Talking About Alien Life (And Moon Ships) To A Global Audience

Keith’s note: Yesterday President Trump tossed out his quasi-official proof of alien life – and visitations – directive on social media. NASA has not said anything about this. Oddly, they certainly had quite a lot to say about the exact same topic a few years ago in a formal report. As such I’m waiting for the formal Executive Order – maybe that will pry something out of NASA PAO. Meanwhile I did a lot of global TV today. (more below)

So there I was today with two TV appearances booked before I even got out of bed. First on my playlist was Deutsche Welle [audio], then Al Araby [audio], and then Al Jazeera [audio]. And I had my little green alien figure as a walk on prop (he’s popular). 21 Feb update: I just talked to BBC World News TV about the recent issues with the Artemis II mission [audio].

I sent this translation of “astrobiology” (the woefully under-promoted program at NASA that studies life in the universe) to Al Araby and Al Jazeera producers in advance of my interviews: “Your translator might find this useful: (علم الحياة الفلكي) – “Science of astronomical life”; or Astrobiyolojiya.” I used to be a professional sign language interpeter – so I think of things like this. In so doing, I had a flash of the multi-lingual/multi-species “Starfleet Academy”. Indeed, in Episode 2, one species uses sign language and needs an interpreter. I have fun flashbacks 😉

When I do TV like this I get to talk to millions of people about space and life in the universe. It is fun. Often times the audiences do not have the benefit of people on air to talk about topics like this as often as we do here. So, I guess I feel useful. And maybe I make a few space exploration converts along the way.

A quick and dirty search of viewer demographics using Grok, Gemini etc. show these viewership numbers: Al Jazeera: 450 million; Al Araby: 50 million; Deutsche Welle: 276 million. BBC World: 418 to 453 million. Similarly Fox News (the only place where NASA PAO seems to want to do everything): Primetime 2.652 million/Total day: 1.691 million. Of course, not everyone watches all at once – and additional Internet, radio, and social media viewership pushes these numbers higher.

Assuming that these numbers are ballpark accurate, then today I hit the edge of a potential audience of over half a billion people. Does the NASA Administrator have that reach? If not, then he most certainly should – especially given NASA’s absolutely incredible global branding reach of its name, logos, and unparalleled reputation for exploring the universe. And they are sending humans to the Moon in 2 weeks. soon.

I’ll be posting more about this whole outreach thing as we get closer to the Artemis II launch.

Meanwhile, have a look at something I wrote several months ago “Doing Something Again For The First Time“: “75% – 3/4 of the people on this planet have never seen humans walk on another world. We’re suddenly in a race to go back to the Moon and we are not clearly in the lead. The next time humans walk on the Moon will be the first time this happens as far as most of humanity is concerned. History is just history. Instead of grainy, flickering black and white imagery on a hulking television we’ll all see people bouncing on the Moon in 4K streaming on our cellphones. How does NASA adapt to this paradigm shift? So far, it is not doing that well.”

Just sayin’