NASA Media teleconference: Riots and Rocketships
Keith’s note: At today’s media telecom with Jim Bridenstine I asked if he could clarify NASA’s media reach during the Demo-2 launch since he says that it topped everyone’s viewing habits. I got one number “10.3 million concurrent viewers across all NASA platforms”. I asked about these “heat charts” that NASA showed which seem to only show limited interest in the states where Dragon was built and flown and asked for additional viewership statistics. I don’t expect to see any. I also asked how NASA can be seen as being relevant when we see split screens on TV with NASA on one side and riots on the other. How is NASA going to convince these angry and worried people who are out in the streets wearing gas masks – and not watching 2 guys take off in a rocket ship – that this is more important than problems “back here on Earth” (as this question is often couched). His response below:
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That was beautiful and seemingly perfect. Well done, Bob, Doug, SpaceX, and everyone at NASA.
A month or so ago, Keith and Marc posted a request for support. I’ve been thinking about responding, but if I responded in that post, the comment and the topic might not be seen. So, I’m ‘hijacking’ this comment thread in the hopes it will be seen and folks will take action.
Why I contribute. And why you should, too.
Does anyone remember the Olden Times? New-fangled ‘web sites’ were ‘served’ on a spare Mac Plus via DSL?
Everything was so new! Among the Big Issues were DRM, or not to DRM. Among the good guys? Andy Ihnatko and Mark Frauenfelder and Cory Doctorow. And, also among the pioneers, a small collection of sites including nasawatch.com, all slugging it out, making honest journalism available to anyone with Mosaic or Netscape.
Times have changed. I know I have, too. What about you?
We didn’t know you’d be able to buy 30G in most places. And we sure didn’t imagine the hardware, and cost, needed to serve pages when hundreds of thousands wanted a peek. Costs skyrocketed.
I believe in paying my fair share. Actually, with business as poor as it is, I can’t pay my fair share. But I can pay SOMEthing.
I get a hell of a lot more FROM Nasawatch than the few bucks asked. I get the room – the room needed for all of the bloviating and pontificating words I’d care to write. What a world!
Present company aside, nasawatch.com has attracted an army of very smart people. Passersby like me may rub shoulders with those actually qualified to offer opinions.
And while the site takes many to task for not revealing identities (a wrongful policy, in my view, but it is his territory), still, there they are, offering qualified points of view.
Few places on the internet have collected a group of commenters with uniform sensibilities regarding fair play (after suitable warnings, those who do not mind their manners are dispatched quickly, and quietly, by the aforementioned and ever-present sheriff).
Personally, I feel honored – oh, not exactly the right word, but close enough. I appreciate the editor’s policy of fairness.
That’s why I’ve joined the list of contributors. And I hope that you will, too. Start here: http://nasawatch.com/archiv….
I wish I could contribute – I agree that most of the commenters here are of the highest quality and we need more of that on the internet.
But…like many others who have come through here over the years, I’ve been told repeatedly that I am part of ‘the problem’, whatever that problem may be, for not sharing our host’s opinions on various topics. I’ve been instructed to find other space sites to hang out at, which I have.
I still come here occasionally, not as much as before, because Keith does have an interesting and unique perspective on space topics that you can’t find anywhere else. But I don’t comment any more (I am breaking my rule now,obviously, because disappearing silently forever isn’t useful or informative), and I certainly don’t direct people here like I used to.
I’ll be sad when this site goes under, because it was a great source of news and perspective for many years. But I’ll still smile with satisfaction.
Thanks. We’re not going under any time soon 😉
Thank you very much. With all of the time you spend posting we should be paying you 😉
Keith; You are right and I have to agree that the launch can’t satisfy all the folks out in the street. Equally I’m fairly sure that, to the extent Administrator Bridenstine may have implied that it might, he was carried away by the situation, the success, and the moment. The success of this mission is a pay off to a gamble that is not universally popular among the governmental classes in DC and the lobbyist’s who influence them.This really needed to work. And when it did, well the release of the moment may have tended to make him wax a bit poetic.
On the other hand there is a very real dimension that NASA provides at least part of the answer to the question those rioting and protesting in the street seek. It exists in that element that our mission to space features astronauts from multiple nations, cultures, races, and genders working together and thus provides an example of how everyone might learn to work together. To the extent we can show people being treated as equals regardless of the extraneous factors of skin color or intestinal plumbing, of national or cultural background, with only a respect for what the people have made of themselves in their talents and education, we show people how it should work. Right now the people on the other half of that screen are angry, they are hurting, and whatever they are looking for I’m not sure that answers, or at least simple one, are what they are looking for. But maybe, just maybe we signpost how society can work together.
And think for a second of what you said, Maybe NASA shows only 10.3 million, but you testify that the news was carrying it right along with the images of the riots. So, far more viewers than NASA numbers were watching and all the news media saw it as at least as newsworthy to show. Further I can testify that every one of the YouTube space enthusiast sights (cause I was flipping through them at various points) was also carrying their own coverage of the launch. Don’t know how many that adds. And the Space News online magazines were carrying it as well. So I think the number watching through all media was probably larger than NASA’s 10.3 million figure.
Will it change the world, end the unrest, or bring peace in our time. No, no it won’t. But it can bring hope, hope in the future and hope as a species that can, just occasionally rise above our factions and our divisions and maybe get our civilizations collectively a little further on the road upward, rather than backward. It will remind us that we are all one mankind taking a single step together. Or at least I can hope so.
Hrm…
https://xkcd.com/1138/
Exactly maps are just maps. I asked NASA for more details and statistics. They only gave me one. I doubt they will supply anything else.
Maybe I’m missing context here, but …
“How is NASA going to convince these angry and worried people who are out in the streets…”
Is that part of NASA’s role? Why was that asked? And the post title, “NASA Still Seems To Only Interest Part Of America – Not All Of It”… is it supposed to interest all of America? What if it doesn’t?
I agree with Lawrence Wild ‘s great comment below and I’d hope that our activities in space can make a positive impact to people in general. As a remedy for something very specific and quite unrelated, the events that current protests are in reaction to, there isn’t much chance of it making a dent. If the administrator and others involved in the success of this Demo-2 mission have implied that, I think I would give them the benefit of the doubt for their hopefulness. I think of it as an expression of their happiness at mission success and that they would like to spread that happiness. To me that comes from a good place. Also perhaps they felt those current events were so impactful they had to be mentioned in some way, and if they didn’t they would feel they were very loudly ignoring them. I remember hearing something along the lines of Bridenstine acknowledging the protests and riots and the pandemic and how maybe this can serve to bring us together. Maybe you have a specific quote. But to me that sounds fine. It’s not saying it will solve anything or make everybody feel better, but that it’s a positive force. I think that’s how he meant it.
The Artemis Generation last Saturday celebrating Demo-2 in LA….
https://drive.google.com/fi…
…and in Huntsville….
https://drive.google.com/fi…