This is not a NASA Website. You might learn something. It's YOUR space agency. Get involved. Take it back. Make it work - for YOU.
Space & Planetary Science

Bolden Gets EPO Briefing From New Horizons Mission Team

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
April 6, 2015
Filed under , , ,
Bolden Gets EPO Briefing From New Horizons Mission Team

Public Asked to Help Name Features on Pluto, SETI Institute
Keith’s 6 April update: NASA has yet to mention this public engagement project on its own New Horizons website. Nor has JHUAPL. Gee, and there’s only 1 day left. Next time perhaps SETI Institute and SwRI will actually get NASA’s permission for things like this before they go off and tell others (IAU etc.) that they already have NASA’s permission – permission they never had, according to NASA sources. There is a meeting between senior New Horizons mission staff and Charlie Bolden today. They will be talking about this issue …
NASA Extends Campaign for Public to Name Features on Pluto
“The public has until Friday, April 24 to help name new features on Pluto and its orbiting satellites as they are discovered by NASA’s New Horizons mission.”
Keith’s 6 April update: Funny how NASA did not say a thing about this activity until less than 24 hours before it was due to end – and only a few minutes after the meeting with Bolden concluded …

Keith’s 23 March note: Last week the SETI Institute unilaterally announced an effort whereby the public can suggest names for features discovered within the Pluto-Charon system. The IAU would have the final say as to which names were accepted. One small problem: NASA HQ was not in the loop for this major effort to name things discovered by a NASA spacecraft. It has been several days since SETI Institute made this announcement and there is no mention of this effort at the JHUAPL website, at the NASA mission website, at SwRI, or at NASA.gov. Only the personal Twitter account by the mission’s PI mentions this effort. This press release was not distributed by NASA, JHUAPL or SwRI. The SETI Institute did not send this release out to their media list. A third party distributed the information well after it was “released” by SETI.
Sources I have spoken with at NASA HQ said that NASA was not aware that this news was being announced or that SETI Institute had decided (seemingly on its own) to do this project on NASA’s behalf. Based on previous stunts it is quite clear that the New Horizons mission (again, a NASA mission paid for by NASA) has decided that it will make its own decisions on how the public will be involved – and that it is not up to NASA to coordinate these activities.
Yes, this is a cool idea. But it is foolish and counterproductive in the extreme for SETI Institute and the rest of the New Horizons team to leave NASA out of decisions regarding how citizens interact with one of its own missions.
Keith’s 23 March update: What is strange about this effort is that you can only suggest names for features until 7 April 2015 – yet it will be months before anything of significance shows up on pictures. Only 2 weeks – with no coordinated or advance notice – to name major features on a bunch of new worlds? That seems rather odd. Can you imagine the people who explored and settled the American west stopping every time a landmark was encountered that needed a name – and then pulled out a list created before their departure to see if there was a pre-approved name that would work? Why not accept names during and after the encounter and then let the public and whatever quasi-official deliberative parties who need to weigh in do so? This whole process was clearly not well thought out – in addition to it not being coordinated with the owner of the spacecraft.
Keith’s 24 March update: The IAU just issued this press release: Campaign for Public Participation in Naming Features on Pluto which states “This naming campaign is a partnership between the NASA’s New Horizons (http://www.nasa.gov/newhorizons) project, the SETI Institute (http://www.seti.org) and the IAU.” Yet, as I noted yesterday, NASA makes zero mention of this on any of its websites or social media platforms. That is still the case. It has been 4 days since SETI Institute made this announcement. If this is a partnership between the IAU, SETI Institute – and NASA, then why has NASA yet to admit this? There is now less than 2 weeks for people to participate. Wouldn’t you think that that NASA’s Twitter account with over 9 million followers would be in use by now to promote this short term effort for one of their missions? But wait: as noted before, NASA HQ did not know that SETI Institute was making these deals with the IAU.

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

18 responses to “Bolden Gets EPO Briefing From New Horizons Mission Team”

  1. sunman42 says:
    0
    0

    I’d be surprised if NASA hadn’t signed up with the IAU naming process in the early 1960s, and equally surprised if Alan Stern had consulted with NASA Communications about the process.

  2. david says:
    0
    0

    Wonder if some typical geographical feature names from Coke County, TX where my family was some of the early settlers have a chance of being vetted? Example include Gobbler Hill, Mount Margret, Deadman Canyon, Cemetary Draw, or Werewolf Hill.

  3. Tim Blaxland says:
    0
    0

    When the IAU did the same thing for Mercury, they had it open for four weeks. It seems the nomination period is roughly proportional to the body radius. Just wait until they do Jupiter and you’ll get a whole year!

  4. Michael Spencer says:
    0
    0

    I’d say that folks are a damn sight better at drumming up interest in the Pluto project than the NASA folks. I like it.

    • kcowing says:
      0
      0

      Its a NASA mission – and they did not ask NASA if they could cut a deal regarding a spacecraft that does not belong to them.

  5. hikingmike says:
    0
    0

    I have to agree… and it would be nice to be able to see the features before naming them in case a name fitting the appearance makes a lot of sense that should get a chance. There could be a sort of queue of features to be named, where features get added to the front when they are discovered and there is an open naming period in the middle (can be different lengths), and then they go out the back of the queue when they’re officially named.

    Actually IAU or someone should institute this system on a more general basis. We’ll have plenty more stuff to name soon enough. Many times it will just be the name given by the discoverer that is chosen and shot through the queue right away, but this process handles that just fine too as that’s a subset.

  6. fcrary says:
    0
    0

    Keith,
    By the IAU’s rules, anyone can suggest names for planetary features, and even when the discoverers (or a NASA mission) suggests one, the IAU frequently says “no” and selects a different one. So SwRI and SETI institute don’t need to ask NASA for permission. In fact, if you wanted to, you (NASAWatch) could organize a similar naming campaign. In fact, since you don’t seem to like the early deadline for SETI’s, maybe you should.

    • kcowing says:
      0
      0

      SETI Institute and SwRI told IAU that NASA had approved this 0 and IAU issued a release based on that claim. NASA did not endorse or approve this. Call NASA HQ PAO and ask them.

      • fcrary says:
        0
        0

        That’s fair enough, and I’m not debating the issue of who said they had NASA approval or whether they had actually obtained it. I simply said the NASA approval is neither required or expected, in order to conduct a project to collect and suggest names to the IAU. You seem to think that NASA approval is mandatory, and I’m just saying that it isn’t.

        But, I might add a completely fictional idea. I have no idea what really happened, but what if the following happened. Someone at SETI thought the naming project was a good idea and proposed it to the New Horizons project a year ago. The project decided it was a good idea but didn’t want to announce it with approval from someone at NASA headquarters. The request for approval ends up on someone’s desk but is flagged as non-urgent. The request remains there for months, gathering dust. Eventually, the folks at SETI get tired of waiting and just announce the naming project without NASA approval.

        I do not know if the above story is ture. I think it is plausible, consistent with what we know, and implies nothing worse than inefficiency at NASA HQ’s PIO office and imaptiance by scientists with a good idea. I’d prefer to know the real details before making accusations.

        • kcowing says:
          0
          0

          My statements are true. If you think I am lying then call NASA yourself – like I did – and ask them.

  7. Upward and Outward! says:
    0
    0

    Let’s not jump the gun. What we want to see asap are latest New Horizon’s pictures of Pluto. By now, as they have been saying, distant pictures taken should be equal to or better than Hubble’s. It’s been over two months since the last ones were published, showing the moons of Pluto.

  8. Daniel Woodard says:
    0
    0

    I still think the dwarf planet beyond Pluto should have been named Xena.

    • Mark Friedenbach says:
      0
      0

      There’s plenty of them avaialble to name.

      • ProfSWhiplash says:
        0
        0

        Just be patient… there’ll be another dwarf with a comparatively large companion… then we could go with Xena & Gabrielle (and if there’s a second rock in orbit, we could call that one Joxer)

  9. Todd Austin says:
    0
    0

    It appears that they’ve worked things out – deadline extended to April 24, official word from NASA:

    http://www.nasa.gov/press/2

    • kcowing says:
      0
      0

      And NASA waited 2 weeks and did nothing until less than 24 hours away from the deadline and …. funny what happens when you go off and tell people you have a deal with NASA – but you don’t.