UMSF plugged Options

[rlorenz]

Emily L gave a great talk at APL yesterday about how fora such as UMSF can help planetary scientists. She of course showcased some of the excellent work by Ted Stryk, Exploitcorporations and others....

[nprev]

Emily is a superb ambassador in all ways for planetary science & exploration. We are very fortunate to have her at UMSF.

[brellis]

I'm such a big Emily fan! She's the Great Translator from the stuff rocket scientists and planetary geologists are saying into language regular space geeks like me can grasp.
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btw, I'm a big rlorenz fan too. I'm reading "Titan Unveiled" for the third or fourth time (I can't count that high )

[ElkGroveDan]

Emily is so good at what she does that Dos Equis Beer are thinking of hiring her to do commercials for them.

[Stu]

Bet it was a *superb* talk.

[Explorer1]

No recording anywhere I'm assuming?

[rlorenz]

No recording anywhere I'm assuming?

No. It was an informal seminar.

[rlorenz]

Emily is so good at what she does that Dos Equis Beer are thinking of hiring her to do commercials for them.

Hey, I could do the Dos Equis ads....
"I don't often read blogs, but when I do, they're Emily's"

[brellis]

haha! "Her words have shaken planetary scientists to their core. Moods are afraid to cross her. She is the most interesting blogger in the world!"

She actually is, to moi!

edit: "stay thirsty for information, my friends!"

[elakdawalla]

Jeebus, guys, I'm blushing.

No, no recordings; it was, as Ralph said, informal. I'll be glad to do the talk again though for a Google+ audience at some point...but may need a reminder, as I'm going to be a little bit distracted by a big event happening in a week.

Also, by the way, I gave the same talk at NASA Headquarters!

[Eluchil]

Also, by the way, I gave the same talk at NASA Headquarters!

I hope they were listening. NASA clearly tries to do outreach, but sometimes I feel that HQ prioritizes things like the control MSL during EDL XBox game and leaves things like MER's fast image release policy or MRO's HiWish program to the discretion of individual PI's (and leaves them to do the advertising for them as well). If I've learned anything from Emily and UMSF, it's that this is backwards. Pseudo or semi scientific outreach can't compete with fictional content for entertainment, but no one but NASA has real images from the Martian surface. If you engage the dedicated, knowledgeable amateur community their enthusiasm will be contagious and bring in more people. If you focus on the lowest-common-denominator you will lose the good will of enthusiastic amateurs with their free advertising while simultaneously failing to reach the majority of the population.

[Astro0]

That's a discussion we've had over and over again. The internet, social media and even UMSF have changed our expectations when it comes to access to information.

We are grateful to every mission and its team for everything that they DO give to us and for the interaction we are now privileged to have through forums like UMSF and via social media such as Twitter.

It would be fantastic if it was policy for every mission to make every image and all data available immediately, but that's just our enthusiasm bubbling through.
Remember that the data returned is the work and effort of many people, over many years and that they are entitled to use it or release it any way they want to.
Ultimately, NASA missions/instruments are required to release their data to the PDS (Planetary Data System) and we can access it there, freely, when it does.

The best we can do, if we want to ultimately see everything in as close to 'real-time' as is possible, is to do the following:
1) Maintain the highest quality discussion on this Forum
2) Use any data/images that are released to its best advantage, to the best of our abilities
3) Share that information with as wide an audience as possible

If we continue to do that, then we will clearly demonstrate the value of giving the public broad access to images/data in near real-time.

[elakdawalla]

This is absolutely true. There is no better advertisement for the value of rapid data release than the kinds of image products made here and the examples of successful collaboration between scientists and amateurs that have happened here.