JSC PAO Ignores NASA HQ Once Again
It’s down to the #SB51 @NFL teams: @AtlantaFalcons & @Patriots. The crew can watch at 250 miles above thanks to mission control! #SpaceBowl pic.twitter.com/ckXE4EwxCn
— Intl. Space Station (@Space_Station) February 3, 2017
Keith’s note: NASA has a Space Act Agreement with the company that runs the Super Bowl. The agreement specifies what each of the signatories will and will not do and how approvals will be provided. JSC has been doing whatever they want and simply ignores the agreement – as well as the NASA Office of General Counsel and PAO at NASA HQ. JSC flew a jersey from every NFL team to the ISS with “NASA” overtly on each shirt. When someone wins the game they will tweet pictures of crew members wearing the jersey of the team that wins. So much for what the Space Act Agreement says.
Doing education and public outreach with large events such as this is fine and should be encouraged. Other events would love to have a chance to get this exposure. But when they approach NASA any interaction such as this is always predicated upon having an agreement with NASA. Why even bother to have these agreements if NASA just ignores them?
The Space Act Agreement means the people at JSC can get sued. If someone can claim they suffered harm because of this, the legal issues are much more straight-forward.
I imagine pictures from ISS are just about the kind of publicity both NASA and the shirt company want. No harm.
My albeit limited experience is that the NASA “legal office” often decides things based on the limited observations and knowledge of individual lawyers. The individual lawyers often disagree with one another. The different centers often disagree with one another. Ultimately the individual employee or manager decides what to do, how to proceed, and the individual hopes the law supports the position and direction. Then there are other organizations with some legal experience like the IG or procurement, or EEO, that may also analyze the situation and direction and provide their position. What is legal, what is appropriate, what is ethical, may be a matter of judgement and debate. Its often not straightforward and clear. If there are too many voices and if management is afraid to act, then the NASA bureaucracy grinds to a halt and nothing is accomplished, and days or months or years later everyone is wondering why NASA and its organization failed to make anything happen.
The agreement is very specific and is legally binding. JSC is ignoring it.
What are you objecting to Keith? The fact they have a football and jerseys on ISS? That they were launched to orbit? Or that the astronauts are wearing them, or that they mentioned the names of the teams? Or that the astronauts spent time and ISS comm bandwidth to send the message back? I think they’ve done the same in the past with Major League Baseball, and Basketball. NASA has been featured all week in Houston just outside the Superbowl stadium and provided a lot of NASA exhibits that thousands of people saw this week. I don’t think anything got endorsed-NASA was just advertising the “mission to Mars”.
I do not care what was done in the past. Read the words from the SAA. HQ sources report that JSC has been doing things without adhering to the requirement to have HQ PAO and OGC review them first.
I guess I see two separate issues here. I definitely agree that having an official policy, rule or requirement which everyone ignores is a bad idea. I also don’t like the idea of selective enforcement.
But the other issue is whether or not the requirements are a good idea or useful. If they are, they should be followed and enforced. If they are not, they should be removed or modified, not ignored.
NASA = Never A Simple Answer.
Maybe this Space Act is different, but usually responsibility for implementation is delegated to those responsible for implementation. I’m guessing someone at Headquarters told you they felt you left out of the implementation.
You are guessing and using a fake name to do so.
In the end, so what? I doubt if anyone has a problem with this, especially given the game being in the home city.
If the game were in Orlando, Huntsville, or Pasadena, we’d hopefully see the same thing. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your POV) Houston is the ONLY major city that when people think of it, they think of NASA.