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Astronauts

Planetary Society Doesn't Care Much About Loss Of Astronauts (Update)

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
January 23, 2019
Filed under ,

Keith’s update: Emily Lakdawalla has posted a multi-tweet apology/clarification which includes a screengrab of her original tweet. “Since I clearly didn’t communicate well with a previous tweet, I’m going to try again, but am including a screen cap of the deleted tweet here so people understand what I meant. It’s my job to be a communicator and I failed here.”

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

47 responses to “Planetary Society Doesn't Care Much About Loss Of Astronauts (Update)”

  1. ThomasLMatula says:
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    Just when you think that the Planetary Society isn’t able to get any worst, they get worst…

    • Jeff2Space says:
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      I can see how this Tweet makes it sound like she doesn’t care about the ceremony (and by extension the astronauts who gave their lives for the astronaut program), but I don’t think that was the intent. Unfortunately, the fact that she kept the Tweet so short (way beyond the max character limit) leaves it wide open to interpretation.

      And she hasn’t made a follow-up Tweet (that I could find) where she clarified her position. Not good.

      • fcrary says:
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        “Not the most important thing right now” wouldn’t have bothered me as much. Someone could say 800,000 government employees not getting paid is more important that a ceremony. I don’t think I’d agree, but I could see the point and not be offended. But the “Gah” part just reads wrong. Maybe she didn’t mean it that way, but I took it to refer to caring about the ceremonies at all.

        But isn’t media relations something she basically does for a living? Shouldn’t she know better than sending ambiguous tweets that could be misunderstood as offensive?

        • EricG says:
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          I took exactly the opposite meaning from you, because of Ms. Lakdawalla’s use of the word “but”. I took her comment to mean that she did indeed care about the astronaut commemoration.

          What does the word “but” mean? Cognitive scientists have suggested that it means “suspend your expectations.” For example, in the sentence “I just ate a whole pizza, but it was pretty small sized pizza…”, the word “but” is a signifier which indicates that the speaker is going to contradict some of things you would expect such as “the person ate an enormous amount of food”.

          Why do you suppose Ms. Lakdawalla used the word “but”? I believe it was to say “even if the commemoration is not the most important thing… …it is still important”.

          Her use of the utterance “gah” and her expression of exasperation “this is all so ridiculous” also indicate (to me, at least) her disapproval of delaying the commemoration activities due to the shutdown, or at least her disappointment that a delay is necessary.

          Of course, since we came to opposite conclusions, you’re obviously correct when you point out that the comment was ambiguous. I’m just surprised it was ambiguous – Ms. Lakdawalla’s support for the commemoration was so clear to me!

          • kcowing says:
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            She said what she said.

          • kcowing says:
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            I obviously disagree with you – as do a lot of people at NASA.

          • fcrary says:
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            We can argue about semantics, but that’s really not what concerns me. Maybe she did just say something ambiguous and easily misunderstood. I doubt it, but it’s possible. But the reason I doubt it is that she ought to know better.

            I’m reminded of Vice President Dan Quayle and all the bad press he got for saying really stupid things. I wasn’t actually too concerned about the stupid remarks. Some, like the bit about wishing he’d studied Latin when he started on a trip to Latin America, were apparently jokes that just backfired. And once he got a reputation for saying stupid things, the media sort of jumped on every goof he made. What bothered me was that he, like any modern Vice President, was a career politician and had a staff which included people paid full-time to keep him from looking like an idiot. The fact that he and they couldn’t avoid that said far more to me than the fact he couldn’t spell tomato.

            It’s the same way with Ms. Lakdawalla’s remark (actually, remarks, since she’s done things like this before.) If it were really a misstatement, and not intended to sound the way it did to some people, I could understand that. People do things like that all the time. But not making mistakes like that is a key part of her job. That’s why I’m dubious about it being an honest mistake; if it were, I’d wonder her professional competence and why the Planetary Society is paying her.

          • EricG says:
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            Emily Lakdawalla has now clarified what she meant in a string of tweets.

          • Jeff2Space says:
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            And the replies to that new Tweet are chock full of her supporters who say they knew what she meant the first time (some going so far as to say anyone who misinterpreted her original Tweet is stupid).

            I personally had to read the Tweet twice because the first time, to me, it read horribly. Language is often about context. Since we are all looking at this US Government shutdown and the NASA Remembrance Day (or whatever it’s officially called) from different contexts, we can all read the same Tweet and come away with a different perspective.

            I know I get a bit somber this time of year thinking about where I was when I found out that Columbia didn’t make it back, killing all aboard. It kind of puts bits of my life in perspective.

          • Ryan Alban says:
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            I’m one of those who interpreted the tweet the way she says she meant it, the first time, and one of the ones confused at why this is getting such a furor. Perhaps some of my context would help explain why.

            I wasn’t alive for Challenger and I was only 12 when Columbia happened. I have almost no emotional connection to either disaster; I can name only one or two of the astronauts who perished without looking up their names. The meaning of the two disasters to me has always been more abstract than the people; when I think about them, I think first of the management hubris that is widely believed to have caused them, not the people who were the victims of that hubris. I believe even the one disaster I was alive for didn’t register for many people as anything other than yet another tragic story in the news. I personally was more keen to follow the RTF than I was to think about the disaster itself.

            I’m also Canadian, not American, and our news cycle up here is currently dominated by the chaos and woe that the shutdown is causing. Given what one hears about – what one sees on Twitter, including from NASAWatch! – It appears to me that the issues caused by the shutdown have a massive impact some things that are far more important to the livelihood of the US than a ceremony of remembrance for fallen heroes.

            I am therefore genuinely confused that anyone would interpret her original tweet as saying anything other than “the ceremony isn’t that important, but it’s still ridiculous that it had to be cancelled.” In fact, I’m still not confident that I understand what folks’ interpretation of the tweet was in the first place.

          • kcowing says:
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            Then why did she go to such great lengths to explain and correct what she originally said?

          • Ryan Alban says:
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            To put it flippantly, perhaps because a number of people were shouting at her on the internet. The wrath of the internet can be a dangerous thing; people in my industry (video games) have been fired from their jobs and received rape and death threats because of organized internet outrage.

            Besides that, I’ve often heard that when it comes to communicating with the public, it’s not about what you say, it’s about what they hear. As she herself pointed out, effective communication requires taking how your audience is likely to perceive your utterances into account. If someone is upset by something you said because they didn’t interpret what you said the way you meant, it is probably because they are coming from a context that you didn’t take into account, and it is in your interest as a communicator to rephrase, or at least expound to make sure they understand your intent.

            As I said, I don’t actually know what the other (negative) interpretation was – and I don’t even see the ambiguity that others see! – that people here and on Twitter were responding to, so I don’t understand the outrage here. It’s entirely conceivable to me that she simply didn’t consider that her post could be interpreted any other way than she meant it. A common enough mistake! I suggest that past remarks others are alluding to may have been made in the same way.

          • kcowing says:
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            Duh if there wasn’t bad wording and misunderstanding then why did she put out multiple tweets to explain and correct her self- and admitting that she made a mistake.?

          • fcrary says:
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            The negative interpretation I got when I first read the tweet was that meant, in effect, “The NASA Administrator should be worrying about more important things, but a shutdown delaying these ceremonies is still ridiculous.”

          • kcowing says:
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            Some of us remember Apollo 1, Soyuz 1 and 11, Challenger, and Columbia. Some of us worked with people who worked on those programs. Some of us were just alive and remember what happened.

          • Jeff2Space says:
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            “I wasn’t alive for Challenger and I was only 12 when Columbia happened.” – Good point. I’m nearly 50 years old, so I remember vividly where I was when I found out Challenger was lost. I was only a teen and as a huge space fan, it hit me hard. I went on to get a BS in aerospace engineering from Purdue.

            When Columbia was lost, I was at a dance competition for my oldest daughter who was 12 at the time. It hit me hard again.

            I have vivid memories of both days. They were not good days.

            People older than I on these forums also remember the Apollo 1 tragedy.

            We must not forget those that came before us that gave their lives to further human spaceflight.

          • kcowing says:
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            Guess what; some of us in and around NASA knew the crews and the people who worked with them or know their families – as do I.

          • Michael Spencer says:
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            I have not heard a similar explication, or textual exegesis, since English Literature back in college! Thanks for the memories…

        • ToSeek says:
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          Her training is in planetary geology, and her wheelhouse is explaining technical stuff like that to the masses. Politics and media relations at the Planetary Society are more the province of people like Casey Dreier.

          • fcrary says:
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            And she is pretty good at discussing technical issues. But she also strays into politics and media relations. She doesn’t do nearly as well at that. So, just maybe, she should be more careful when tweeting about those subjects.

          • ThomasLMatula says:
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            Maybe she should stick to science and leave the PR to Bill Nye who knows how to communicate clearly since he is trained as a actor.

        • Ryan Alban says:
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          I just took “gah” as an expression of frustration with the situation in general. In fact, “gah” about summarizes the reaction to the shutdown most Americans I know personally have.

          • kcowing says:
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            Other people saw it differently.

          • Steve Pemberton says:
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            Your comments would be appropriate if all she said was “Gah, this is all so ridiculous” and some people were misinterpreting her and jumping to the conclusion that she was saying something disrespectful about the memorial activities. You (and others) could then rightly point out that there was nothing in her statement even close to that and that she was simply referring to the shutdown as ridiculous.

            But she specifically chose to add to her comments “Not the most important thing right now, for sure”. In most contexts this would be interpreted as dismissing or at best minimizing the importance of remembering the fallen astronauts, so it’s no surprise that people were upset by her statement. Even if that wasn’t her intention, arguing the logic of her statement doesn’t negate the fact that what she said was insensitive to those to whom the memory of the fallen astronauts is very important.

          • Ryan Alban says:
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            Thanks, I think that captures our difference in interpretations – I wouldn’t generally interpret “not the most important” as “not important” or “least important.” I can see why the latter interpretations would be insensitive.

            I also now see that people were attaching the “gah” to the “not the most important thing” part, which I was not.

          • fcrary says:
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            At least for some people, the order of the sentences matters. I read the second one in the context created by the first. If she’d said “this is all so ridiculous” followed by “even if it isn’t the most important thing”, I think I would have read it differently. That’s the antecedents. What people think “this” refers to makes a great deal of difference. Formal grammar tries to make that less ambiguous, but Twitter’s character limit almost forces people into using poor grammar.

  2. ToSeek says:
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    So 800k federal workers aren’t getting paid, the Coast Guard, Border Patrol, and air traffic controllers are working for free, climate change and much other scientific research isn’t getting done, national parks are getting trashed, and the worst impact is that we have to postpone a Day of Remembrance? I don’t see it that way at all.

    • kcowing says:
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      You’re a creep IMHO.

      • ToSeek says:
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        I’m a creep because I have friends who are selling their blood plasma to get on, and that bothers me more than a postponed Day of Remembrance? Guilty as charged.

        • kcowing says:
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          Yup. You’re still a creep.

        • Keith Vauquelin says:
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          Well, I am truly sorry about that. Truly. Not BSing here. When we forget our past, we will have no future. The gridlock in DC causing this entire situation is acutely emblematic of this maxim. It is built into the fabric of the universe. We can fake it out for a while, avoid it, do a lateral, ignore it, but the consequences will be felt. Nevertheless, we cannot abandon the principled high ground for expediency. The line is in the sand for me, and many others. We will not abandon the incalculable investments and sacrifice others make for all us to reap the rewards of their efforts. You are a creep.

      • Keith Vauquelin says:
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        LMAO, KC. Right on target ?

      • billinpasadena says:
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        The response I’d expect to hear on an elementary school playground. I don’t like Emily’s PC approach on everything, but she provides more in-depth coverage of NASA events than anything on NASA Watch. Don’t try to make headlines about one awkward Twitter post.

    • fuzed says:
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      I agree

    • Bernardo de la Paz says:
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      Nobody every said it was the worst impact. It is one among many impacts, some worse, some less so, but all relative to one’s individual perspective. Just because there are other, worse impacts doesn’t mean the significance of this particular item was unworthy of being addressed by the NASA Administrator. In fact, given the significance with which this annual memorial is treated by NASA, he had to address this in some manner. This being the internet, I assume somebody somewhere can figure out someway to nitpick, but his message was quite reasonable, respectful, and necessary. Emily’s response on the other hand was in no way whatsoever necessary and pretty clearly one of those many things that would have just been better left unsaid. Your attempt to deflect the controversy over her misjudgment with a straw man argument against something the critics of her statement never said is also one of those things.

      • Jeff2Space says:
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        “Nobody every said it was the worst impact. It is one among many impacts, some worse, some less so, but all relative to one’s individual perspective.”

        This I agree with. Short ambiguous Tweets are up to the reader to interpret. I see some very strong comments on Twitter to her updated Tweet as well as polar opposite responses here on the very same Tweet. And I think that’s ok because we’re all coming at this from different points of view.

      • ToSeek says:
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        I think interpreting Emily’s comment to mean that the NASA administrator shouldn’t have said anything is way more a straw man argument than anything I’ve said. I agree that it was poorly phrased, but when I encounter something poorly phrased, I try to figure out what the writer intended and take it that way instead of assuming the worst possible interpretation and then criticizing her for that.

        • kcowing says:
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          She said what she said. She is a professional writer and communicator and is usually rather good at saying exactly what she means.

    • echos of the mt's says:
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      Small point, the 800K, except the contractors, are getting paid. They will see the money once the shutdown is over.

  3. moon2mars says:
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    Typical fare from this person, why is anyone shocked by her warped views? Simply look at her track record it speaks for itself.

  4. ed2291 says:
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    The Planetary Society in general and Lakdawalla in particular have a record that justifies assuming the worst about this quote.

  5. Matt_Bille says:
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    I know Emily. However badly she phrased things (and I’m not interested in parsing the tweets), she’s not CAPABLE of being callous. That’s all I have to say.

    • kcowing says:
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      Well she certainly was callous in her initial comment.

    • ed2291 says:
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      She does Planetary Science no favors in this quote or the one where she put down national pride in our aerospace accomplishments.

    • Jeff2Space says:
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      I will agree that she might not be capable of intending to be callous. Unfortunately, it’s clear that her original Tweet did come off as callous to some people.

      • ed2291 says:
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        …her original Tweet did come off as callous to some people.” This is a famous type of non-apology. “I am sorry if some people were offended and took it the wrong way.” Her words here and elsewhere were inappropriate and insulting.