To Bad NASA Cannot Fully Reach Out To The Public
This is what the U.S. Space Force is posting on Facebook … too bad @NASA can't do this too @JimBridenstine #SpaceForce pic.twitter.com/YtOS07Yct4
— NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) December 21, 2019
Keith’s note: Alas there are congressional prohibitions which limit what NASA can do with regard to advertising and promoting itself.
Alas?, ….Perhaps. But possibly a restraint to keep NASA from over-reaching in a fit of self-interested self-promotion that political hierarchies have a penchant for falling into.
The military, now including Space Force, has a constitutionally mandated function, and an explainable reason to promote and recruit personnel for executing that function. NASA, … welllll, …NASA has Lyndon Johnson’s legacy in a political coalition that varies in time and place according to whatever is most popular that NASA is doing. Promoting any temporary public fascination too heavily could cut short that political coalition’s lifetime all too easily, when the tides of public attention shift, … again.
The Space Force will, if it is done right over coming decades, build the sort of continuing support for defense that any nation existing inside a species of large, obstreperously violent primates needs. It can rely on that need to buttress support. NASA, on the other hand, is in the far more delicate position of its function being supported by a distinctly minority percentage of voters, and a continually changeable view of what that function is.
More NASA promotion could be nice, …until all of a sudden, …it isn’t.
I bet if the roots of that Facebook post are traced, it probably came from the Trump campaign. A real “Space Force” would have no reason to advertise itself in such a way.
” A real “Space Force” would have no reason to advertise itself in such a way.”
Why? They’ll need to recruit, just like all the other Services.
“I bet if the roots of that Facebook post are traced, it probably came from the Trump campaign.”
Here the idea that Trump is the key to Space Force again obscures the need for and the needs of, a new Service. Trump did not bother with a Space Service until Cooper(D) and Rogers(R) from the House of Representatives made a presentation at the WH in February of 2018. It took 3+ months for the WH to decide what they wanted to say after that. Trump will no longer be C.I.C. after January 20 2025, at the latest, while US Space Force will have 99% of its history to come. Why the fascination with Trump?
It took 3+ months because the idea for a “Space Force” was independent of careful consideration of the presentation of Cooper and Rogers. It was created to give Trump talking points at his rallies and as a fundraiser for his campaign (hence the Space Force logo contest that appeared shortly afterwards). The current “Space Force” is not in a position to do any recruiting — it was just a name change of existing offices and facilities.