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Putting NASA's PR Activities in Context

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
October 5, 2016
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Putting NASA's PR Activities in Context

Public Relations Spending: Reported Data on Related Federal Activities, GAO
“With the increased popularity and accessibility of expanded media platforms, the federal government’s ability to publicize information has changed rapidly, but the total scope of federal public relations activities is largely unknown. A number of factors makes it difficult to quantify the resources the federal government devotes to public relations. These factors include the expanded use of web-based platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, and the wide variety of activities that could be considered public relations, from publicizing health and safety bulletins to providing information on federal entitlements and benefits.”
Keith’s note: If you look at Table 3 (page 16), in FY 2014 NASA had 110 public relations employees whose aggregate salaries were $11,446,000 whereas DoD had 2,213 PR employees and an aggregate salaries of $176,644,000. If you look at Table 2 (page 11) between FY 2006 and FY 2015 NASA spent (on average) $3,415,000 on Advertising and public relations while DoD spent an average of $626,221,000. Of course, per Congressional legislation, NASA does not “advertise”, right?

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

2 responses to “Putting NASA's PR Activities in Context”

  1. Donald Barker says:
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    More importantly, if you just consider the money spent, dare I say wasted, then we seem to prefer to have and support a “culture of violence” rather than a “culture of enlightenment, understanding and growth” and that should make everyone in this country afraid, ashamed and very sad for the future of our species.

  2. Brian_M2525 says:
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    I don’t think the NASA-DOD comparison is particularly useful. DOD has to actively recruit it’s workforce on a continuing basis. NASA mainly turns away interested prospective workers. DOD puts a lot of money into recruitment tools like the America’s Army videogame series. Not only do they spend a lot of money in R&D, they also spend a lot in surveillamce and analysis of gamers. They also spend a lot on aerobatics teams like Blue Angels. Thunderbirds, Golden Knights, etc. Many of the NASA workers are contractors not included in the PR people numbers. I suspect many of the people supporting NASA PR are probably IT people, and some are technical and in program personnel numbers rather than something like PAO. At one time, Education was part of public affairs. Education was decimated a couple years ago and dozens laid off. So were the motivational people like manned space awareness. Do they even exist anymore? Real numbers are not well publicized and I suspect they won’t be.