NASA's Invitation-Only Stealth Tweetup is Underway at JSC

Keith's note: If you have been paying attention to NASA's press releases this past week you know that there a series of NASA social media events at all of NASA's field centers next week. NASA does a lot of these events and goes out of its way to issue invitations for people to apply to attend. You can see the announcements for all of them here - all except one. If you go to this listing of people tweeting with the tag #tweeunion you will see that there is a NASA social media event underway at NASA JSC today - right now, in fact. But NASA never announced it. NASA JSC PAO, NASA HQ PAO, and the NASA Social team knew nothing about it until it was underway. This event was organized by NASA JSC personnel and attendees were privately invited - with no opportunity for anyone else in the United States to apply. So ... you can follow the tweets from this private viewing party as these #spacetweeps brag among themselves about how special they are to be invited to play with NASA's toys - while no one else can.

Keith's update: As best I understand from the #tweeunion tweets I have been getting is:

1. This is not a NASA social so who cares what I think
2. Its a bunch of friends getting together so we can do whatever we want
3. (By interpolation) Anyone can do this (if they can't why can't you?)

I wonder what charge code the dozen or so NASA JSC employees who have spent 3-4 hours with this "bunch of friends" charge to? Do not get me wrong - the more people who see the inside workings of NASA and tell the outside world - the better. But these are all people who have already been to multiple NASA social events. No one else ever had a chance to apply for today's multi-hour personalized tour. They even joked earlier today about this as being "mission impossible" and have not even bothered to use #spacetweeps or #NASAsocial or even #NASA to tag their tweets - the usual way one would expect social media types to enhance their reach. In other words they are deliberately avoiding the redistribution of their tweets to a much wider audience which is a direct contradiction of what the whole NASA Social thing is supposed to be about in the first place.

But this is a "bunch of friends" getting together at NASA expense so who cares.