cool people.
Maybe they need their own Scoble - he seemed to turn Microsoft for the better through blogging. I think it could work at NASA too. If anyone there is reading this and wants to chat they can contact me through my site.
April 6th, 2008 at 8:52 am
I’m from europe and it’s the same problem here. In europe it’s the ESA, but almost nobody knows about them or their projects. I often talk to people about the ISS and the NASA Mars rovers, but most don’t even know, that there are rovers on mars. Also the rocket launches are rarly shown on TV. There is the european Ariane V rocket and of course the Space Shuttles. At least the launch of the european ATV Jules Verne was in the press here. But there are also missions like the cassini huygens to saturn and other international missions. A lot is going on. Think about the new Ares rockets. People maybe know that the US plan a new mission to moon, but they don’t know the name of the rocket, nor do they know how it looks like. I have never seen anything about the rockets in TV or in the press here in Europe. The NASA and ESA Websites are poor. Not much multimedia. You have to search for the launches on youtube. Both, NASA and ESA should make more advertisments. Recently I showed some friends the ISS flying in the sky at night. They thought I was making fun of them. I said: “no really this is the new space station”, but they didn’t believe. I mean, of course the ISS and the mars rovers are not as extraordinary as the moon landing, but they are also big steps.
I hope one day the NASA and ESA website are updated and you then find a lot of multimedia. The point is, that at the moment there is too much information, but not propagated in the right way.