#whyspacematters Does Not Seem to Matter
Keith’s note: NASA used some rather expensive astronaut time to set up this photo, take it, send it back to Earth, and post it online. This project “NASA, UN Photo Competition Highlights Why Space Matters on Earth“ announced by NASA on 16 June 2015. The intent was good. Seriously. But looking at the follow-up and popularity of the #whyspacematters hashtag on Twitter … well, its not so good. Too bad. This is a most noble and desirable effort and is emblematic of the uses of space utilization with an intentional global impact.
Perhaps NASA PAO, UNOOSA, et al can promote this a little better? (Hint).
Too bad that the Planetary Society, National Space Society, Space Frontier Foundation etc. are not doing more to promote this. But then again … space advocates really do not do well outside of their self-limiting comfort zones. Nor do they care to do so.
What a perfect opportunity to get outside the usual space advocacy comfort zone. Space advocacy needs to be inclusive, intrinsically expansive, but grounded in sociopolitical reality. Alas, space advocacy is currently exclusive, insular, tone deaf, elitist, and inherently inbred. Yea, like that is how we get nations to expend billions to expand outward into our solar system – using someone else’s tax dollars.
Caption: “NASA astronaut Scott Kelly is photographed in the Japanese Experiment Module (JEM) holding a sign with the hashtag #whyspacematters. NASA and the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) have launched a global photography competition to highlight how the vantage point of space helps us better understand our home planet, improve lives, and safeguard our future by aiding sustainable development on Earth. ISS043E294202 (06/10/2015) – Larger image.”
The concept definitely needs more support and awareness. However, even if unintended, it’s similar to #blacklivesmatter which could open up controversy.
The connection is only drawn due to the similarity in tags. Sadly, probably from now on… anything that “matters” will have to compete with this political/social hand grenade.
This is a very valid concern. Whether or not the NASA effort start before — or completely in ignorance of — the “Black Lives Matter” movement; I agree this is is a political hot potato / hand grenade. Especially in light of the recent push back of “All Lives Matter” at campaign rallies.
That could be one reason that the NSS leadership might “chicken out” and not endorse the NASA effort at this time (assuming it passes the other tests I cited in an earlier response). The space movement is already in a precarious state, so creating new enemies — even if totally unintentional — is probably not the wisest course of action.
The effort was launched by NASA on 16 Jun – 2 months ago. Where’s the backlash? The fact that NSS is afraid to support this and other things NASA does simply goes to show that it is a hollow shell of an organization compared to what it once was.
There’s no backlash because nobody pays attention to space.
This was another, similar contest sponsored apparently by JSC, ISS or exploration, but which apparently got little advertising or support.
http://cinespace15.org/
It will be interesting to see whether any of the winners are of much value.
Spaceflight should no more ask for public charity than aviation. Spaceflight should provide benefits that would warrent the cost if they did not involve space, whether they be ticket sales to vacationers or scientific research. The value of these benefits must exceed the cost. Therefore, since we cannot simply increase the value of human spaceflight, we must reduce the cost.
Who judges that? The much reduced public scientific funding in the U.S. in recent years comes to mind
Who judges that?
The beneficiaries of spaceflight, such as they are. No one else.
Above all, it shouldn’t be government because bureaucrats make the world’s worst choices when it comes to picking commercial endeavors to succeed.
Which could be the entire population of the U.S. Need it be commercial? Certainly it should include commercial, but government sponsored space endeavors can provide benefits that exceed the cost. I don’t say it does as that’s a tough question, but it can. Now if a company chooses to put some money in and ends up making money or losing money, then that’s easy to judge. It’s not the only way to judge space endeavors on cost/benefit though.
Crony capitalism distorts markets and thereby slows down the communication of bad news in an economy. This is why government needs to stop trying to pick business and industrial winners.
A truly successful national industrial policy would say simply: “There shall be free markets.”
If an endeavor is truly worth doing, business will undertake it without government help. And if no one will do it without government help, it shouldn’t be done. There are a couple of very limited exceptions to this, but in all cases the government involvement should be small and brief.
Your last paragraph is ridiculous.
Oh, how? As they say on math exams, show all your work —
There are things worth doing that businesses (or anyone else) won’t undertake. It’s a reason for government to exist. Think of some things government does and I’m sure at least some of those you would agree are important to have even if you are someone who wants very little government. I’ll just pitch in with one example – law enforcement.
>>The much reduced public scientific funding
Is that right?
True, R&D as a percent of GDP has dropped, but the percent of GDP for *everything* that’s not “entitlement” spending has gone down as entitlements eat the GDP to death.
This is an exceptionally informative chart. It also goes a long way to illustrate why any significant increase in spending on NASA is a non-starter. Spending on space is already large, especially when compared against spending on health, which has a much, much broader support base. Also worth comparing to the space spending as a % of GDP in Europe, Japan, Canada, etc.. NASA’s budget is only as big as it is due to industrial inertia and the social-psychological effects of Apollo. The last part has a tiny bit to do with space advocates, but only so much and in any case only really maintains the budget as its current size.
Really interesting graph, thank you. I agree with Ian that Space is really huge here. The graph is titled with “R&D” and we know NASA spends a lot on stuff that isn’t R&D so I wonder how that’s counted. The Gen. Science bars have gone up, but have gone down since 6 years ago, which is probably way down as a % of GDP like you mention. I have been reading about what sounded like a really tough environment for people aspiring for a career in science… academic, supported by grants, and other types. It could be that a higher percentage of college grads are trying to do go into science as well and so there are lots out there that won’t find the career support.
https://www.google.com/sear…
https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
On the other hand, perhaps some measure other than money is occasionally appropriate?
He said value and cost. That doesn’t automatically imply a dollar (or euro) sign in front.
I believe civil aviation originally did need some public charity (government subsidies) to get off the ground.
Mail contracts, I think.
The first and most farsighted investment of tax dollars in aviation in the US was the formation of the NACA, the predecessor of NASA, in 1915. Like the mail contracts, and today’s Commercial Crew and Cargo program, it was not charity, nor was it a response to popular demand. It was an investment, in partnership with industry, in developing technology that would allow the American civil aerospace industry to lead the world.
Where is it posted online? The link at the very end goes to Flickr. Anywhere else? Twitter?
The problem (in my mind anyway) is that space people already Tweeting stuff like #WhySpaceMatters is mostly preaching to the choir. If someone is already following NASA, does it really do any good for NASA to Tweet #WhySpaceMatters? What would help more is for people that normally aren’t tweeting space to Tweet #WhySpaceMatters to followers who may not be in the seem Twittersphere as space followers. For example, Ian Ziering Tweeting about Sharknado and NASA probably reached more non-space people than say, The Planetary Society, ever will. (Not picking on The Planetary Society, you could replace that with NSS, SFF, or even NASA Watch 🙂
BTW, the One Direction video is a perfect example of what should be done. Brilliant!
The key to using Twitter for getting attention outside your own circle of interest is cross-posting your tweets.
For example, I have a blog article that jokes about launching Justin Bieber to the Moon. Hence, I post the link to Twitter with both the hashtags #JustinBieber and #WhySpaceMatters attached. In fact I think I’ll go and do that right after work. 😉
It is twitter – and unless you really know how to use it you will #fail. And Keith, with all do respect, it is not that #NASA doesn’t know how to do PR. It is that the laws that govern NASA couldn’t comprehend marketing.
I am not sure how many people who genuinely care about space actually “work” twitter. Our culture does not care about “education” as much as it cares about googling the correct information to then tweet it. I see a lot of people complaining about NASA funding and how we should have never had a space program… I then promptly ask them to give up their smart phone since we would have never had them without NASA.
Our society cares less and less about the grand scheme of things and more about what others can do for them.
#JMHO
I have heard that NASA is technically not able to advertise, right? Do they have the ability to hire marketing people? A public affairs office probably can’t do “marketing”. Good call
“Too bad that the Planetary Society, National Space Society, Space Frontier Foundation etc. are not doing more to promote this. But then again … space advocates really do not do well outside of their self-limiting comfort zones. Nor do they care to do so.”
Well for NSS, from my inside view as an NSS Officer, I must admit that this is the FIRST I have heard about it. It has not come up in any of the leadership discussions. I will raise the issue with our VP for Public Affairs to see if NSS was approached by NASA or not (and if not, why not). And to find out if this effort is still something for NSS to promote (if it is still going strong or not, and aligned with our Mission statement).
Since it is very easy for NASA and commercial firms to just make their own Web site to get their own message out, there seems to be less and less coordination (or perhaps outreach/interest) with non-profit space advocacy groups. So if such non-profit groups are useless — as you seem to indicate in your recent postings — then you should not ding them for not participating in NASA outreach activities. If, on the other hand, if they are still worth our time and effort — as NASA seemed to think when it created the precursor to the NSS in 1974 — then we should work to remove the communication barriers and learn to coordinate better, and to find better ways to get make real progress in the space movement. Ad Astra!
NASA issued a press release and tweeted it and posted photos etc. The fact that NSS was unaware is not surprising given how useless it has become. I can’t imagine why NASA would “approach” NSS since it has outreach capabilities vastly greater than does NSS. The fact that you have to have a meeting and decide whether this official NASA activity fits with your mission statement simply underscores how useless NSS is and how niche-oriented and inbred space advocacy groups have become.
Fine, you win since there is no way I will ever win an argument with you. Goodbye and good luck with the rest of your fan base. I am removing your bookmark from my favorites list. Too bad, since in general I find your list of news items a useful service. But your consistently negative comments and lack of faith in any form of space advocacy is not helpful to the cause, and I would rather put my energy into actually making real progress. Ad Astra.
I was a member of both of the precursor organizations that formed NSS and served as guest editor of NSS’s Ad Astra magazine 3 times. As such, I have some passing familiarity as to what NSS once was and the faint echo of that former organization that exists now.
If I dropped every website that I found occasionally disagreeable I’d have a lot less reading to do. And a lot less interesting life.
Space people have to learn a very difficult lesson- our country is composed of people with opinions.
This…this existed?
Let’s face it. NASA’s best days are behind it.
You know that just seems silly to me.
There’s a space station on orbit, and birds flying all over the solar system. Let’s keep some perspective.
We are witnessing at NASA the ascendence of those with opinions and $$$ greater than perhaps we have.
Future: Aging Space Station, Pork rocket to nowhere, Commercial sCrew (that Congress won’t fund properly), seats on the Soyuz, seats on the Soyuz, seats on the Soyuz, seats on the Soyuz, seats on the Soyuz, seats on the Soyuz, seats on the Soyuz, seats on the Soyuz…
Present: astronauts just grew lettuce in space – Space Station, Space Station, Space Station – 2 active rovers on Mars – active probe in orbit around Ceres – active commercial resupplies to station – commercial crew program (partially funded is better than none) – program (pork or not) for a rocket that could surpass Saturn V – We just saw Pluto!
These are just observations from a casual fan… I’m sure there are plenty more positives to point out… like the Morpheus lander etc.
And who gave the Air Force their newest space toy?
Not really.
From what I have seen with most of the societies and organizations, they choose minor areas of interest that have a very small clientele; for instance our local groups focus on robotics, and they miss out on 99.9% of the people. Also, while robotics is a great area associated with space exploration, it is NOT space exploration. So even the small audience that they reach is not learning anything about space.
NASA does not do much better. NASA has governmental license and charter to “educate” the public about space (and aviation), and yet NASA selects these minor narrow areas of little interest to focus on, and then the way in which they try to broadcast, through social media, loses 99% of even those who might have an interest. All the while the PAO organization claims they are reaching millions, which is nonsense. For instance, it is well known through research that brief videos-3 minutes or shorter, are about all that will hold a typical viewer’s interest, and yet NASA keeps producing these 7 or 10 or 20 minute programs that no one is watching. They have a sizeable staff of professionals all engaged in producing these videos. That is all they do. Taxpayers are funding this to the tune of many $$ millions a year. Then NASA PAO claims they are being seen by thousands (out of a population of 300 million). Well, most of those thousands turn it off before they reach 1 minute, so it is a lot of wasted effort.
All the while NASA whines that it has so few dollars they need support. Its a self-fulfilling prophecy; they do a piss poor job at considerable expense and then wonder why they are not enlisting support and without support cannot get anyone to think about increasing their budget.
Until NASA uses some of that scientific expertise they are supposed to have, to develop a supportive base and educate a significant fraction of the public, they are wasting a lot of time and energy and dollars.
So — yet another hashtag campaign? What’s it about this time?
Yawn.
Twitter is good for instant snark, mainly political or cultural. It’s not a medium to use in “marketing” space. Space exploration is a worthy goal but hashtagging to promote it just brings the cause down to the level of the average Twitter stream.
Twitter is a fundamentally unserious medium, and promoting a serious (let’s hope) endeavor through Twitter is completely misguided.
#TooManyHashtags #MakesYouStupid
Apparently a promoted tweet by Lebron James has a value of $140k. In strict advertising terms which is making people aware of your product, service, or “brand” – Twitter is anything but an unserious medium in its ability to reach the masses. And since many promoted tweets are only costing a few thousand dollars each, they are apparently a steal in terms of ROI. For now.
This is similar to the passionate complaints about Powerpoint being the end of skilled communication of ideas. it’s not the medium itself which is flawed or unsophisticated – it’s your own strategic use of it that matters.
For example, a hashtag is not a campaign. It should be one of the many moving parts of a successful communications effort.
Twitter’s effectiveness as an ad medium depends entirely on what you’re selling. And you must factor in the mindset of the audience with respect both to Twitter and to the product you’re pushing.
And that’s not even counting how long any Twitter-awareness, hashtag-latency effect lasts.
Twitter works best with things that dwell in the “flash enthusiasm” category.
Which is a lousy match for rallying support for space exploration — especially projects that require the public to sustain an effort for years and decades.
Tweeting ain’t going to get us to the stars. And it probably can’t even keep us in low Earth orbit.
You clearly do not understand how social media works. Please stop posting the same comment over and over again or you will not be posting here any more.
What probably appeared to you as insistent double-posting was an artifact of Discus’ commentary logging. It was a system glitch; however, I apologize anyway.
I think that your point is valid but misplaced. It’s not that Twitter isn’t the right medium to “get us to the stars”. It’s that maybe it and other tools are not being used as well as they could be – reaching out to the masses and informing them of the mission in a way that is consistent and meaningful to them. This indirectly supports NASA’s science and exploration mission.
NASA has two primary audiences that are key to its survival. The first consists of stakeholders like Congress, and NASA must rally support among them and share its successes and value to justify current and future funding. Twitter is probably not going to be of much use in that arena which is what I suspect is your focus – the technical requirements and the resources needed to accomplish them.
The second audience is the public. In order to fulfill its mandate, NASA must communicate its activities to them in order to be transparent but also remain recognized and relevant. The individual members of the public who are the ultimate customers and beneficiaries of NASA’s work – those who are in the choir as well as everyone else – need to be informed and reminded of the way their lives have been improved and influenced by science and technology.
Social media is definitely one way to reach them. Unfortunately, government organizations skew older and slower – the early adopters have moved on to something else, and bureaucrats hear about the “new” tools after they’re old news. Which leads to knee-jerk default utilization, without much imagination, understanding, or strategy. This idea of remaining relevant within popular culture and society is intangible and continually changing but still of tremendous importance.
I use Twitter as one of my main news streams. It’s one of the fastest means to get quick announcements and press releases from just about every major business on the planet.
Perfect example: I really need to know when No Man’s Sky comes out for PS4…. or I really want to know the latest sci/tech news from Wired, Ars Technica or New Scientist … or I really want to know the latest developments for High Speed Rail in Texas, etc., etc., etc.
Name the segment or category and almost every big corporation uses Twitter to get the word out.
And for those such as yourself who are primed already to act on getting The Word from some company or organization, Twitter serves a purpose just by alerting you. Great.
But what about people who have no idea what to do after they get The Word via Twitter? They simply get a momentary good feeling — and then what? For that Tweet to have a lasting effect instead of a momentary buzz, it has to lead to something. And that something requires “mental software” — awareness — that has been already installed in your head through other means and channels.
High-speed rail in Texas is important to you, but I doubt it was Twitter that created that interest. Instead, you arrived at that subject though other means, and any Tweet on high-speed rail takes advantage of that pre-installed software in your head.
NASA Tweets can have power, but for the most part they require people to have already installed in themselves a concern or interest in the subject of spaceflight. By itself, no tweet can create that in someone.
Where NASA is failing is in putting out tweets that hit the Faithful, but do little or nothing to enlarge the circle — or to be blunt, recruit troops to the cause.
NASA is trying to hit too many constituencies which have different hot buttons: aerospace companies and the congresscritters who love them, the True Believers in spaceflight, and the general public who can and will respond to the awe and wonder of exploration.
And remember, it’s all coming from a bureaucracy whose prime directive is to continue to exist.
You’ve just switched from attacking the legitimacy of Twitter as a medium of communication to attacking NASA for not having a good PR strategy.
My response was to the original claim.
As far as NASA’s PR abilities go… that’s a completely different issue.
Twitter, as a communication medium, is planet-wide — and a micron deep. It’s great as an alerting service, but unless it lands on already fertilized soil or it leads to something else, the tweet goes no farther than the initial and momentary blip.
People go “Wow!” — and then they’re off looking for the next popcult jolt, whoever or whatever that may be. Their feeling is strongly emotional but very brief. Unless you can capture that emotion as it flies by and use it to open a door that actually goes somewhere, it’s all but wasted.
A survey of people in a large university’s incoming (this fall) freshman class noted, among other things, that Gen Z (that’s them) has an attention span of 8 seconds. Twitter feeds into that perfectly. But I’m still waiting to hear how Twitter can do serious promotion of spaceflight through a random barrage of 8-second blips.
I get it — Twitter’s big. But it’s a billboard you just drove past at freeway speed — and meanwhile, here comes another….! To promote a long-duration cause, such as the exploration of space, takes far, far more than bombarding the world with tweets and hashtags.
Some people watch Charlie Rose and some people watch America’s Got Talent…. yet TV is not flawed because some people aren’t as deep as others.
When we say “audience” it is not to identify one uniform block or demographic. A communicator plays to his or her audience. America’s got talent will not ask Hans Blix to be a guest judge.
You should say, “Some people” when you speak of short attention spans.
Twitter has a varied audience and some people have short attention spans on Twitter.
Now we can talk about how NASA needs to do a better job of communication with the tools at its disposal.
The whole point of the exercise is to get beyond the pre-prepared audience of True Believers and reach a larger group of people. Then to move them from neutrality toward spaceflight to a position favoring it. And if hostile, to try to move them at least as far as neutrality.
This means talking to the up-and-comers in their own way. My argument with Twitter is that it’s just an alerting service. If all you need is an alert that something in your fields of interest has changed, then Twitter probably suffices in itself, because you know where to go to take the next steps.
Getting millions of people to forward a Tweet about a band with some connection to NASA gets the immediate “Wow!” I spoke of, but how and where do you go to take it farther?
The comment about attention spans is to point up the nature of talking to Gen Z (those born 1995 and more recently). You have to catch them quickly. And for them, among social media, Twitter comes in fourth in use, behind Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat. And ahead of Vine and Pinterest.
The only way to show space matters in a photo competition is to shoot something that is too big to capture on the ground. For example, you take a picture of California beach and call it “Pacific Ocean”. I am sure there will be plenty of entries showing pictures of crowded trains in India or economy seats on airplanes demonstrating “space” do matter.
What I do not understand about the NSS and other space advocacy groups is they do not seem to actually target people and companies that REALLY can make a difference. Granted, targeting people and companies for monetary donations is one thing but if your mission plan is to get the message out, why not spend some of your resources, (labor and capital) and target people and companies that actually specialize IN getting the message out.
https://www.viralshot.com/
Companies like this specialize in viral marketing. Why not AGRESSIVELY approach EVERY viral marketing company and see if the CEO’s, President’s, Company founders, are space nuts? Hell just getting ONE company like this to come on board and they can really make a difference. They specialize in it and are experts in making a message go viral.
First, space advocate groups won’t change as long as the money keeps flowing from memberships, fund drives, conferences and subscriptions. As long as their core faith believe in them and keep the money flowing they will continue on their path regardless. That is just basic organization behavior. So if you are still providing money to a space advocate group on a regular basis you are part of the problem of failed advocacy, not part of the solution.
Second, in terms of marketing space, yes it is very poorly done, so poorly I often use it as a case study in the graduate marketing classes I teach so students see how not to do marketing. And this includes NASA efforts at public outreach as well. But as I found out from experience the space advocate faithful have zero interest in even trying to understand basic marketing principles let alone applying them to marketing space. They are too busy thinking up useless PR stunts (as the new movie The Martian) and shouting at each other to take the time required to develop a real marketing strategy. Really, I have come to see space advocacy as nothing more than a battle between worshipers of different personal cults than as anything that will contribute to a rational and workable national space policy.
I only post to sites like this in the hope that perhaps the younger generation will look beyond the failed boomer generation of space advocate groups and think about what is required to get really serious, and realistic, about what it will take to form a practical national space policy.
Hey, if you have a better idea, we’re all ears.
I just pointed to one. I am in literally dozens of space groups on facesbook, yet I NEVER see anything from this major space advocacy groups on my feed. You would think there would at least be ONE hit somewhere. To me this means they are clueless about viral marketing.
No you are not. I have presented at a number of conferences over the years, and been on the Space Show. As I learned as long as the money flows space advocate groups aren’t interested in better ideas, especially ones that force them to go beyond their comfort zone of just recycling the same old “visions” of their “prophets” that have failed for decades.
The public is aware of those visions, has been for decades, and the vast majority are not interested. Period. And PR stunts and promotions will not change it. Space Advocates need to accept that and go into a different direction.
However as Thomas Kuhn noted, its very hard for those rooted in old paradigms (Project Apollo, the Frontier Myth, Need to Explore Myth) to adopt new paradigms.
But on the chance you are interested, and not just saying you are, you could look up this paper from ASCE Earth and Space 2006.
http://ascelibrary.org/doi/…
And one from ASCE Earth and Space 2000
http://ascelibrary.org/doi/…
Most university libraries will have both.
And another one I did with Buzz Aldrin and Stan Rosen at LEAG 2010. The MS Power Point is downloadable.
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/mee…
But the key is to first forget visions, there have been far too many space visionaries since Apollo, it is way past time to start focusing on what is doable and not waiting for another bolt of lightening to strike as with Project Apollo. Even if it does space advocates will not be part of the equation.
Second, move beyond NASA. Everyone remembers the one goal that President Kennedy gave to NASA in his May 1961 speech, but forget the other four space policy goals that he also articulated, which were given to other agencies as lead with NASA only having a limited support role. Goals that have transformed the economy far more than Project Apollo. If the generation of political leaders who formed NASA didn’t feel it was the ONLY way to space why do modern space advocates insist on it being the only way?
Third, forget about space science and exploring for the sake of exploring and start focusing on economic development. If you want the support of the general public talk about space exploitation not space exploration. Sending humans on Mars may be entertaining, as the movie The Martian will be, providing a few entertaining TV specials to watch but what will it do to make the America economy stronger and more productive?
But when you do talk about space exploitation, do so in terms of project feasible within the current economic environment, not visions that will require tens of billions of tax payer dollars before you get a ROI. Those are also DOA, especially if they involve NASA, an agency that has become as rooted in outdated paradigms and goals as the space advocates that support it. Part of NASA may be suitable, but as the last forty years has show the best way to destroy a commercial idea for space is to get NASA, and NASA politics involved.
This is also why an multinational approach to space, as ISS, is DOA in terms of public support. Americans are tired of exporting jobs which is how the average American would see it. Really, if you wanted to see a real backlash against NASA just tell the average American, who doesn’t follow space, how much of their tax dollars are going and have gone to Russia for the ISS.
I agree, they should be flooding social media sites and be utilizing modern methods of messaging.