bobmon@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (RAMontante) (03/23/89)
yee@trident.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee) <22815@ames.arc.nasa.gov> : - -In a reversal of traditional procedure, the crew of Discovery -this morning "awoke" Mission Control with the theme song from the -popular television show "Star Trek" followed by congratulatory -comments from actor William Shatner who played Captain Kirk on -the show. Flight controllers followed Discovery's message by -uplinking the fight songs from each crew members' college. This sort of stuff is starting to bother me. I am all in favor of doing fun things in space, along with useful things... but I'm not (willingly) contributing my tax dollars to pay for cutesy musical wakeup calls. I expect that this is supposed to bring the program closer to the "average American" or some such media-inspired nonsense. But how does it look to people who have a modicum of critical faculties, and aren't already pro-space? The Soviets are spending rubles to learn about human physiology in weightless conditions; we're spending dollars to play 20-year-old tv reruns! Granted, this isn't all they did, it isn't even everything that was in the "MISSION STATUS REPORT" -- it's just the lead item, and thereby apparently the most important item to someone. I was on vacation last week, and got only minimal radio news. This was indeed the only shuttle item I heard. If anything useful happened, that didn't make it out to the public. This isn't going to inspire anyone to support a NASA budget; those of us who want to go to space can wake up all by ourselves, those who think the whole effort is a waste of money have confirming evidence in fluff like this. -- Those who do not understand MSDOS are | Bob Montante (bobmon@cs.indiana.edu) condemned to write glowingly of it in | Computer Science Department slick, short-lived magazines. | Indiana University, Bloomington IN
paulf@Jessica.stanford.edu (Paul Flaherty) (03/23/89)
In article <18780@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> bobmon@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (RAMontante) writes: >This sort of stuff is starting to bother me. I am all in favor of doing fun >things in space, along with useful things... but I'm not (willingly) >contributing my tax dollars to pay for cutesy musical wakeup calls. The wakeup tunes used so far have all be donations of time and effort by several personalities (Shatner, Williams et al) and radio station studios. Do you have something against those celebrities being pro-space? -=Paul Flaherty, N9FZX | "Research Scientists need Porsches, too!" ->paulf@shasta.Stanford.EDU | -- Bloom County
tom@dvnspc1.Dev.Unisys.COM (Tom Albrecht) (03/23/89)
In article <18780@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu>, bobmon@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (RAMontante) writes:
< -In a reversal of traditional procedure, the crew of Discovery
< -this morning "awoke" Mission Control with the theme song from the
< -popular television show "Star Trek" followed by congratulatory
< -comments from actor William Shatner who played Captain Kirk on
< -the show. Flight controllers followed Discovery's message by
< -uplinking the fight songs from each crew members' college.
<
< This sort of stuff is starting to bother me. I am all in favor of doing fun
< things in space, along with useful things... but I'm not (willingly)
< contributing my tax dollars to pay for cutesy musical wakeup calls.
Oh, lighten up. We have men and women who risk their necks providing
invaluable research, and you're complaining about their wakeup music?
If we wanted to send up robots for near-earth work, we would.
--
Tom Albrechtmike@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Mike Smithwick) (03/26/89)
In article <18780@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> bobmon@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (RAMontante) writes:
<yee@trident.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee) <22815@ames.arc.nasa.gov> :
<-
<-In a reversal of traditional procedure, the crew of Discovery
<-this morning "awoke" Mission Control with the theme song from the
<-popular television show "Star Trek" followed by congratulatory
<-comments from actor William Shatner who played Captain Kirk on
<-the show. Flight controllers followed Discovery's message by
<-uplinking the fight songs from each crew members' college.
<
<This sort of stuff is starting to bother me. I am all in favor of doing fun
<things in space, along with useful things... but I'm not (willingly)
<contributing my tax dollars to pay for cutesy musical wakeup calls.
<
[deleted more drivel]
Oh brother. I sincerely doubt that the inclusion of 1 extra audio cassette
(actually a substitute for one of the allowed music tapes) will significantly
increase your tax bill this April.
Right, let's outlaw jokes in space. No more wasted tax dollars on
sending greetings from the crew to their families, nosiree. Just turn them
into automotons, yep, "Yes sir" "No sir" types.
When you're dealing with something as dangerous as spaceflight, a good sense
of humor is absolutely critical and welcome.
Plus, let us not forget that many of today's astronauts were probably
inspired by Star Trek and similar such things in the 60s to go into science
leading them to their current post. Not to mention thousands of engineers
both inside and outside of NASA. I think Shatner's little message was
most appropriate.
*** mike (cerbral GURU, insert M&Ms to restart) smithwick***
"Oh, I'm just a NOP in the instruction set of life, oh, ohhhh, hmmmmm"
[disclaimer : nope, I don't work for NASA, I take full blame for my ideas]bobmon@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (RAMontante) (03/26/89)
Sigh. Smithwick defends muzak in space, along with everyone else. I'll try once more, then I'll shut up. I am not objecting to music in space. I think it's fine that the astronauts aren't being treated as humorless automatons. I AM objecting to the media treatment of this (and other missions), which emphasizes such things and downplays or ignores activities that have scientific content. I do not believe that it makes the space program more palatable to people who are unsupportive of it; I think that it rather gives them reason to feel that the program is doing worthless things. I'm sure it did the shuttle crew much good to hear Shatner; I am one of those who was inspired by Star Trek. But it did me no good to hear that the crew heard Shatner, I didn't even get to hear the tape itself. Just a report that THEY heard it. I'd rather have heard about what science they were doing that day. (They DID do some, didn't they? Or some engineering, maybe?)
rjg@sialis.mn.org (Robert J. Granvin) (03/27/89)
>I'm sure it did the shuttle crew much good to hear Shatner; I am one of >those who was inspired by Star Trek. But it did me no good to hear that >the crew heard Shatner, I didn't even get to hear the tape itself. Just a >report that THEY heard it. I'd rather have heard about what science they >were doing that day. (They DID do some, didn't they? Or some >engineering, maybe?) Wouldn't we all? But, the "normal" public, who the media tries to cater to, really doesn't understand the scientific experiments, or why it's important. Making crystals? It's hard finding a handful of people that understand why crystals are important at all, much less why more perfect crystals are even more important. So, the people who lose out from the media, are the people who _really_ want to know, and those people need to find "secondary" routes to get basic information (like convincing your cable carrier to supply NASA Select at least during flights, etc). The normal at-home TV watcher will be more interested in a shuttle wake-up call than what the craft performs in orbit. A lot of people aren't even very interested in the actual launch and landing anymore (as is being witnessed by the apathy of media to carry it again). All in all a pretty sad commentary, if you ask me. :-( -- Robert J. Granvin National Information Services North Dakota: 11 months of winter and one rjg@sialis.mn.org month of bad ice skating. {amdahl,hpda}!bungia!sialis!rjg
phil@hypatia.rice.edu (William LeFebvre) (03/28/89)
First off, let me say that I am using the term "media" about as poorly as "bobman" did: I'm using it to refer to the high visibility national network TV and country-wide newspaper media. I am not referring to the corner of the media that caters to the technical crowd (such as AvWeek). In article <18927@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> bobmon@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (RAMontante) writes: >I am not objecting to music in space. I think it's fine that the astronauts >aren't being treated as humorless automatons. > >I AM objecting to the media treatment of this (and other missions), which >emphasizes such things and downplays or ignores activities that have >scientific content. I do not believe that it makes the space program more >palatable to people who are unsupportive of it; I think that it rather gives >them reason to feel that the program is doing worthless things. The "media" doesn't report on the scientific activities because the "media", typically, doesn't *understand* them. Nor does the average american. Shoot...the average american probably thinks that the SHARE pipe experiment was a waste of time and money and that nothing informative came of it because it "didn't work". And when the "media" does report on the scientific activities, they usually get it wrong anyway. Face it: the "media" is driven by sensationalism and human interest, and *not* by newsworthiness. William LeFebvre Department of Computer Science Rice University <phil@Rice.edu>
petej@phred.UUCP (Pete Jarvis) (03/28/89)
In article <18927@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> bobmon@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (RAMontante) writes: > >I AM objecting to the media treatment of this (and other missions), which >emphasizes such things and downplays or ignores activities that have > >report that THEY heard it. I'd rather have heard about what science they >were doing that day. (They DID do some, didn't they? Or some >engineering, maybe?) They had quite a bit of news concerning the experiments they were running! If you had watched CNN, you would have seen several stories during the mission about success of the TDRS sat. and the chicken eggs, etc. You seem to think that all that was left out of the reporting. It wasn't. They also reported on experiments that were not running as well as expected as well as the hydrogen tank valve problem which they cleared up. Peter Jarvis...........
tneff@well.UUCP (Tom Neff) (04/05/89)
Before wasting too much time flogging the "media" as villain of choice
re: astronaut wakeup music and other such frivolous non-events during
mission coverage, I wish readers would remember that it's NASA who
chooses to spoon feed these things to us via press releases and
NASASELECT coverage. Obviously this is part of what NASA wants us to
hear about the mission. They think, and the media for the most part
agree, that this is the kind of thing that amuses America and keeps us
happy about our space program. It should surprise no one, least of all
the folks at CNN or NASA public affairs, that the elite minority of
informed space junkies (i.e., we) think it's a waste of time.
Why should they care? We're a captive audience. It's the apathetic
majority they're trying to tickle. I happen to think they're doing it
the wrong way, but again, my opinion doesn't count for much in the
demographic they're shooting for.
At least we don't hear QUITE so much about what they had for breakfast
the morning of the launch, these days. <grin> Maybe because it's some
kind of green disgusting ROBOCOP-type paste?
btw speaking strictly as a slack jawed dumb viewer, nothing they've
ever showed during a mission can beat (a) the orbiter against the
turning earth as seen by the Canada arm or other remote camera, or (b)
the orbiter landing in Florida.
--
Jedi disclaimer: My opinions sound good. You should share them now...
--
Tom Neff tneff@well.UUCP
or tneff@dasys1.UUCPphil@titan.rice.edu (William LeFebvre) (04/07/89)
In article <11232@well.UUCP> tneff@well.UUCP (Tom Neff) writes: >Before wasting too much time flogging the "media" as villain of choice >re: astronaut wakeup music and other such frivolous non-events during >mission coverage, I wish readers would remember that it's NASA who >chooses to spoon feed these things to us via press releases and >NASASELECT coverage. Obviously this is part of what NASA wants us to >hear about the mission. Total disagreement from this corner. NASA Select shows ALL activities for the ENTIRE flight. They even put together these nifty summaries at the end of the day. The MEDIA chooses what portions of that coverage to tape and reply. The MEDIA chooses what will be presented to the viewing public. The MEDIA chooses the wording of the reports. NASA provides them with a great deal of information (obviously too much to be presented in a 2 minute news item). It is the media that prunes down this information and decides what gets cut and what gets aired. As for spoon feeding, the media usually needs spoon feeding. Did you see any of the change-of-shift briefings during STS-26 (they were all carried on NASA select)? Some of those reporters seemed awfully dense. Just about every reporter in the room asked "is the temperature in the shuttle uncomfortable for the crew?" They wouldn't take "the crew is comfortable" for an answer! And trying to explain the technical aspects of the problem to the media was even worse. That just generated more questions and misinterpretations. I think I still have that on tape somewhere.......I should transcribe some of it for you. Unbelievable! >At least we don't hear QUITE so much about what they had for breakfast >the morning of the launch, these days. <grin> Maybe because it's some >kind of green disgusting ROBOCOP-type paste? But not by NASA's choice. The crew breakfast, complete with commentary, is aired on NASA select just like it has always been. Would you like me to find out what the STS-29 crew had for breakfast that morning? It's the MEDIA that has decided to not focus on that bit of triviality anymore. I don't mean to come out sounding like "NASA can do no wrong". I know they can. But let's at least concentrate on the things they really *are* doing wrong. William LeFebvre Department of Computer Science Rice University <phil@Rice.edu>