Should any congressional webmaster be listening, presenting an archive by streaming it in real time, rather than making it rapidly downloadable as a file is nuts. Perhaps the committee wants to discourage extraction of out-of-context bits and pieces from it.

Thank you for making your own science spending priorities clear to us.

I hope you can appreciate that the taxpayers may hold far different priorities, and that you will respect their wishes as expressed through the legislative process.

(1) Permanence. Hearings can disappear at any time from the committee sites. They can’t control YouTube.

(2) Ease. You have to know the hearing occurred, you have to find its page, and you have to click on Archive to watch. With YouTube, it’s in a common location and can be located easily with a search. It can also be embedded on another page, which you can’t do with the committee hearing.

Since then, it’s has 10,000+ views.

Go figure.

From the comments, it seems that most of the views are from the UFO alien conspiracy community. Several claim the hearing was part of the great government UFO coverup.

That would be the same government that can’t even get a web site to work properly.

The video has gone viral somewhere, but where I haven’t a clue.

Personally, I thought the hearing was banal and lacking purpose.

Probably both. Remarkable in that it was a rare expression of unbridled support for science. Not for a science project, mind you, and dollars shoveled into a congressional district, but for science itself. Support for curiosity and inquisitiveness. Chairman Smith seemed in particular awe of the goals of this work. Harmless in that, yes, it didn’t do any harm, which is more than you can say about other hearings. Congressional hearings are, by the way, usually specifically constituted to do harm — loudly raising policy as being questionable. Such grandstanding is what hearings are mostly for.

As to low attendance at this hearing, as noted, there is absolutely nothing unusual about that. The purpose of the hearing is to get important words in the congressional record, and if it’s not about doing harm, and taking credit for doing that harm, there is no reason for lots of people to be there to offer smiles. Ones absence in no way reflects lack of support. It is noteworthy that this wasn’t a space subcommittee hearing, but a full committee hearing, which sends the strong and smart message that in the congressional view, astrobiology is about a lot more than space.

Wanting to call this hearing a “science policy breakthrough” is setting up a straw man. It’s not about breakthroughs. It’s about establishing that the nation, represented by Congress, has some real interest in this field. It’s remarkable enough these days for congressional leaders to speak up about science and at least say “We would if we could!” In some sense, the hearing makes the headlight pivot over to Congress, making people want to ask, “Well, why the hell can’t you?”

As I said before, this hearing about space didn’t mention human space flight in the context of exploration and inspiration. Those words were used instead in describing science. The hearing didn’t mention astronauts, space resources, and only touched on jobs (in the context of STEM education). Remarkable!