NASAWatch Talking Head Time on Alhurra TV

Keith’s note: I just did an interview on Alhurra TV and talked about space radiation research on astronauts and its applicability to medical treatments on Earth. I actually said “spinoff” several times. If you listen to the audio you will hear that I had a two-way English/Arabic interpreter. I worked as a professional Sign language interpreter for a number of years – so I know how to de-jargonize things and parse my comments to facilitate translation. Add in the fact that the program is aimed at a general global audience with no background in NASAese and there you are. That said – I had no talking points in advance from NASA or anyone else – and only a general idea of what might be asked. Having had a real job once upon a time working in NASA space life sciences certainly helped. Alas, these days, NASA Public Affairs takes little interest in providing media who get in front of large global audiences (such as Alhurra, BBC etc.) with relevant talking points to help make the discussion more relevant. And when a non-NASA talking head gets something wrong then PAO gets upset and has meetings and complains within itself about the quality of space news coverage. Oh yes: an arabic-speaking astronaut is living on ISS and another is heading up soon. I mentioned them too. A little soft power projection – not that NASA OIIR cares. At this point if they are reading this they are rolling their eyes. Just sayin. Here’s the audio.