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Earth Science

The Consequences of Foot-in-Mouth

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
June 19, 2007

Missed Opportunity, Planetary Society

“It might be reasonable to accept that this was only a faux pas by a blunt, bright guy who likes to be unconventional. Indeed, Griffin has expressed regret about his comments. But that misses a greater point – this was a major opportunity to promote his agency, the U.S. space program and their value to the public at large. He downplayed one of NASA’s most valued and widely recognized functions – teaching us about our own planet and monitoring it from the unique vantage of space. In doing so, Griffin also undermined public support for his most cherished program – the Vision for Space Exploration.”

Editor’s note: NASA’s response? Well, their Strategic Communications operation just hopes things like this will go away. If you look at their NASA Message Construct all you get are partial, generic ideas contained in stilted sentences – including what to say in a proverbial “Elevator Speech” with someone (I am guessing here) who wants to know what NASA does. After reading this, I have to say that if I were just a regular person off the street, I’d be confused (and a little nervous) if someone from NASA just started talking about this stuff in an elevator. I wonder what this NASA person’s response would be to a question from a taxpayer about Mike Griffin’s dumb comments about global warming? If they adhere to this agency guidance, they’d have no answer.

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.