Yet Another Stunning Promotional Opportunity That NASA Ignores
NASA misses a chance to promote the best-ever ad for the space station, Ars Technica
“Why doesn’t NASA promote the film more? It’s impossible to come away from A Beautiful Planet without being impressed by the orbiting laboratory and the international collaboration that constructed it. But where is the audience? My home is Houston – Space City – where astronauts live and the space station program is managed. But when the movie played here, it did so in one theater, on one screen, for a single week. When I attended, just a few astronauts and their friends and families were in the audience. As of last Sunday, A Beautiful Planet had grossed less than $1 million in box office sales across the country.”
Keith’s note: NASA never even bothered to issue a media advisory here in Washington. NASM did not send out one either. The plan apparently seems to be that word of mouth is the preferred mode of advertising. That said, the film did cost NASA money. Camera upmass, crew time, etc. When you calculate cost per hour of crew time, upmass, downmass, etc. it is not insignificant. You’d think that someone would be mounting a much more intense PR campaign – especially one that enlisted NASA. As best I can tell they had invitation-only premiere parties with lots of blue-suited astronauts (pictures) a few hand-picked media – and that’s it. This webpage for A Beautiful Planet has a CASIS logo at the bottom. But there is zero mention of this film on the CASIS website. Nor did CASIS even bother to issue any media advisories or press release. I used to be baffled by this indifference on the part of NASA when it came to things that were clearly worth promoting only to see them do little – or nothing. Now I’m used to seeing missed opportunities for NASA to be relevant and explanatory in terms of public events happening once a week. As for CASIS – they are just clueless – and always have been. So no surprise there.
Perhaps the audience in Space City was as dismal as described because those that work there know that the future of NASA Human Space Flight will look very much like the dysfunctional past 6 years – post last flight of the Shuttle. Perhaps the workforce isn’t drinking Boldens Kook Aid offerings and hashtags of ‘Journey to Mars’, and are resigned about the dim future? Not sure, but I wonder.
As the former head of human spaceflight recently stated to me, the only friend the space station program at NASA has is the space station program.
Can’t get more damning than that.
I’m afraid the former AA is probably correct. Its largely because of the way in which the ISS Program has operated since the 1993 reorg. The people who had been in the program previously were cast out, apparently by Goldin, as if it was their fault that requirements and budgets kept changing. That segregation was rigorously imposed by Brinkley and his successors. That created a lot of hard feelings. The program has continuously promoted from a population almost solely composed of people in the program in 1993. Shortsightedness in planning has been very detrimental from the beginning and continues to the present, with examples like the IMAX movie. The program personnel and management have always chosen a go it alone approach, and unfortunately NASA Administration has supported the ISS program management by discouraging integration of others with more experience when it was needed. Its obvious the existing personnel base has not excelled if you look at budgets and schedules. The luckiest people are probably the ones who used the program for their promotions and then got out to go do other things.
I work at the space center and cannot recall even seeing any ads for local showings of the movie. I heard after the fact that some people were apprised of it, and in fact some were even given tickets, but I suspect the general public and most of NASA didn’t even know it was playing. I’d be surprised if NASA people could accept free tickets.
Another data point.
Incredible! I would have thought they wouldn’t miss even a minor chance to showcase what taxpayer funded space is up to. I will be in Houston in early August and I really want to see this film – I hope it will be playing!! Because they sure don’t play stuff like this in our backwater country’s only IMAX theater; only superhero films… 🙁
I noticed, that they show the movie in the Imax-Theater at the Kennedy Space Center…
https://www.kennedyspacecen…
You’d think it would have been shown at one of the several IMAX theaters in the Space Coast area (which don’t require $50 admission fees), but the closest theaters showing “A Beautiful Planet” were in Orlando and for one week only.
The digital world is flooded with stunning images of earth and space. It’s old hat, sadly.
You have a point, but in No Way does still images, video clips and documentaries on your tablet, pc or phone even begin to compare to a 2 or 3D IMAX motion picture on a freaking *GIANT* screen. Those who would think space images and video would be good enough or old hat on those tiddly little screens would be super mistaken and super-uninformed. Not to mention really missing out…
I may regret writing this, but there are lots of huge screen, even IMAX views of the Earth from space. But most of them are good, artificial CGI. Does the fact that these are real make a difference? Not to me, or most people reading this, but to the audience which defines the market for these theaters.