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NASA Misses Out on Obvious PR Opportunities Every Day

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
November 10, 2013
Filed under ,

Cosmonauts Take Olympic Torch on a Space Walk
“Two Russian cosmonauts clad in Orlan spacesuits conducted an out-of-this-world hand-off of the Olympic torch at the start of Saturday’s 5-hour, 50-minute spacewalk to perform maintenance on the International Space Station.”
Sending Olympic Torch to Space, Russia Flaunts Inspiration Superiority (Op-Ed), Leroy Chiao, Space.com
“Over the last month, the blockbuster films “Gravity” and “Ender’s Game” have generated more popular interest in spaceflight than actual missions currently flying. There are many reasons for this, and Americans should not lament those reasons, but understand and embrace them, and create strategies to exploit them. Strictly speaking, as part of the federal government, NASA is not allowed to advertise, but one wonders if the envelope could be stretched a bit. “
NASA’s Confused Policy on Advertising, earlier post
“I have lost count how many times people at NASA have told me that they cannot self-promote, advertise, lobby, or otherwise try to use standard marketing tools to inform the public of the things that they do. They always cite dire Congressional prohibitions against such activities. Then they go off and totally violate these prohibitions with advertising procurements such as this one. I am not certain that they actually know what it is they are allowed or not allowed to do and just throw this answer out when they do not want to do something.”

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

8 responses to “NASA Misses Out on Obvious PR Opportunities Every Day”

  1. Anonymous says:
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    NASA happy to plug a Disney movie and offer product placement, but it surely cannot stop commercial crew providers adorning their launch vehicles with banner adverts like Formula One racing cars?

    • hikingmike says:
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      They can if NASA hired them, right? So SpaceShipTwo will be a big
      Virgin advertisement (everybody saw that one coming) but maybe not
      flights to ISS on Dragon or something.

  2. Steve Whitfield says:
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    I haven’t seen the movie yet, but if it turns out to be 1/10th as enjoyable and inspirational as the book was, then I’d say that NASA would be crazy not to associate itself with Ender’s Game in any way that it can.

    In the book, a lot of the key material is in Ender’s thoughts, and I’m not sure how they could have put that across in the movie; the only thing I can think of is if they created a lot of new dialog between Ender and Bean, and Ender and Peter or Valentine.

    In the book (I don’t know about the movie), there are a number of things that happen on multiple levels, but it’s not at all confusing dealing with that, the way that many stories are.

    The book is a quarter century old but is still as relevant today as ever. If you haven’t read it, you won’t regret doing so. If the movie turns out to be anywhere near as good as the book, then don’t miss it.

  3. Jafafa Hots says:
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    Lets see…
    An organization that takes bribes to determine where to hold events, even when one such place makes being gay a criminal offense?

    I don’t see any loss in not promoting them.

    • Steve Whitfield says:
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      As distasteful as those aspects are, they do not appear in or affect the book in any way, and I would be surprised if they are reflected in any way in the movie, being completely irrelevant to the story line.

      Orson Scott Card is a dedicated Mormon (so his views are not surprising), so we should probably be careful what we say in a public blog, so as not to turn it into a two-way mud slinging match. It would accomplish nothing and would lower us to the level of those we disapprove of.

      • Jafafa Hots says:
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        The IOC taking bribes on where to hold the Olympics and Russia persecuting gays doesn’t appear in “Ender’s Game?” No kidding.

        As far as Card’s views go, he’s the mud-slinger, says there should be a death penalty for gay sex.
        If I point out the fact that he is a hateful homophobe, I am not being lowered to his level.

        Do not tell people to be quiet in the face of bigotry and oppression unless your intent is to aid the bigots and oppressors.

        Sitting down and shutting up is not an option, and it does not work.

  4. Brian_M2525 says:
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    I don’t think there is anything that precludes NASA from “advertising”. There are a lot of NASA PAO and lawyer types who are afraid of their own shadows. There are a lot of NASA managers who would just assume that NASA not have to pay for public affairs, communications, education, etc. Remember the plan earlier this year for NASA to turn over a lot of its functions to Department of Education or to the Smithsonian. That is apparently no longer going to happen because someone came to the realization that those organizations don’t do what the NASA management wanted. NASA management simply did not know what they did not know.

    There is no reason why NASA cannot take credit if they identify in an honest and forthright manner what it is they are responsible for. NASA is responsible for a lot. NASA is an information creation organization. Whenever they create information they ought to identify such. If NASA is responsible for inspiring students towards STEM studies or STEM careers, and many of us know this is true, then NASA ought to advertise that. Its in the nation’s interest and in NASA’s interest.

    There are several NASA top level managers in place today who think its all about flying in space. They were themselves space fliers-astronauts, and they think that is what its all about. Well guess what, NASA does little of that anymore at least not with people. Others in top NASA management think its all about aerospace engineering; they think of themselves as aerospace engineers (I’m not sure why since there are few in NASA management circles who have every designed or developed any space vehicles) and so they think this is what NASA is all about. But there is little of that going on today.

    One of government’s and NASA’s primary roles is education and communication. It was written into the NASA charter at the outset. NASA ought to get some competent people who know how to do that job. They don’t need bean counters in these jobs. They don’t need astronaut friends whose parents were teachers and so somehow magically know what is required; it was apparently passed down from an earlier generation. They don’t need FAA safety board administrators who did poorly in that job so-consolation prize, they get to lead communications.

    The managers who do not know what they don’t know ought to get out of the way. When they put people into these jobs who have no competence in these jobs, then they bring everyone down. These are important jobs because while the function might not be central what they do reflects on the entire organization.

  5. korichneveygigant says:
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    The engineer inside me is screaming out, how did they keep the torch lit, and if it wasnt lit, is it still a torch? haha