Why is A NASA Astronaut Promoting a Fox News Celebrity's Book in Space? Update
Keith’s 4 May update: @DanaPerino deleted this tweet (but it is still on her Instagram page). Why would she do that – unless she did something wrong? This is what the tweet looked like – before it was deleted.
Keith’s 5 May update: Now @Astro2fish has deleted his tweet as well. Why would he do that – unless he also did something wrong? This is what the tweet looked like – before it was deleted.
The only reason that the text of these embedded tweets still appears is that I embedded them before deletion and the words are in the embed code. If you click on the date/time you will get a deletion message. This is what they both looked like – with pictures – before Dana Perino and Jack Fischer deleted them.
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Keith’s 4 May update: I sent an inquiry to NASA HQ and JSC PAO and got this response:
“- Is there a Space Act Agreement or MOU in place between NASA and Dana Perino and/or Fox News that allows a NASA civil servant on board the ISS to use their NASA position and work place to promote Dana Perino’s book?
– Can you provide me with a copy of the official NASA process whereby book authors/publishers can apply to have astronauts conduct promotional activities while aboard the ISS? Have other book authors applied for this promotion aboard ISS?
– What cost to NASA is associated with these on-orbit book promotions? (What is the cost of launching this Felt Jasper, NASA personnel time to coordinate with Perino/Fox, TDRSS bandwidth etc.)
– Did the NASA OGC at JSC or NASA HQ issue a waiver and/or give formal written permission to Jack Fischer to conduct these commercial promotion activities with Dana Perino and Fox News while on board the ISS?
– Under what payload allocation was the “Felt Jasper” flown to the ISS? Did Jack Fischer carry it with him on his Soyuz flight or was this launched on a cargo vehicle? Is this a personal item or is it a NASA PAO-endorsed activity?
– Did NASA PAO interact directly with Fox News to coordinate the coverage given on Dana Perino’s Twitter account and/or provide NASA imagery of the Felt Jasper on “The Five” segment that aired last night on Fox News?
– What will be done with the Felt Jasper that Fischer has in orbit? Will it be returned to Earth and used for commercial purposes?
– Will Jack Fischer and Dana Perino be doing any further commercial promotion activities for Perino’s book on-orbit or when he returns to Earth?
– Did Jack Fischer personally send the following tweet from the ISS? If he did not, who sent it? “@Astro2fish Well, finally got a chance to show Felt Jasper the office @DanaPerino & pretty sure he dug the view-I know I did! #SpaceDogWalks #NASARocks 5:59 PM – 2 May 2017”
This is what I got back:
“Hi Keith, Astronauts are permitted to take personal mementos to space. Jack Fischer’s flight of a “Felt Jasper” as a personal memento and his subsequent release of imagery of that memento via his social media does not imply an endorsement of any commercial activity. Thank you, Jenny, Norma Jennifer Knotts, Public Affairs Specialist”
Apparently Trumpish commercial endorsement behavior is the new normal at NASA. An astronaut is allowed to use his official government position and work place to give significant social media visibility to a book written by a former Bush press spokesperson who appears on the President’s favorite news channel (Fox). And that visibility is repeated on Fox News. Yet none of the Trump political appointees on the 9th floor at NASA HQ see anything wrong with this and are OK with a two sentence non-response. Tick tock.
Keith’s 2 May note: Now it is apparently acceptable for NASA astronauts to do on-orbit promotion tie-ins for books written by Fox News celebrities like @DanaPerino who has a book out titled “Let me tell you about Jasper”. Since Fischer has the mini-Jasper in orbit this promotion had to have planned this ahead of time. How much did Perino pay for this – or did NASA give this orbital PR away for free? Check out her Twitter banner. This a rather overt tie-in. Apparently Fischer and Perino already knew each other prior to his departure – here he is holding a copy of her book at some event they both attended. The “felt Jasper” is something that is used to promote Perino’s book.
Keith’s update: Fox Five just aired a piece about the Felt Jasper book promotion dog in space and Perino’s book. Of course all of this PR and product promotion stuff was coordinated and approved by NASA PAO, right?
I doubt they would float a little VSS Unity or Dragon capsule through the cupola next…too commercial.
They take pictures of Dragon/Cygnus through the Cupola all the time.
With or without the corporate logo in view?
With the logo in view. A quick google search will show you that.
If it was CNN or MSNBC or any other news network, there might be a problem, but this is Fox News. But really, with Voice of America openly promoting books by White House employees, and the State Department openly promoting resorts owned by the President — I see absolutely no problems here if these other things are allowed.
Two wrongs don’t make a right. Those “other things” aren’t legal and it’s outrageous that they are allowed.
If my seven-year-old came back with a “well he did it first” retort like that, I’d disabuse him of that position right quick.
I am talking about reality. As far as I am concerned, if the King and his Court are getting away with murder, the peasants should, also.
http://abcnews.go.com/Polit…
That does raise some legal questions. NASA employees are allowed to prompt commercial products, but only on their own time, their own expense and while making it clear that the endorsement is personal and implies nothing about the veiws of NASA. I assume astronauts on ISS have free time, so “on his own time” is possible. Do they get some allowance for personal communications? I don’t know, but I suspect they have a certain amount of time available for personal conversations with family. If someone used that to transmit a product endorsement instead, that might be called, “at his own expense.” Making sure people understood he wasn’t speaking for NASA would probably be easy to prove from the context. But I seriously suspect no one bothered to even think about those details, which is either very sloppy or ethically questionable (i.e. implying a feeling that the laws don’t apply to the people involved.)
He is posting with his personal twitter account. That’s personal. And he probably took the doll up as part of his personal belongings, which he has every right to do. I don’t see a big deal, honestly. It would be a problem if this came through NASA channels. The guy works in space, but has a routine, time off and personal interests, just like the rest of us.
Lets see what the NASA lawyers have to say …..
Keep us posted! 😉
Well, I probably agree, but if I were him, I’d want to be sure of some details. For example, how does he access his personal Twitter account from ISS? NASA is, in effect, his service provider. Do they bill him? If not, his personal tweets would be NASA-subsidized and potentially questionable. Do they give him a data transfer allocation for personal use, and, if so, is his use with the allocation? Or do they just send him a bill with some astronomical roaming fees? Those details determine whether or not he was promoting a product on his own or in a government subsidized manner.
Astronauts do have internet connection for personal email and social media interaction, provided by NASA. It’s part of the deal. I agree we should know what exactly that entails, but, again, it’s not as if he sent a one-hour 4K video of the doll, where it would be clear he was abusing his use of expensive internet bandwith for personal interests. He just twitted a picture. If one questions his right to do so having NASA as a internet service provider, one should raise a flag everytime a NASA astronaut posts a personal picture from space, and not only when it is connected to a product.
You really need to talk to someone at NASA who actually knows the rules. Product endorsements or publicity for a commercial activity by any government employee is prohibited in the workplace – or in an official capacity – Period.
What If his workplace happens to be his home for a few months? Will NASA tell what he can do in his home? Remebering the ISS cuppola has no technical/scientific function whatsoever. It’s just a big window.
Why don’t you just call the NASA OGC and ask them if this is allowed. If I did something like this when I was a civil servant at NASA I would have been in big trouble.
But then again, you weren’t living at NASA 24/7 for months at a time.
This would be a great example of just how silly governmental rules can be, a position often taken by my friends on the right.
Perhaps he thought it was akin to hitting a golfball on the moon.
That’s where the rules get fuzzy (literally.) Was he “in the workplace”? At the moment, he happens to live in the same place he works. Does that mean he’s never out of his “workplace”? Although slapping a “Not official NASA message” disclaimer in the corner of the image wouldn’t have hurt.
It also gets fuzzy as NASA appears to have a program for promoting children’s books from the ISS. But this probably wouldn’t fit under that program.
https://www.nasa.gov/missio…
“Story Time From Space combines science literacy outreach with simple demonstrations recorded aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Crew members read five science, technology, engineering and mathematics-related children’s books in orbit, and complete simple science concept experiments. Crew members videotape themselves reading the books and completing demonstrations. Video and data collected during the demonstrations are downlinked to the ground and posted in a video library with accompanying educational materials.”
What I see is in one picture, he’s holding the book on earth in personal clothes with no apparent NASA signs. Then another picture of a felt dog by a window with a view of earth. To me there doesn’t seem to be any endorsement of a commercial activity on the station. Perhaps what was done with the picture by Dana Perino is questionable.
Did you see the segment on Fox News?
No. Was he promoting the book from the ISS or in any NASA capacity?
NASA won’t say. But his tweet suddenly disappeared overnight ….
While the crew does have ‘personal time’ on ISS, the above goes beyond that: Using the workspace/workarea as backdrop. As if I were to advertise someone else’s product while standing in front of the official NASA Center sign at my Center. No good.
Sounds illegal to me! Better return the astronaut to the Earth.
It appears according to the existing (January 13, 2017) NASA advertising policy a letter of approval would have been needed.
https://www.nasa.gov/audien…
Have you contacted the individual listed to see if such a letter was issued?
Soon, the government and commercialized space marriage training will be complete, as Darth Vader would say, and it will be totally legal for them to advertise any way they see fit that keeps their program running.
Examples include: 1) They have already advertised FB on NASA TV with the famous ISS-to-FB-Live broadcast with Zukerman (a multi-billionaire businessman). 2) They have 3D-printing objects floating around in the ISS on NASA TV with “Made In Space” messages on them which is the name of a commercial company. 3) They just released an RFI for piggy-backing Google’s Xprize missions to the Moon. It won’t be long before we see the gate widen a bit more than the crack it is at right now, especially with a billionaire businessman now in office.
If he isn’t getting paid for the photo, who cares?
I would like to have something promoted on the ISS at no expense to me. How do I get a similar chance to promote my product – at no cost to me – but paid for by NASA i.e. our tax dollars?
I didn’t hear anyone complaining or investigating when Chris Hadfield played the guitar on the ISS. The guitar manufacturer got a free promotion of their product. David Bowie got free promotion of his song a Space Oddity. If someone wears a watch on camera that’s a free promotion. Maybe astronauts should not be allowed to show the mascots of their universities. That’s promotion for trying to recruit students.
On the other hand did NASA and the other ISS partners pay royalties to David Bowie for a public performance of copyrighted material? Somebody should notify the music industry attorneys if they didn’t. They are very aggressive at going after unpaid royalties.
I don’t whine when competitors of what I do get free promotion of their products. If somebody likes your website and posts links to it do you complain because you shouldn’t get the free promotion?
If he didn’t have a deal where he gets paid to bring a product to the ISS and only showed a product he likes, I don’t care.
What was he promoting? If a book, I didn’t see any picture of a book on the station.
Look at the tweet again. Note the glaringly obvious reference to “tune in” to Fox News on a certain date and time.
I sent NASA PAO the following questions. Lets see if they respond.
– Is there a Space Act Agreement or MOU in place between NASA and Dana Perino and/or Fox News that allows a NASA civil servant on board the ISS to use their NASA position and work place to promote Dana Perino’s book?
– Can you provide me with a copy of the official NASA process whereby book authors/publishers can apply to have astronauts conduct promotional activities while aboard the ISS? Have other book authors applied for this promotion aboard ISS?
– What cost to NASA is associated with these on-orbit book promotions? (What is the cost of launching this Felt Jasper, NASA personnel time to coordinate with Perino/Fox, TDRSS bandwidth etc.)
– Did the NASA OGC at JSC or NASA HQ issue a waiver and/or give formal written permission to Jack Fischer to conduct these commercial promotion activities with Dana Perino and Fox News while on board the ISS?
– Under what payload allocation was the “Felt Jasper” flown to the ISS? Did Jack Fischer carry it with him on his Soyuz flight or was this launched on a cargo vehicle? Is this a personal item or is it a NASA PAO-endorsed activity?
– Did NASA PAO interact directly with Fox News to coordinate the coverage given on Dana Perino’s Twitter account and/or provide NASA imagery of the Felt Jasper on “The Five” segment that aired last night on Fox News?
– What will be done with the Felt Jasper that Fischer has in orbit? Will it be returned to Earth and used for commercial purposes?
– Will Jack Fischer and Dana Perino be doing any further commercial promotion activities for Perino’s book on-orbit or when he returns to Earth?
– Did Jack Fischer personally send the following tweet from the ISS? If he did not, who sent it?
https://twitter.com/Astro2f…
@Astro2fish Well, finally got a chance to show Felt Jasper the office @DanaPerino & pretty sure he dug the view-I know I did!#SpaceDogWalks #NASARocks 5:59 PM – 2 May 2017
I’m imagining NASA POA cringing when they see something coming in from Keith! “Oh, no! Another homework assignment!”
Yea, pretty much 😉
Brings to mind a very popular phrase, lately…COMMERCIAL SPACE!
I am the first one to say that I support space commerce – but you can’t just give away access to space – for whatever reason – without some justification to the people paying for it i.e. taxpayers. Now … if Elon wants to fly stuff on his own rockets – at his own expense – that is to be encouraged!
But showing some justification shouldn’t be difficult. For something like this, it shouldn’t require much more than saying (1) objects transported to ISS were part of the astronaut’s personal allocation, (2) telecommunications services used were part of the astronaut’s personal allocation, (3) he did it in his free time, (4) the portions of ISS used were designated as “living” rather than “work” space and (5) a personal-opinion-not-NASA’s disclaimer was included. I don’t really see astronaut product endorsements as anything inherently unethical. But there are (or should be) rules to make sure this sort of thing isn’t taken to abusive levels. I am a little disturbed that the people involved didn’t bother to check off a few simple boxes. That’s feels like the sort of “rules don’t apply to me” attitude I object to.
Oh My Garsh(trying not to offend)! The abject horror of it all…… yawn… Don’t forget to bring the Air force into the fray,he’s wearing an Air Force T-shirt! BTW didn’t Buzz Lightyear hang out quite publicly @ the ISS? https://www.nasa.gov/missio…
NASA worked out an agreement with the toy company, signed a SAA/MOU, had an EPO plan in place to maximize the value to young people. Perino and Fischer did not do any of that – and both of their tweets suddenly disappeared. I wonder why …
Looking at the picture I notice 1. there aren’t any NASA emblems in view. 2. I see a non-NASA solar panel…
You missed the item that aired on Fox news ….
Just using the info provided here…
Wasn’t that a broadcast by others on earth, not by the astronaut in space? As I mentioned before, it seems more of an issue for Dana Perino and the producer at Fox. Perhaps that’s why her tweet was removed.
Does it raise awareness and positive thinking about NASA the way Buzz Lightyear did? If so I’m all for it. Jasper the Dog has an enormous fanbase of news-oriented people. It can’t be bad to get them thinking about spaceflight in a positive and fun way.
Us out in “fly over country” Kinda feel like there are much bigger fish to fry… Just saying. Trying to show another side to this issue.(or non-issue)
Lack of response is very telling…