NASA and CASIS Hold Stealth ISS Conference
Keith’s 9 Jul note: It has been two weeks since the CASIS-co-sponsored First Annual International Space Station R&D Conference. The event itself received little media attention. None of the sessions were webcast. With the exception of one CASIS employee who tweeted a few times, virtually nothing was sent out via Twitter or other social media platforms. This is baffling given the hundreds of people who reportedly attended the event and the supposed mission of CASIS to popularize the ISS and its capabilities. Now, two weeks later a visit to the CASIS website shows that nothing from this conference has been posted online. No presentations. No videos. No summaries. Nothing.
And its not just CASIS that has dropped the ball – there is absolutely nothing posted at the NASA ISS National Laboratory website either. As such, it would seem that only the several hundred people in Denver at the event will ever know what happened. The remaining 300 million of us will have to accept silence.
I am not certain whether to ascribe this lack of follow-up by NASA and CASIS to laziness or incompetence. Or maybe NASA and CASIS simply do not care any more. And if they cannot be bothered to explain what the people who actually use the International Space Station are doing, why should they have any expectation that taxpayers are going to care what happens to the agency’s budget?
Keith’s 10 Jul update: The NASA ISS National Lab website put a link up to a summary written about the workshop. Yet CASIS can’t even be bothered to link to this summary.
Keith, in this instance I agree with you 100% – I was looking forward to what this conference would reveal, but am very disappointed about the lack of coverage by CASIS.
In May, ESA held their first ISS Symposium (http://www.isssymposium2012.com), for which they had live blogging and Tweeting from PAOs attending the event, YouTube videos of various sessions, presentations which were posted online, and other innovative outreach methods such as virtual tours of the event. It would have been easy for CASIS to have done this – in addition to webcasting the event, and archiving it online.
This kind of thing – actively going out there and promoting the ISS to the research community and the wider public – is EXACTLY the sort of thing I thought CASIS was supposed to do. As such, it is deeply disconcerting seeing them fail to promote their first event, when it could have been done very easily.
As an aside, NASA did release one write-up of the event, by ISS Program Scientist Dr. Liz Warren, who actually attended the event:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission…
How long does it take to put the presentations on a memory stick, give it to their webmaster, and post? I do this in a matter of minutes once a day as do zillions of other web masters, bloggers, etc. Baffling.
I would also note that NO other organization in the US holds conferences the way the ESA event was described – no US government agency is funded to do that and it is only because ESA pays for it – instead of using its resources to do useful science while allowing private groups like AAS to do these events for a nominal fee (a four day registration was only $300). S
The event was held in Denver to avoid “recycling” the same NASA/Contractor attendees as every other event and it worked – over 400 people attended and they were from academia, a broad range of industry, international partners and government – NASA attendance was tightly limited due to the GSA fiasco. Oh and the event was advertised through SpaceRef – Mr. Cowing could have attended but perhaps doing so might have limited his ability to pontificate against NASA and CASIS and their support for this terrific event! (I bet THIS never gets posted)
Inconvienient,
I hope it’s not inconvienient, but could you describe exactly what was terrific about the Denver event?
If something was terrific, are all of those who attended keeping it a secret? Describe the single most amazing thing you saw. I saw several things.
Also, do you happen to have the 400 person breakdown? To guess: 140 were presenters, 60 were NASA, 25 were event organizers, 75 were vendors, 75 were academics and the remaining 25 were new visitors. No press. No investors. No venture or capital sources. No Fortune 100. How close are these numbers?
I’d refer you to AAS for the registration breakdown, I don’t have it but I did see a lot of new faces – quite a few graduate students doing research on ISS, a few new start companies seeking to do research and potential vendors of new capabilities like Nanoracks that are providing services to the nascent ISS user community plus some government agencies like DOD and USDA that are already doing ISS research. To me that was the most amazing thing – the diversity of the participants (I really doubt NASA had more than two dozen except for a few VIPs the first day). There research was impressive too – from vaccine development to cures for MS and protein crystals for drug development.The plenary presentations are now online at :http://www.astronautical.or…
There were no Fortune 500 companies except for the aerospace contractors but so what – the Wright Brothers and Glen Curtiss were the ones to open the aviation frontier not Bethleham steel and Western Union! Oh and Frank Morring from Av Week WAS there – though I think Farnborough overshadowed his stories. Some other medis (Space News?) was also supposed to attend but their reporter had weather troubles and missed the first day and so dropped out.
By the way, the AAS conference was the first three days – the last was a CASIS workshop – like the other days, it was well attended with a decent number of people in each paper session.
Your summary for readers here is very convienient, Inconvienient. Let me try that again. Thank you for making a summary that had been inconvienient more convienient Inconvienient. You know Inconvienient, your name isn’t exactly convienient when it comes to discussions regarding convienence.
As for what you saw at the conference, it sounds like the presentations were amazing and that research onboard the ISS will provide amazing benefits to all.
AAS held the ISS Conference not CASIS or NASA. NASA and CASIS tagged along as co-sponsors along with 7 other firms. The conference scheme worked for all involved. AAS generated some revenue and did its advocacy leadership job. NASA got to check off the “a conference was held” box which satisfies the government’s Star Metrics program requirements. CASIS sponsored and participated making it possible for them to write a performance report. The PI and researcher audience presented, gained conference visibility and peer recognition. Random networking occurred throughout the conference. Everyone left happy and enriched. You didn’t go and didn’t pay, so you don’t get that enrichment. Your disappointment isn’t AAS’s, NASA’s or CASIS’s responsibility or concern. Eventually AAS will put the presentations on their website. That may serve to satisfy your wish for conference information. Eliminating virtual tours, webcasts and live transmissions forces you to attend or have nothing.
All involved groups have their funding, they control the ISS laboratory, and have little need to address your disappointments. Be pleased Liz Warren wrote a summary. If the conference coverage was lacking or the presentations weren’t put out on the web quickly, there is no consequence for any of the principals, so no need to respond to your wishes. Be realistic. Others matter, not you.
Given the poor job that both CASIS and NASA have done to date of connecting with the public, users, anybody, on ISS National Lab usage, I almost wonder if they agreed to not present it to the public in case it turned into a blame game. I have to believe that there are some touchy tempers on both sides by now.
Steve