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ESA PR is basically hopeless. It's the polar opposite of NASA. I guess the budget is nonexistent. Good that there are people that disseminate these things on T

ESA PR is basically hopeless. It's the polar opposite of NASA. I guess the budget is nonexistent. Good that there are people that disseminate these things on Twitter etc. The Rosetta and Philae stuff, Emily Lakdawalla of Planetary Society did a better job of covering it than anyone at ESA, unfortunately.

Sharlin 9y ago
Yeah, it's bad. But at least their Rosetta stuff was way above their regular standards, with things like [1] and [2]. Of course those were more feelgood public outreach projects than technical reporting for space aficionados. But that's exactly what ESA needs more of, they simply don't have the sort of relationship with general European public that NASA has in the US. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrctxlVWm_E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrctxlVWm_E [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32vlOgN_3QQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32vlOgN_3QQ
orbital-decay 9y ago
To be fair, Emily Lakdawalla also did a better job covering the Cassini-Huygens mission than anyone at NASA. Her reporting about the Huygens RUSO/TUSO mishap and the overall mission coverage was top notch.
- FranOntanaya 9y ago
  There aren't a whole lot of cases where Planetary Society aren't doing the better job. Two that come to mind for me are Marc Rayman's Dawn journal https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/blog/author/marc-rayman/ https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/blog/author/marc-rayman/ and HiRISE's outreach https://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/ https://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/
neolefty 9y ago
Isn't NASA prohibited from using any of its budget for explicit PR, to avoid anything remotely political? (Honestly as a news consumer it's not all that bad because it means I can trust any communications coming from NASA proper to be purely mission oriented—focused on science.)
- justin66 9y ago
  Nope. https://www.nasa.gov/centers/armstrong/about/strat_comm.html https://www.nasa.gov/centers/armstrong/about/strat_comm.html

Sharlin 9y ago

Yeah, it's bad. But at least their Rosetta stuff was way above their regular standards, with things like [1] and [2]. Of course those were more feelgood public outreach projects than technical reporting for space aficionados. But that's exactly what ESA needs more of, they simply don't have the sort of relationship with general European public that NASA has in the US. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrctxlVWm_E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrctxlVWm_E [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32vlOgN_3QQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32vlOgN_3QQ

orbital-decay 9y ago

To be fair, Emily Lakdawalla also did a better job covering the Cassini-Huygens mission than anyone at NASA. Her reporting about the Huygens RUSO/TUSO mishap and the overall mission coverage was top notch.

FranOntanaya 9y ago
There aren't a whole lot of cases where Planetary Society aren't doing the better job. Two that come to mind for me are Marc Rayman's Dawn journal https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/blog/author/marc-rayman/ https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/blog/author/marc-rayman/ and HiRISE's outreach https://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/ https://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/

neolefty 9y ago

Isn't NASA prohibited from using any of its budget for explicit PR, to avoid anything remotely political? (Honestly as a news consumer it's not all that bad because it means I can trust any communications coming from NASA proper to be purely mission oriented—focused on science.)

justin66 9y ago
Nope. https://www.nasa.gov/centers/armstrong/about/strat_comm.html https://www.nasa.gov/centers/armstrong/about/strat_comm.html