ESA Press Efforts, Moved posts Options

[algorimancer]

ESA's attitude *seems* to be, "If you're not a properly accredited scientist, you have no interest in or use for this information, so we're not going to spend any effort making the information available to you."

This seems to be a common British/European attitude. Look for a Sci/Tech section in the online newspapers, for instance, and you're likely to be disappointed. My experience in England was also that, if you're away from an established university town, it is awfully hard to find a bookstore; of course that was 20 years ago...

[ljk4-1]

This seems to be a common British/European attitude.  Look for a Sci/Tech section in the online newspapers, for instance, and you're likely to be disappointed.  My experience in England was also that, if you're away from an established university town, it is awfully hard to find a bookstore; of course that was 20 years ago...

Trust me, it isn't just in England that you can't find a decent bookstore outside of a college town or a major city. And this is in late 2005.

[akuo]

The results are wonderful -- the means by which ESA chose to present those results to the American viewers was lame.  The content of the results does not change that.

-the other Doug

It was a press conference intended for the media present at the site. It was NASA's decision to carry that on NASA-TV. I don't believe it was streamed by ESA or available live in Europe, the only way I saw it (being in Europe) was from NASA-TV.

And I don't think it was much worse than the average NASA press conference either.

[RNeuhaus]

I think nobody can deny that European Public Relations are usually not very elaborated. At least if you take the US PR as a standard.

Japanese PR are similar to European PR.
And I will not detail Russian or Chinese PR.

Therefore, US PR can not be considered as a worldwide norm.

Once you know this, what is the benefit to remind it and whimper every 10 posts ?

Rakhir

I think that the PR of Japan is rather different than European. According to the Hayabusa's experience, the Japanese newspaper is very strong (one of the highest newspaper publication per-capite of the world) and is very agressive. The japanese newsman were able to get as much information from Hayabusa mission as soon and publish them to the public. We learned the fresh news from the Matsuura, 5thStar, etc sooner than JAXA/ISAS goverment agency.

The European case, the newspaper does not seems so agressive or interested to obtain the latest news from space missions since it seems that the average European citizen is not so much interested to be get know of the space updates. On the other hand, I think, the american counterpart average citizen is somewhat more interested on space news since the goverment has already made lots of effort in its 40 years of advertaisment on space program mainly due to the during the war race to Moon.

Rodolfo

[AstronomíaOnline...]

I hope nobody minds if I add my two cents to this discussion.

Some of you say the technical problems in ESA broadcasting of the news conference were highly disrespectful for people in the USA. And I would like to say that you don't know how lucky you are by actually having access to that information in real time.

I hate to say this, I don't want to hurt nobody's sensibility, but USA is not the only country in the world. And in lots of other countries, access to this kind of information is a lot, an awful lot harder. Here in South America, for example, broadband Internet access is not common yet. Most of the people can't even afford to have dialup on their homes.

So, instead of complaining about this, I would prefer to be thankful for enjoying so much information about both Mars Express and Huygens, even if you can get it a little later. At least you are able to get it!

Ricardo

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

So, instead of complaining about this, I would prefer to be thankful for enjoying so much information about both Mars Express and Huygens, even if you can get it a little later. At least you are able to get it!

Forgive me for saying so but that is quite an arrogant statement. If NASA PAO tried the same excuse they would be excoriated (How dare those arrogant Yanks treat us that way!) around the world by people of all nationalities, the vast majority of whom have no direct stake (i.e., tax payers who fund NASA programs). Missions like MER, Cassini, MGS (MOC), etc. make tons of data available to the rest of the world for "free" on the Web, in most cases before the scientists themselves, who collect the data and are responsible for its analysis, get it, and even when the missions are not under any obligation to do so. ESA doesn't even come close to this. If ESA wants to play in the big leagues, then they and their supporters need to grow some thicker skins and learn to deal with criticism.

[JonClarke]

ESA doesn't even come close to this.  If ESA wants to play in the big leagues, then they and their supporters need to grow some thicker skins and learn to deal with criticism.

Valid critcism yes, not the school yard stuff that has been going on.

Jon

[tedstryk]

Valid critcism yes, not the school yard stuff that has been going on.

Jon

I notice you are new to the group. A lot of the criticism has been due to the fact that ESA's press office has often promoted "discoveries" of long-known information, while ignoring the real discoveries Mars Express is making, which is a spectacular scientific probe. My comments were due to long frustration with this. This latest round is of much better quality.

[dvandorn]

You're exactly right, Ted. Add to that the fact that, as I recall, ME had been in Mars orbit and taking images for *months* and ESA had released all of five images, or somesuch ridiculously small number.

I don't know how European culture reacts to such things, but when someone in America crows over how wonderfully successful his/her project is, but seems very reticent to show their results to the general public, people regard him/her with mistrust. If this is not true in Europe, I imagine this would explain much about how the ESA press department operates.

But... can you *imagine* how much fuel the Moon Hoaxers would have had for their cause had NASA decided to delete the TV cameras from Apollo (something they came very close to doing), not share the live air-to-ground communications of the landing and other mission milestones, and release only five or six pictures from the flight in the first six months after Apollo 11 returned to Earth? And, on top of that, only allowed "qualified scientists" to see results of the analyses of the moon rocks returned?

All I'm saying is that if you treat the results of space exploration as material that can *only* be discussed "properly" in approved scientific journals, if you believe that the *only* worthwhile means of making public the results of such explorations are through abstracts and articles in scientific journals with circulations in the low thousands, then you'll *never* reach the people you really need to reach -- those common folk who are dying inside for want of something that excites their sense of wonder.

I guess it all comes down to one basic question -- are we exploring the Solar System for the professional satisfaction of a few thousand scientists, or for the deep-soul satisfaction of the human race?

I know what *my* answer is.

-the other Doug

[Bob Shaw]

You're exactly right, Ted.  Add to that the fact that, as I recall, ME had been in Mars orbit and taking images for *months* and ESA had released all of five images, or somesuch ridiculously small number.

I don't know how European culture reacts to such things, but when someone in America crows over how wonderfully successful his/her project is, but seems very reticent to show their results to the general public, people regard him/her with mistrust.  If this is not true in Europe, I imagine this would explain much about how the ESA press department operates.

But... can you *imagine* how much fuel the Moon Hoaxers would have had for their cause had NASA decided to delete the TV cameras from Apollo (something they came very close to doing), not share the live air-to-ground communications of the landing and other mission milestones, and release only five or six pictures from the flight in the first six months after Apollo 11 returned to Earth?  And, on top of that, only allowed "qualified scientists" to see results of the analyses of the moon rocks returned?

All I'm saying is that if you treat the results of space exploration as material that can *only* be discussed "properly" in approved scientific journals, if you believe that the *only* worthwhile means of making public the results of such explorations are through abstracts and articles in scientific journals with circulations in the low thousands, then you'll *never* reach the people you really need to reach -- those common folk who are dying inside for want of something that excites their sense of wonder.

I guess it all comes down to one basic question -- are we exploring the Solar System for the professional satisfaction of a few thousand scientists, or for the deep-soul satisfaction of the human race?

I know what *my* answer is.

-the other Doug

other Doug:

There's a way to see the real cost of ESA's PR/outreach failings, and it requires no grand appeal to the manifest destiny of humanity, or whatever. It's simply this: compare the strict scientific results from a NASA/ESA project which has excellent outreach, and and from an ESA/NASA project which suffers from bad outreach. The two projects? Why, SOHO - with an alliance of round-the clock, international, web-based observers, many of whom are amateur and, of course, dear ol' Mars Express, with (none of the above).

OK, I'm grandstanding, but it says something to me that one Mission Director lives at GSFC, and the other at Darmstadt!

As an EU taxpayer, I'm not a happy bunny. I'm glad the USA has got it right (and, to their credit, JAXA!).

Bob Shaw

[ljk4-1]

Rather than griping in a cybernetic vacuum, has anyone addressed these issues directly to someone in charge at the ESA? Despite how it may seem, I am sure they want feedback.

[silylene]

I notice you <JonClarke> are new to the group.  A lot of the criticism has been due to the fact that ESA's press office has often promoted "discoveries" of long-known information, while ignoring the real discoveries Mars Express is making, which is a spectacular scientific probe.  My comments were due to long frustration with this. .....

Just what does being "new to the group" have to do with the content of Jon's message? Being "new to the group" doesn't mean squat.

BTW, here is Jon's bio, for your information: http://aca.mq.edu.au/People/jclarke.htm

[djellison]

Actually, being 'new' to this place w.r.t. our lambasting of ESA is a valid point. It's something of an in-joke between the regulars here ( myself included ) that ESA's press efforts are, from time to time, about as accurate as Ford saying they just discovered the wheel. If you arrived here and just read this thread out of the 18 months + of context that our opinion of ESA press releases had - you could get it very wrong. This place has a very active and healthy sense of humour.

Doug

[silylene]

Actually, being 'new' to this place w.r.t. our lambasting of ESA is a valid point. It's something of an in-joke between the regulars here ( myself included ) that ESA's press efforts are, from time to time, about as accurate as Ford saying they just discovered the wheel.  If you arrived here and just read this thread out of the 18 months + of context that our opinion of ESA press releases had - you could get it very wrong.  This place has a very active and healthy sense of humour.

Doug

Several us us recently joined this forum from space.com forums. We have lambasted ESA in our fora too, with a similar sense of humor. For example, my running joke is that Andy Warhol colorizes their photos they release to the public (I think they used to do a bad job of distinguishing between false color and realisitc colors in the photos they have released to the media).

The ESA is...ESA. 'Nuff said!

[tedstryk]

Indeed, my comments about being new to the group were not an attack on anyone - rather, I was bringing up the point that this was a continuation of a previous discussion.