A reader with some insight into the development of the report by the House Appropriations Committee on the Science, State, Justice and Commerce appropriations bill passed along an interesting provision that has a “95% chance” of making it into the final report:
NASA’s mission to research, investigate, and explore the limits of aeronautics and the outer reaches of space, is unique among Federal agencies. While NASA is a civilian agency, its pursuits and capabilities have a direct impact on the strategic and economic health of the nation. Too often, those who benefit most form NASA, the American people, are not aware of those successes, benefits and opportunities. The Committee directs NASA to engage in a national awareness campaign. The purpose of such a campaign is to provide NASA with a venue in various media (print, radio, television, Internet, etc.) to articulate missions, recent accomplishments and recruitment efforts to young Americans. This will also provide a mechanism by which to excite and encourage our young people to enter the fields of science, math and engineering and in doing so help maintain America’s leadership in those fields.
How many of us have been in non-profit organizations with falling memberships that have been 100% sure that the key to increasing membership is to do outreach about your organization. The end result being you spend all of your money and time doing outreach about how cool your organization is and none actually doing anything exciting and useful to achieve that organizations mission. In my experience, once you start doing that kind of “See! We’re cool, too!” kind of stuff you’re already well on your way to a death spiral.
IMHO, the best thing NASA could do with its increased aeronautical budget is to pay NASA aeronautical employees to go do externships with small private companies that need their experience/expertise… That would help the little guy _and_ expose NASA’s standing army to how the world of business really works.
Well these non profits negleted one thing.. Churn, keeping a member is worth 2-3 new members, so you get 5% more members a month but if your loosing 10% you still falling. So no only do you have to show your cool you’ll have to remain cool to keep the current memembership. Ie. Do something..
Now i love the idea of the internships and that will help those in the know and could help streamline NASA. But they still need to appeal to the average citizen. I’m not saying hire a PR firm yet. I think they need to commission a poll to find out how uneducated the average public really is about NASA. I think they would be shocked.
Every year or so I take an informal non scientific poll at the food court at the mall near my office. Mainly just “What do you believe is NASA’s budget and what percent is that of your tax dollars.” The results are disturbing. over half the people think its over 50 billion and that its over 5% of there taxes. Dunno why I do it it always makes me depressed. Would like a more scientific poll.
Though they also need to demonstrate to the public they are doing something other then return to flight.
Heck if the Military can run TV ads to recuit, why can’t NASA run ads to foster support, if the polls show that the public doesn’t know what NASA does and with how much?
A one prong outreach strategy never works, and thats what most of the non profits that failed did.
I’ll bet that the highly-publicized accomplishments of SpaceShipOne and the X-prize already did more to ignite young minds than anything NASA will put out with this.
The above posters are right. Amaze me – then I’ll sign up.
You’d think NASA would be tired of getting so much attention. Here’s an idea, they could try doing something right for a change. Maybe that would bring the kind of attention they want. Or they could hire a PR firm to spin the failure into successes. It’s too bad the latter has become “the American way”.
http://www.floridatoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050610/NEWS02/506100355
Here’s a step in the right direction. They can get rid of all of these beltway bandit, blood sucking, jerks and their touchy-feely managment culture change indoctrinations. And they can shove their phony-as-a-$3-bill success statistics where the sun don’t shine, too. How much does it cost to tell managers to listen to the people who work for them when they report safety problems? I bet if they just once fired a manager who sat on a bad news report instead of always killing the messenger they would stop having these “culture issues”.
Well I like it. First of all, with all due respect to you Michael, whatever the societies did for outreach, it was crap. I have been a space freak my whole life and I never heard of the Planetary society until I was a senior in College (1997). I never heard of the NSS until last year. I only found out about the Mars Society looking for info on Zubrin’s book. The thing is I was looking for stuff. So how good of outreach could they have been doing. (In the same period I joined many astronomy clubs and science clubs).
I think they should as least use the NASA TV Channel. They already transmit on it. They just transmit random crap.
In reply to Mr. Mealling:
“How many of us have been in non-profit organizations with falling memberships that have been 100% sure that the key to increasing membership is to do outreach about your organization.”
My main experience with that was with the United Nations Association in NYC. That organization’s main objective is to support and educate people about the U.N. With all due respect to Mr. Brown, the reason that the membership was dropping off was because people were dying. They did an analysis of their membership rolls and figured out that the average age of members was in the low to mid 60s. Most had been members since the founding of the U.N., and while they focused on their mission and all of the politicking they all got old and the kids went off and did something else.
“The end result being you spend all of your money and time doing outreach about how cool your organization is and none actually doing anything exciting and useful to achieve that organizations mission.”
Well, we’re having a lot of fun here in Dallas doing both and we’re not spending much money at all. In the last year or so our chapter has done displays for/in conjunction with:
Space Day at the Science Place at Fair Park
ISDC 2004 Kids Program
Sci Fi Expo
Apollo Anniversary Week I: SciPlace
Apollo Anniversary Week II: Frontiers of Flight Museum
World Space Week: FoF
Eclipse Party at SciPlace Planetarium
(the NSS name was displayed for a good 15-20 seconds on 10pm lead story that night)
Santa Space Toy drive for local Santa’s Helpers program
Discovery Fest: SciPlace
ISDC 2005 Kids Program
HOBY Leadership program at UNT
& a lot of other fun stuff.
Coming up we’ve got a Space Exploration merit badge camp (w/ DARS), Lunascape opening at FoF, World Space Week, SciPlace Planetarium re-opening, and the mother of all space events, the International Space Development Conference in 2007. I’d also like to get us doing more park clean-ups wearing “Save the Earth…Develop Space” t-shirts.
Our secret is that we write around to space institutions and ask for a handful of publicity brochures/pamphlets, and perhaps any other goodies they want to clean out of their closets. We then distribute these items to the public at our events (people LOVE freebies). NASA JSC always sends us cool stuff, and the NASA logo stickers are ALWAYS the first thing to go at each event. Cost: 1 or 2 e-mails. We also have space coloring pages for the kiddies. The photocopying is often done surreptitiously at work or donated by local copy shops (Thanks local D/FW Alphagraphics!). We have displays on the Moon, Asteroids, ISS, Commercial Suborbital, and Mars. We have videos we run, and a real meteorite they can hold and genuine fake Moon rocks we can use to help explain the Moon display. Most of the cost of this stuff is close to zero (because the members already have it), or the chapter members eat the costs. Our chapter has personally spoken with somewhere in excess of 1,500 people over the last year and a half. We expect to speak with many more as we ramp up to the 2007 ISDC.
All of our displays have our NSS banner mounted on the front, we distribute membership applications for national and the chapter, we sign people up to receive a free copy of the chapter newsletter. We wear NSS polos or ballcaps or buttons at these events. And we’re amazed at the warm reception we’re getting as we expand our outreach efforts, getting more and more invites all the time. We also work with other local space organizations, and are helping one of our members set up a local Planetary Society chapter.
“In my experience, once you start doing that kind of “See! We’re cool, too!” kind of stuff you’re already well on your way to a death spiral.”
IMHO, the reason NSS was fading into obscurity was because they were focused on politicking (same as UNA) and that’s a dead end street in my view because you’re constantly having to start the process over each time the representative changes. This means that you waste a lot of resources doing the same thing over and over. People get tired of being begged to write their Congressperson to support space. Chapter meetings spent debating the minutiae of the latest NASA budget are tedious to marginal members. That’s the death spiral. The solution is to do fun stuff out in the community and take the message of space to the people. We’ve gotten four new chapter members in the last year, and are close to a few more. We are going to have to spring for a mass-mailing to NSS national members in the area to invite them to get involved with the local chapter. Constant rejuvenation of an organization with new members is a must for it to continue for any real length of time.
“IMHO, the best thing NASA could do with its increased aeronautical budget is to pay NASA aeronautical employees to go do externships with small private companies…”
That is a downright brilliant idea. Absolutely brilliant. I hope Michael Griffin gets to see it. If I get to see him at Le Bourget maybe I can drop that in.
Dan,
Outreach is different than advertising. If NSS, Planetary Society, etc hadn’t been actually doing something once you found out their existence you would not have been interesting enough to warrant your continuting attention. And in many cases those organizations weren’t really interested in advertisign outside their target market segment.
IMHO, ‘outreach’ to those who aren’t already oriented toward space-based products is a waste. The only reason you do it is to shore up support for government bases programs and there is no supporting evidence that people actually translate that outreach to votes or calls to their congressman. It’d be like advertising NASCAR branded merchandise on NPR…
Does anyone have any empirical evidence that shows that outreach like this actually affects anything one way or the other? I suspect the answer is that outreach like this has zero affect on the perceptions of NASA or of its access to the tax base. The thing that has the most bang for its buck when it comes to NASA’s perception or money is successful programs that show high return for low cost.
Ken, good point of people dieing as a cause of churn, I work for an ISP and we do not factor in death of our customers as a reason for churn. Maybe if we survive another 20 or 30 years we would. (Some how i see someone in marketing coming up with providing healthcare to keep em alive.
)
Michael, emperical evidence no, but then you need to fund a study to get the emperical evidence. But i had no interest in space when i was a kid, I wanted to be a linebacker since i was 5 (1979) then my 5th grade teacher (1984-1985) Did a presentation on NASA and what was done in apollo. Part of that was experiments in model rocketry, showing basic newtonian physics. It then Hooked me, first as an avid NASA believer. Went to space Space Camp(preaching to the chior as it were) and that whole nine yards. Then as i grew and saw how things in NASA were wrong (Beyond Challenger) I driffted away from space, went back to football while keeping some interest in science in general.
At this point, i became an evironmentalist, and looked at ways of solving it, decided even if we did we could be hit by an asteroid and ruin it all, So i saw space as the solution to to environmental problems on Earth. This was around 1990. So i became a space nut.
So the public outreach worked but it was slightly based on lies which disillusioned me. (biggest one was the shuttle costs 20 mill a launch) But i do attribute why i’m a spacenut today back to the origional outrach. Be it NASA doing it or my teacher taking the initative on her own.
But then this is getting them young.. Unfortunatly we don’t have 10-20 years for the young to grow up and influence public funds for NASA.
I do believe however there is a way to convience the public that its good. The public can be convienced of anything. The problem is for them to be convience over the long haul of the next 20 years, what we convience them with has to be 100% true. what we need is a Casius Astra that is true and inspiring.
Matthew,
Did someone from the NFL come do an outreach program with your school that got you interested in football? The fact that NASA has to do outreach is a function of the government’s failure to help build a space faring economy. Does the computer industry require lots of time and money reaching out to kids in elementary school with presentations of “This is a computer. If you grow up and get a math degree and work for the government for the rest of your life you might get to work on one for one week out of your life?”
NASA has to do outreach becase space flight isn’t routinely in your face as a viable industry to work in the same way every other industry is. The fact that your interest had to be actively informed whereas your interest in football didn’t is my exact point about why outreach like this is the wrong aproach.
I’m confused, you say its needed but shouldn’t be done?
I agree that if the shuttle flew as often as promissed it could be in your face, and outreach would not be needed. But the outreach is needed so that political pressure could be done so that NASA can be in our faces by sheer action. But the public has a misconception of what NASA does and with how much money comparitivly to other agencies.
Though with last nights anncoucements of the two CEV contractors, I’ve lost almost all my faith that NASA will get the job done. The anoucement wasn’t much of a surprise but i had hope. If NASA gets the job done, I’ll be happy, but with the descion i do realize no amount of Public outreach by NASA for NASA will help. However I hope NASA does outreach for Space and not for just for itself. In the end its too late for any outreach, unless t/Space, SpaceX, Kistler, Bigalow etc succeed in 5 years. Unless some miracle technology is developed that reduces natual reasource utilisation dramaticly.
I know this is hard to follow but i’m just pissed the CEV was awarded to the two companies that are getting paid to operate the shuttle.
Matthew,
I’m suggesting that if NASA were to actually help build an industry instead of “Apollo 2.0 covered in Mike’s Special Shuttle Sauce” then space would be in the public’s awareness as an industry instead of a program. I’m quibling with your assumption that Space = NASA and that in order to get people interested in Space you have to do a NASA outreach program.
To answer your specific first question: I’m saying that if the US Government were more interested in building an industry the way it did with the railroads and aeronautics then you wouldn’t need an outreach program. But since it isn’t you end up with outreach programs that have no real impact.
When was the last time you saw an outreach program for the railroad or airline industries?
“When was the last time you saw an outreach program for the railroad or airline industries?”
@ years ago when they practicly begged us to fly or travel by train and lobbyed for a bailout.
But in seriousness, Okay i see that point and aggree that if theythat yeah if they did what you said they wouldn’t need one. That doesn’t mean they should ignore public outreach. I’m not saying Public outreach at exclusion of all else. Thats more harm then good. But if the public doesn’t know whats going on they will not question and get invloved and NASA will never succede in it offical mission.
If the Army can make ads for recuitment why can’t NASA spend some money to educate those who don’t know enough to care? Sure what NASA will put out is propganda, but at least it can get people to CARE and see Space not only as our Future but as a potential solution to both Environmental and Economic issues.
Its easier to get people walking down the right path if they are already walkeing then if they are just sitting.
Right now the public (Anyone who reads this site and similar site or lives in florida or houston isn’t the public ) think that NASA as billions and billions of dollars as an annual budget, magnatudes more then the 16.5 billion it is. They either believ its enough to get us to the moon or its a waste of money.
If NASA isn’t going to take us why not have them inspire people to get invloved enough to help find the alt.space movement? Better use of money then multimillion dollar vuegraphs.