So what is this exactly?
NASA Social is just what it sounds like, a social media event where NASA invites a few people out to participate, learn, and share their enthusiasm for science. They hold these events at various locations throughout the country, free of charge as the goal of the event is to encourage active interest.
So what exactly did you do?
Upon confirmation of my approval to attend (more on this in a bit), I was given a wealth of information via email. Everything from the basic agenda, to lunch details, to directions, to safety tips, etc. As I was surprised to see two full days of tours and events on the agenda, I read this over several times just to make I got everything right.
I wasn’t sure what to expect; and to be honest, I thought “I know how all this marketing stuff works”, and didn’t really think it would be much more than a PR rep. showing us around the KSC Visitors Complex. But since my usual weekdays involve things like dealing with random animals, making sure no one attacks the copy machine, and explaining why employees are running around my office with no pants (you think I’m joking, don’t you?), I was interested to see something different.
Thursday, April 7th 2016
Day 1 began at 7:30 am. when we all met at the NASA Press Office to receive our credentials. Then we climbed on a bus and were whisked away to our first stop at the Neil Armstrong Operations & Checkout building. Here we got a chance to meet our guides and the other “NASA Socialites”. There was a very wide range of backgrounds in the attendees, we had teachers, doctors, software engineers, a meteorologist, bloggers of all types, and even a couple of photographers, who came from all over the U.S.
From there, we followed the footsteps of astronauts on through the building and out what they call the High Bay. It’s basically one giant clean room with a few smaller even cleaner rooms inside. In here we met Scott & Susan who showed us around and let us ask questions. The current work in progress is the Orion Spacecraft, which happens to be the future of human spaceflight. Random Fact – The Orion spacecraft’s 4 windows use 3 layers and are made to withstand temperatures of 3,000 degrees. The one we viewed is targeted for launch in late 2018, with an unmanned mission going out past the Moon then returning back to Earth. If all goes well then, we are on our way to Mars!
After a brief lunch, we settled into the the NASA News Center Annex building. Here we met several people from NASA, Lilly, Bigelow Aerospace, and so on; learning mostly about the cargo going up on this particular launch. These were not random tour guides or PR reps., but they were the actual scientists, engineers, and project managers working on what’s happening now on the International Space Station. It was incredible to meet these passionate individuals. Several of which are working on Project Veggie; since astronauts need to eat, it helps for them to be able to grow their own food. Whether it be in space or on Mars, this presents a whole new set of challenges. Random Fact – Food grown on the ISS still had to pass food safety inspections here on Earth before the astronauts were allowed to eat it. So far lettuce and zinnias have both been grown successfully on the ISS, with tomatoes a good possibility in the near future. Random Fact – The zinnias were chosen to see how well flowering plants would work in space, but it also had a very positive psychological effect on the astronauts.
