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Understanding NASA's Global Reach

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
January 13, 2017
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Understanding NASA's Global Reach

Understanding NASA’s Global Reach, SpaceRef
“A young boy in Chile wearing a NASA t-shirt explains a computer game to Pete Worden from Breakthrough Initiatives. How did he get that t-shirt? Why is he wearing it? Worden sent me this picture today. He is currently in Chile to announce that Breakthrough Initiatives has teamed with the European Southern Observatory to use the Very Large Telescope (VLT) to observe Alpha Centauri. Alpha Centauri is the destination of Breakthrough Starshot Initiative. Enhancements will be made to the VLT to allow it to detect small, potentially habitable planets in the Alpha Centauri system and possibly other star systems. So why is a boy wearing a NASA t-shirt in the Atacama region of Chile? Worden did not know. I have a theory.”

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

8 responses to “Understanding NASA's Global Reach”

  1. dd75 says:
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    I am in India and NASA is my most favourite company in the world.

  2. fcrary says:
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    Keith,
    That’s a plausible theory, and a good point about the NASA “brand”, but as a hard core sceptic, I have to point out other possibilities. The kid’s parents may have been wealthy enough to take a vacation in the US, and bought the shirt while visiting Florida. (My parents went to Florida and all I got was this tee-shirt.) I also remember a friend’s comment about visiting Japan around 1990. At the time, he said there was some fashion fad about tee-shirts with something, anything, in English on them. He saw a far-left radical student wearing a shirt saying, “America, love it or leave it” or something similar. I also note that lots of people wear things with logos or names of companies on them without endorsing the company. So I won’t want to read too much into what sort of cloths people wear. The NASA “brand’’ definitely has recognition and value, and it could certainly be used better (even given the legal restrictions), but a single kid in Chile’s shirt isn’t really strong evidence of that.

    • kcowing says:
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      You are just guessing .

    • Michael Spencer says:
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      I’ve seen kids all over the world wearing all sorts of things. Very frequently they are distributed by aid agencies- the shirts and cloths you donate to various causes here in the US often are given away. And the same thing happens to ‘seconds’, manufactured clothing with small flaws.

      Or not.

      “You would think that NASA would want to capitalize on such a potent branding strength.”

      Why? Why would NASA care if a kid in Chile wears the shirt?

  3. Todd Austin says:
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    Many countries have a active market in the resale of used clothing from western countries (US & Europe, etc.). This is often the source of western printed t-shirts in less-wealthy countries. Now, this boy’s parent may have seen the NASA logo and recognized it, but it’s also possible s/he just liked its space theme and thought the boy would enjoy it. Or maybe it was just the only shirt in his size in decent condition. Who knows, in short.

  4. Alan Ladwig says:
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    Wearing clothing with a NASA logo outside of the country almost always guarantees attention and is a great conversation starter. However, NASA is not in the clothing business. Commercial companies can make arrangements to put the logo on things for sale.

    • kcowing says:
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      As you know from your travels, outside the U.S. especially in second and third world countries, trademarks and logos are not treated the same way i.e. if it is cool, it shows up wherever people want to place it.

  5. Daniel Woodard says:
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    A logo only reflects reality. What NASA achieves in a practical sense today and tomorrow will ultimately determine its reputation. The meatball reminds us of past glories, but we cannot rest on our laurels forever.