NASA Outreach Needs A Reboot

Keith’s note: NASA likes to talk about all the wonderful ways that they do things that affect everyone and improve their lives. But how they do this is inconsistent with regard to large portions of our country and large sectors of society. And it is often out of date and regularly misses the point when it comes to what real people are thinking about in terms of their life’s priorities. This popped up in Congress today while Jared Isaacman was testifying. More below.

In today’s Senate (re)nomination hearing for Jared Isaacman, a topic emerged at least 3 times. NASA and agriculture. You normally don’t hear that issue raised – certainly not 3 times. Most notably from Sen. Moran R-Kansas. Moran read from a letter from a Kansas farmer that talked about the value of NASA science in providing a wide range of Earth Science services that touch real lives and allow real world decisions to be made in agriculture.

Moran reflected on this letter with a little irony: “A Kansas farmer found value in NASA – something that we do not talk about when we think of value in space.” He then asked Isaacman “How does NASA play a role in everyday lives of Americans?” Isaacman agreed, noting that “we only have one planet right now – and NASA satellites play a direct role in agriculture, GPS and in next generation farming.”

Think about this for a moment from a rural, agricultural perspective. You know, the vast part of America that some people have called “flyover country” – meant to denote that this part of America is often ignored when national policies are debated. You are a kid on a farm. You use drones to survey fields. You are learning the basics of flying a drone on Mars.

Your high speed Internet and your television programming come from the sky – from satellites orbiting overhead. Your daily livelihood depends on accurate weather provided by other satellites. And your drones, tractors, cars, phones, and virtually everything else that needs to know a precise location gets that information from yet another fleet of satellites.

None of this is unique to rural communities. Satellite services are a mainstay of urban life – and also developing countries. While life is possible without space and satellite services, it is certainly elevated by having access to them. Often it can be a matter of life or death.

NASA loves to cite the whole collection of memes about NASA’s value to society. Spinoffs, technology transfer, dual use, etc. All the right buzzwords. NASA does a good job but they could do vastly better. When you do a deep dive into how NASA structures its external relations, education, and public outreach efforts, there is a clear bias towards certain zip codes, media markets, and congressional districts at the expense of others which are often ignored.

Does the same NASA outreach modes that you’d use to reach people in a focused, economically dynamic, educationally gifted, population center with easy and endless Internet and media access the same as what you’d use for remote, dispersed communities in ‘flyover country’? Not necessarily. How do you adapt NASA’s outreach to attract, inspire, and then answer the interest of a young person who takes hour-long bus rides to school in areas where the largest building in town (that is still in use) is a Walmart?

I know NASA has tried to crack this nut more than once in limited ways and then mostly gave up. Yes, there is the space grant college effort but that is mostly an aggregation of efforts rather than one receiving dedicated and significant resources from NASA. NASA could try to establish meaningful and vibrant connections with service organizations like 4H, Future Farmers of America, and Scouting. For that matter they could reach out to the local Lions Clubs, Rotary clubs, chambers of commerce, tribal governments etc.

Yes, yes Keith, this takes money etc. I certainly get that. But we’re in a strange place right now as a nation. We’re being told that we’re pulling back from international efforts and focusing on America “first”. OK, so if that is the new direction NASA is going to pivot- while also being the pre-eminent leader in space, then put some thought into what that really means.

The age-old question regarding why we need to be sending humans to the Moon is re-emerging and recycled from the 1960s – with added 21st century cynicism attached. “We already did that”. “NASA faked it”. “Who cares. I cannot afford health care or groceries.” “Let’s go to Mars instead”. etc.

Whatever NASA does, much of it is offworld – indeed in places so distant that the relevance to life here is hard to rationalize. More often NASA is a vital, vibrant force in our daily lives. Yet it is so firmly embedded in our lives that it is invisible.

Whether we are going to the Moon or making your Internet access better NASA needs to do a vastly better job of explaining itself – daily – and do so in a way that is not one size fits all but rather one that is nuanced and self -adjust to the real world where we all live – and pay the taxes that pay for the whole space thing.

Just sayin’

Building a starship in an Iowa corn field – Paramount/CBS

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