Rocket Scientists Are More Interesting Than PAO Talking Heads
Refreshing to watch @SpaceX people who actually build spaceships do webcasts instead of middle aged PR ppl at #NASA pic.twitter.com/SM7vxWc4gh
— NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) May 27, 2016
Refreshing to watch @SpaceX people who actually build spaceships do webcasts instead of middle aged PR ppl at #NASA pic.twitter.com/SM7vxWc4gh
— NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) May 27, 2016
I like SpaceX. You are right, they aren’t “middle age”, but how do you know they build spaceships? I didn’t see any names, and the guy on the right said “condensation smoke”.
There are hundreds of people working for Space-x in different capacities all playing their part, a rocket is built not just by “Rocket Scientists” but a whole team of people from engineers to admin staff, from computer technicians to building maintenance staff, just because some don’t actually put the rocket together doesn’t mean they’re not a part of building the Falcon 9.
Saying “condensation smoke” doesn’t mean much. It isn’t uncommon for an expert to be careless about inaccurate terminology. But I think I’ve seen those two before, during an earlier Falcon launch. Maybe they are real hardware guys who turned out to be good on camera. But maybe that means they’ve shifted to working part time on media relations. In any case, it’s an improvement over the same faces I see from NASA and more traditional Aerospace companies.
Indeed. I recall a recent joint post-event news conference (pretty sure it was placing BEAM) in which the event was dominated by Mr. Musk.
The NASA media guy looked- well, he just looked like a putz, and that’s the shame of it; his collar was turned up, his tie askew, suit coat rumpled, and he was clearly uncomfortable. He’s probably highly qualified in his field, but on screen, not so much.
And lest anyone jump on me for this description as being unfair: it is unfair, to the NASA media guy (who I won’t name), and it was unfair to NASA. And to all of us. And not just him. NASA announcers often sound like freshman wannabes at college radio stations with poor diction and lousy enunciation. Them’s just the facts. So often I just cringe, hoping that those in my social circle subjected to my own singing about NASA and space will never see them. Which they won’t given NASA’s predilection for avoiding publicity.
NASA has photogenic, enthusiastic young people. It has cadres of experienced professional scientists and engineers, all so scary-good at the space biz they can blaze through rocket design like it is kindergarten.
Let’s see them.
We had a two day “hackathon” at work last year and our group picked a guy about two years out of grad school to do the presentation. Why? Because he had far more enthusiasm and energy than any of us “old timers”. There is a reason that they call my corner of the floor the “bitter corner” and it surely has to to with the lack of younger employees.
By all means, let’s see them. For Ms. Tyson, who could easily be taken for the Long-Lost Third Knowles Sister, the Thaicomm 8 hosted webcast was at least her second time at this rodeo. The also very fetching Ms. Tice, who filled Ms. Tyson’s center on-camera position for the JCSAT launch earlier in May has, I believe, more than one appearance to her credit as well. Spaceflight Now’s Launch Schedule currently indicates two more SpaceX missions planned for June and as many as four in July. Unless SpaceX plans to rotate even more of its attractive female engineers through TV hosting school, Ms. Tice and Ms. Tyson are likely to qualify as veteran broadcast personalities by the end of the summer.
I agree, and it turns out he’s a software guy, it’s forgivable.
Within NASA the Max Faget’s or Caldwell Johnson’s or more recent designers and engineers receive no recognition; they haven’t in a long time. Its not only that they are not on TV, they are not even recognized by the technical ranks for the work they do. Most of the current management have zero design or development experience and they figure if it wasn’t important enough to get them recognized, why should it be of significance for anyone else. About the only people you hear about are the astronauts, most of whom have a limited experience base and limited perspective. Take a look at the top people in the program today-the AAs, the Administrator, the Program Management, and ask them what systems they ever worked on; what they designed in the course of their careers. You’d have to reach way back to the1990s to find anyone within NASA who had done anything, and most of those people are long gone. Maybe you could find some Boeing people though I’d guess most of them have retired or been forced out by now. If you wonder why Orion is so big and too heavy using mainly old systems, or why they had to outsource a lot of it to ESA, or why Ares could not carry its intended load, it is because the people in charge of designing them had never designed anything before and made the most common mistakes of newbies. You know in the case of Space X, they have been doing real work, building real spaceships and rockets.
Huh? All the AAs have past program experience. The Program Manager for my program used to build hardware. Do you work at NASA or are you just guessing what people do?
I didn.t say program experience. I said actual system/hardware design and development leadership experience. Yes, I’ve been working at several space centers for most of my career, since Apollo Soyuz.
We may be talking of two different things then. I have not found what you have found on the science mission side of things.
The infectious enthusiasm of these young people is driven by a dream- and by success. I can’t get enough of them.
Exactly, they are a great inspiration for any young people interested in science and engineering careers.
I’m a senior manager at NASA, and nothing would make me happier than having my son get a job with Space-X. He is pursuing an aerospace engineering degree at Purdue. I’ve told him many times that he is lucky to be in one of the top four universities from which Space-X and other newspace companies recruit. Space-X has been able to accomplish amazing things over the last several years. Although I was a sceptic at first, I think that Musk is onto something with the concept of reusable stages. It is certainly a refreshing alternative to the ossified NASA viewpoint that can’t move on from the Werner Von Braun/Walt Disney paradigm established in the late-1950s/early-1960s.
Maybe- just maybe- the SpaceX story will kick NASA in the ass and we will see what you guys are really capable of doing.
Purdue is a great school. The (relatively new) Neil Armstrong building is much better than the old Grissom Hall that hosted most of my aero classes some 1/4 of a century ago. 😉
Amen. The problem isn’t older employees it is the employees (HQ) with old ideas! Best of luck to your son at Purdue.
I don’t watch NASA webcasts (or at least ones where the PR people are on the screen), but I wouldn’t put Bruce Buckingham into whatever category you mean. He does (or did? he still does them, right?) a fantastic and professional job announcing NASA launches. He has a good voice for it, is comprehensive in explaining what is happening, and doesn’t over-talk.
It’s true, and if you are referring to my comment above, it’s a bit of an overstatement particularly WRT to the excellent Mr. Buckingham.
But in general I stand by the comment. The on-air people so often see are just plain clueless. Every single television reporter in every media market in the country is trained on how to do live TV. Some are better than others. There are plenty of schools around, and there are plenty of teachers, too.
The quality of NASA on-air presentations simply isn’t professional much of the time and it reflects poorly on the scientists and engineers doing amazing work.
You’re right, watched it again.
I’m at NASA . It’s way to compartmentalized. They shy away from letting the young, or God forbid, “middle age” engineers who are way more enthusiastic than the paper pushers at the PAO office, talk on camera for more than a soundbite.
There’s some very bright people, Elon knows how to get them to work for him, turn them loose in front of cameras to tell rest of us how they do the things they do. Though there are many proprietary and IP to not disclose, these people can still share some interesting stuff.
Even NASA has interesting people doing some interesting things, probably should not be concerned if the people don’t have movie star looks and don’t be too worried about camera angles, white balancing, and audio (have it clean but no need to add special effects music).