NASA Gen Y – Absent From Change.gov?

Editor’s note: I have been featuring space-related items that I have found posted on President-elect Obama’s official Change.gov website for a week – as well as the ways to submit and view items on their website. Curiously, the crowd at NASA – the Gen Y types – who have been the most vocal about how they want to change NASA to suit their lifestyle and way of working and collaborating have not submitted a darn thing (at least not that I can find) to Obama’s website.

This is very odd when you consider all of those web and powerpoint things they are so fond of generating, their incessant Twittering, and frolicking via avatars at NASA “meetings” in Second Life. Indeed, this is even more peculiar when you consider that the Obama administration is overtly sympatico with the whole social networking paradigm – indeed, they used it to get elected! You’d think that the NASA Gen Y crowd would be all over this opportunity.

So much (it would seem) for the NASA Gen Y/Web 2.0 crowd – at least, those self-selected few who have been vocal and doing all of the arm waving this past year. Perhaps a new group – one that is more willing to actively engage with (and work to transform and enhance) the status quo – can step up to the plate and continue the discussion?

To be fair, NASA employees have been told in no uncertain terms that they are not to communicate with the Transition team outside of the formal NASA process that has been established. But these documents and reports that have been generated have been widely shared outside of the NASA and contractor workforce. They have all been featured on NASA Watch. Is no one outside of NASA willing to send them in? Could it be that the “reach” outside of the agency that the Gen Y folks at NASA are so fond of pointing to is far more shallow and under-motivated than they thought?