~ Four Years of NASA Tweetups & Socials ~

As I get ready for my first NASA Social as a participant selected for social media accreditation at NASA Dryden on January 25, it's the perfect time to look back on the history of these unparalleled NASA-sponsored outreach events.

The first gathering of some of @NASA’s twitter followers took place almost four years ago on January 21, 2009 at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena , CA. It was the brain child of Veronica McGregor (@VeronicaMcG) and her colleagues at JPL, who saw an opportunity to foster more direct engagement with twitter users around the world. The gathering was initially called a NASA Tweetup.  150 of NASA’s twitter followers were invited to spend an evening touring JPL facilities, interacting with scientists, learning about space exploration and getting rare behind-the-scenes access to NASA projects. A huge success, the first Tweetup was soon followed by others, including the last seven space shuttle launches from Kennedy Space Center.  Participants at those Tweetups witnessed a shuttle launch from three miles away – as close as anyone can safely get to a launch.

NASA Tweetups changed to NASA Socials in 2012. While I will always have a special affinity for the #NASAtweetup hash tag, I do admit that #NASASocial is more efficient. This is twitter after all - every character counts! It is also more accessible to those unfamiliar with these NASA gatherings. If you are reading this, you have probably tried to explain a “NASA Tweetup” to someone who has never been on twitter and has only a vague idea of what NASA actually does. It’s a challenge, requiring explanation of what a tweet is, how social media connect people with similar interests, how online communities lead to real world connections, and related matters. That’s before you even get to NASA’s role in it. Now try doing it in German, like I did for an interview with a German newspaper in 2011: http://www.lotsinspace.blogspot.com/2012/12/what-do-sts-133-sts-135-twitter-and-bad.html

So NASA Tweetups have happily evolved into NASA Socials, and the momentum shows no signs of slowing down. I wonder what the next four years will bring?

I joined twitter in 2008, mostly as a way to connect with other ferret lovers. Now, a little over four years and almost 12,000 tweets later, I continue to use twitter and other social media primarily to stay in touch with and exchange space-related info and news with other #spacetweeps. This hash tag has been adopted by those of us on twitter – many, if not most of us alumni of NASA Tweetups and NASA Socials – who are hopelessly in love with space and all the potential that robotic and manned human spaceflight holds for our future.

I discovered NASA Tweetups in the summer of 2010 – on twitter, of course. I have been following @NASA since I started tweeting and noticed the NASA Tweetup announcement for the last launch of Space Shuttle Discovery STS-133, planned for early November 2010. I was amazed at the opportunity being offered: A chance to see a shuttle launch from three miles away and all I needed was a twitter account that followed NASA. I had that! I applied to the Tweetup, still somewhat incredulous at this marvelous opportunity. I told one other person, my friend Tallulah (@tallulah_kidd), who also applied. NASA received 3,000 applications for the STS-133 Tweetup, and selected 50 to attend. Tallulah was chosen, I was not.  There is much speculation among spacetweeps  how NASA selects tweetup/social attendees. There is a general agreement that the selection process is largely random.

I was thrilled that Tallulah got to go, even more so when I discovered that I could be part of the Tweetup activities – at NASA and after hours – by watching the live streams set up by Tweetup attendees, including Joel Glick’s (@joelglick) now infamous “hat cam” he wore inside Kennedy Space Center.  During one such live stream, I heard @craftlass perform her now famous song “Bake Sale for NASA”. If you have never listened to her passionate music advocating human space exploration, you can do so here: craftlass.com

Hearing @craftlass’s music, seeing Tallulah in the midst of dozens of people - most of whom had been strangers to each other the day before - celebrating together, getting excited about space, science and seeing a shuttle launch, all of that was transformational for me. It gave me an unprecedented outlet for my lifelong passion for space and the establishment of permanent human outposts off our planet. This blog is one of the results.

Now, a little over two years later, my spacetweep network numbers are in the hundreds and I have met dozens of them in person. There is something about us space geeks that lets us get together as total strangers and leave a short time later with lasting friendships. Maybe it’s the revenge of the geeks. Many of us remember childhoods when geekiness wasn’t exactly cool or popular ~ And just look at all the adventures we are having now!

I attended my first NASA Tweetup in June 2011 at Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The highlight of the day was seeing Mars rover Curiosity from about 15 feet away: The visitor’s gallery in JPL’s clean room, where Curiosity was being prepared for shipment to Kennedy Space Center and her launch later that year.  A particular treat was signing a guest book so that the signatures could be digitized and stored on Curiosity.  Read more about my JPL Tweetup adventure here: http://www.lotsinspace.blogspot.com/2012/02/curiosity-meeting-mars-science.html

I did not get selected to attend the NASA Tweetup for the last space shuttle launch (Atlantis STS-135, July 2011) but joined the Space Park View Tweetup in Titusville, FL and traveled to Florida anyway.  There, I shared a house with other spacetweeps and was rewarded with an unforgettable launch experience. Read more about it here: http://www.lotsinspace.blogspot.com/2012/04/space-shuttle-atlantis-sts-135-final.html

Since then, I have been waitlisted, but not accepted, four times in a row for NASA launch Tweetups and Socials, starting with Curiosity's launch in November 2011 to the TDRS-K tracking satellite launch later this month. I was starting to think someone at NASA got a kick out of teasing me.

Then something  awesome happened, like it often does when NASA is involved: I was selected to receive social media accreditation for the next NASA Social at Dryden, Airborne Earth Sciences (#NASA_Airborne) on January 25, 2013.  This is a different type of NASA Social, where selection is not random and participants are chosen based on their social media posting history.  According to NASA:

What are NASA Social media credentials?
Social media credentials give users a chance to apply for the same access as journalists in an effort to align the access and experience of social media representatives with those of traditional media. People, who actively collect, report, analyze and disseminate news on social networking platforms are encouraged to apply for media credentials. Selection is not random. All social media accreditation applications will be considered on a case-by-case basis. Those chosen must prove through the registration process they meet specific engagement criteria.

Do I need to have a social media account to register?
Yes. This event is designed for people who:

• Actively use multiple social networking platforms and tools to disseminate information to a unique audience.
• Regularly produce new content that features multimedia elements.
• Have the potential to reach a large number of people using digital platforms.
• Reach a unique audience, separate and distinctive from traditional news media.
• Must have an established history of posting content on social media platforms.
• Have previous postings that are highly visible, respected and widely recognized.

I am honored that I was chosen as a social media representative for the Airborne Earth Sciences Social at NASA Dryden. I promise to bring exciting and up-to-the-minute coverage to my readers and followers!

There is a wiki page with details about all past and upcoming NASA Tweetups and Socials. Please note that participant lists may not be complete: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Tweetup
You can also join the wiki community here: http://www.nasatweet.com/

Water on Mars Revisited

From Giovanni Schiaparelli to Robert Heinlein the notion of water-filled "canals" on the surface of Mars was a popular one in science and science fiction during some of the late 19th and early 20th century. By the time I discovered science (fiction), the hypothesis of straight canals with flowing water on Mars had long since been dispelled. By the time I began to study Mars, Mariner and Viking had already sent back images from the Martian surface that meant I didn't have to imagine it. I could just look up the images. As I looked at Martian landscapes apparently devoid of any visible water, the notion of streams with flowing water on Mars appeared quaint and naive. 

Now, Curiosity has sent back images from Gale Crater that contain evidence of ancient, quick-flowing water on Mars. NASA's newest rover on the Red Planet found a tilted block of rock that is part of an ancient streambed, along with gravelly rocks whose shape and size indicate they were formed by having been tumbled in water, for a long time. The gravel is too heavy to have been shaped by wind. This is the first time that water-transported gravel has been found on Mars.

Evidence of an ancient streambed on Mars (left), compared to a similar formation on Earth

The size and shape of the gravel also provides clues about flow rate and duration: The water was between ankle- and hip-deep and flowed at a rate of 3 feet (1 meter) per second. That is a pretty brisk-moving stream. When water did flow on Mars in this location, it flowed for a very long time, a very long time ago.

We are certain to find additional clues as Curiosity continues its journey towards the Glenelg area of Mt. Sharp on Mars. In the meantime, I am left with a whole new, awesome dimension of Martian geological history. While Gale Crater was picked as the rover's landing site partly because orbital data indicated the presence of an alluvial flow, I have to ask: If Curiosity practically landed in an ancient Martian streambed, how common was water on Mars back when Gale Crater sported at least one knee-deep, briskly moving stream of water? Was it common or rare? Did the flowing water environment support any life? What happened to the planet between then and now? How did it change from an environment supporting liquid water to what it is today? Where did all that water go? 

We may not have reliable answers to these questions for a while but the fact that we can now ask them and look for clues in data directly from the Martian surface is a spectacular achievement of planetary science. 

Go Curiosity!

For my coverage of Curiosity's landing on Mars from Planetfest 2012, click here and here

For my coverage of the NASA/JPL tweetup featuring Curiosity in June 2011, click here

Welcome to Los Angeles, Endeavour!

Space Shuttle Endeavour arrived safely and to a huge welcome at Los Angeles International Airport on Friday, September 21, 2012.

Since it's easy to get caught up in the excitement of seeing a space shuttle soar overhead on top of a modified 747 (aka SCA = shuttle carrier aircraft) let's take a look at a rare photograph first. Below is Endeavour in her full splendor docked to the completed International Space Station during her last mission to space. Italian Astronaut Paulo Nespoli snapped this picture on May 23, 2011 from a Soyuz capsule. While there are a number of photos showing parts of shuttles photographed from inside the ISS, this is the only picture showing all of Endeavour docked to the completed ISS. This picture shows her doing what she was made for: Spaceflight. Building and servicing the International Space Station. An amazing machine that gave us the ability to construct a human outpost in orbit. Endeavour may be ready for retirement now and I can't wait to visit her at her new home at the California Science Center. I'm sure she will be breathtaking. 

But to me she was never more magnificent than doing what she did best - In Space.

Photo credit: Paulo Nespoli / NASA

Around 9 a.m. on Sept. 21, I started making my way to LAX a few miles away. I took the bus and train to avoid the predicted traffic chaos and shortage of parking at the location I had in mind: The East Side of Aviation Blvd, at the end of LAX's south runway. If you know the area, this stretch of road is located north of the Proud Bird restaurant. The runway starts on the other side of the street. It's a great spot for watching incoming planes fly low before touchdown. 

I arrived at the location at 10:30 a.m, as planned, for a shuttle landing time of 11 a.m., just as I learned that landing time had been postponed to 12:45 p.m. Aviation Blvd. is not one of those quaint, picturesque L.A. streets. It's a major four-lane airport access road and the ambiance is razor wire fence-industrial. The "sidewalk" is a narrow strip of gravel.  (Note: If you ever find yourself stranded on a narrow strip of gravel for a long wait, do so with a Southwest flight attendant who has a carry-on. They have everything you need in that bag for hot, dusty, historic space events!)

When I arrived, the crowd was still relatively thin. I settled in for a 2+ hour wait. Twitter dropped in and out of being accessible during that time so my #spottheshuttle tweets from the location are a bit... spotty. 

As I have found to be the case at all space events, nothing is easier than striking up a conversation with strangers. I met two flight attendants from Southwest Air, one who had come from Minneapolis, the other Las Vegas. I met an engineer who had worked on Endeavour's SSMEs. A mother who had brought her kid to see the shuttle; they had been waiting since 6 a.m. Two film students with professional equipment who planned to get footage of the landing and use it in their film project this semester, and many more. As a bonus, I got a ferocious sunburn despite SPF50. No matter.

By noon, the crowd had grown considerably and was now clustered along Aviation Blvd. in both directions as far as anyone could see. The cops amused us trying to contain everybody on the gravel strip, keeping them out of the bike path and street. This was a doomed effort. The bike path was ours. During the shuttle's final landing approach, the cops caved in, stopped traffic and let us take the street. That is when the long, dusty, brutally hot wait paid off. This is what we saw - no zoom, no filters, a glorious moment:

Photo credit: Tanya Ehret

The aircraft in the upper right is an F-19 fighter aircraft, one of two that accompany the shuttle carrier aircraft (SCA), a converted 747, flying space shuttles across the country. While the shuttle program was active, NASA maintained two SCAs to return shuttles from California. Shuttle landings were diverted to land at Edwards Air Force Base in California on a number of occasions.

Video credit: Tanya Ehret

 

The landing approach was Endeavour's third pass above us. We first glimpsed the plane carrying Endeavour as a speck in the northwest, from the direction of Santa Barbara, heading inland over Santa Monica, beginning its flyby of L.A. landmarks, including Griffith Observatory and Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The SCA then headed south, where it flew over Disneyland, Boeing and the U.S.S. Iowa. It then returned to LAX and gave us two approaches: The first one much higher than the above pic; even though it looked like it might land. At the last moment, the 747 pulled up and completed one last long loop to the southeast toward its final landing approach.    Welcome to Los Angeles, Endeavour! We are proud to have you. I will see you again during the parade to the CA Science Center on October 12. Below is a collection of some of my favorite photos.  


 

Endeavour began her journey to Southern California with flyovers of Sacramento and San Francisco 

Endeavour over Candlestick Park in San Francisco.

The two photos above were taken by a photographer for the L.A. Times from a skyscraper rooftop in nearby downtown Los Angeles

 A sight that was never before seen over downtown Los Angeles - 

and never will be again

 Endeavour soars over NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena 

 Touchdown at LAX

 You don't see this every day: Angelenos stop and get out of their cars along a busy airport access road to get a better look at History in the Making. 

By Saturday afternoon, Endeavour had been de-mated from the SCA. This marks the first time Endevour was seen nose-to-nose with a NASA shuttle carrier aircraft

Stunning Visuals - Mars Curiosity and PlanetFest 2012

By now, Curiosity has already sent back a treasure trove of thousands of images. They are all archived and accessible here, with new images added daily.

Below is a collection of images and videos that are among my personal favorites so far. Enjoy.


This is the very first image from Mars Curiosity, sent within minutes of the rover's touchdown. One of the wheels is visible in the lower right. We saw this live at Planet Fest 2012 in Pasadena on August 5, 2012, as the image came in. 

If you look below, just to the left of the center on the horizon, you will note what looks like three dots, one sitting on top of the other two, which in turn touch the horizon. Astute observers of this initial image noted that this feature was not in comparable images taken by Curiosity later on. The initial buzz over this discrepancy soon calmed down, as NASA confirmed that what we're looking at in the image below is the dust plume thrown up into the Martian atmosphere upon Skycrane's impact. That is why this "feature" is no longer visible in later images.

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), which is orbiting Mars, used its HiRISE instrument to snap this picture of Curiosity under its descent chute, just prior to touchdown on Mars at Bradbury Landing:

One of the most stunning images that Curiosity has sent back so far, is this interactive panoramic view of Bradbury Landing and Gale Crater. Click and explore the surface of Mars in color! (Copyright: Hans Nyberg, panoramas.dk)

http://www.panoramas.dk/mars/greeley-haven.html






Everyone who has been following Curiosity's wondrous journey, has seen this NASA video, dubbed "7 Minutes of Terror", which details the intricacy, complexity and engineering precision required to land Curiosity on target and intact:

   

And then, of course, there is this spoof video (not made by NASA) that quickly went viral. You'll see why (if you haven't already).      
 

   




Finally, a friend and I having fun inside one of XCOR's Lynx 2-seater space plane mockups at PlanetFest:       
 

Planet Fest 2012 - Curiosity Has Landed!

When was the last time you were part of a crowd of 3,000 people cheering wildly and chanting the name of a government agency for minutes on end?

Yeah, that had never happened to me either - until the evening of August 5, 2012, around 10:30 pm PDT at Planet Fest 2012 in Pasadena, a weekend-long celebration hosted by The Planetary Society that culminated in Curiosity's landing on Mars. I was at Planet Fest with a friend. About an hour before the scheduled landing time we had secured two seats in the second row from the front in one of two large auditoriums with several over-sized screens that allowed us live views of the JPL control room and let us interact with other Curiosity Celebrations around the world: Canada, Australia, Times Square. The whole world was watching.

As 10:30 pm drew closer, we endured a nail-biting wait as Curiosity performed a picture-perfect landing at Gale Crater. One after another - with a 15-minute time delay due to the distance between Mars and Earth - Curiosity hit every milestone of her entry, descent and landing phases. 

Bruce Betts was on stage with Bill Nye, who had engaged, entertained and interacted with the audience all evening. In the final minutes of the landing phase, as we awaited the signal that Curiosity was safely on the ground, both Bill Nye and Bruce Betts were riveted to the screens, their backs turned to the audience. Then we heard the signal - Curiosity was on the ground, on another world! 

The cheers and jubilation that ensued were a wonder to witness and experience. At first it was clapping, cheers and yells, then a few "USA! USA! USA!" emanated from the crowd, which quickly morphed into "JPL! JPL! JPL!". The entire audience joined in for several minutes. I was literally jumping up and down. 

It came as a total surprise to me when I suddenly found myself face to face with a cameraman and a reporter, who thrust an ABC 7 microphone into my face and said: "You seem pretty excited. What do you think?" I am usually very, very reserved around news media, especially broadcast media, so I don't know what came over me that night. I yelled "I think this is the most exciting thing humans have ever done!" into the mic. (Yes I know that's arguable. But I was biased. We'd just landed a giant freaking nuclear-powered robot with lasers on Mars!) In retrospect, I overdid it for the camera. I don't believe ABC 7 ever aired my excited outburst, whereas my friend, who wasn't quite acting as much as a madwoman as I was, found herself all over the local evening and morning news.  

So yes, I flubbed my chance to reach a large TV audience that night with a pithy sound bite because my excitement got the better of me. I don’t ever apologize for my enthusiasm for space exploration. But next time a TV reporter sticks a microphone into my face and asks me to comment on a planetary science mission, I will know exactly what to say and how to say it so that I will actually get some air time!

Curiosity: Meeting Mars Science Laboratory at JPL

On June 6, 2011, I was one among 120 @NASA Twitter followers who were invited to spend a day behind the scenes at a NASA Tweetup at Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.

This was my first NASA Tweetup and the second held at JPL, which hosted the first one in January 2009. Now, three years later, there are Tweetups hosted at various NASA facilities just about every month, in addition to many space-themed Tweetups organized by Twitter space enthusiasts not affiliated with NASA, a group that has christened itself #spacetweeps.

Immersion in Tweetups and related social events has been a tremendous inspiration for me. It rekindled my life-long passion for space, space exploration and space tourism in a setting that allows me not only to geek out to my heart's content, but to be part of a fast growing community of people who all want to see humans get off our planet and establish a permanent presence beyond low-Earth orbit. Not 100 years from now. Not 50 years from now. But NOW, in our lifetime.

I have yet to meet anyone at a NASA or space Tweetup who does NOT want to go into space. To illustrate just how much we do, an informal poll I took at a gathering of spacetweeps last July revealed that 80% answered Yes when offered this scenario: "You are given the opportunity to live on a Mars Colony in your lifetime. The trip is one-way. Would you go?"

I don't think NASA expected its Tweetup campaign to evolve into the social phenomenon, online and off, that it has become. Still, the credit certainly belongs to NASA and its social media specialists for creating a highly effective public outreach campaign, at a time when the agency's 30-year Space Shuttle Program drew to a close and NASA faced significant changes in its operations, staffing and priorities.

When I arrived at JPL on June 6, 2011, I expected to experience great things and meet people who would become friends. I was not disappointed. NASA Tweetup day at JPL stands out as one of my most memorable days of the year.

The highlight of the day was a tour of the JPL facility where Mars rover Curiosity was in its final stages of assembly, with preparations underway to ship the rover to Kennedy Space Center for its November 2011 launch. When I look at the pictures from that day, I marvel that this machine is now well on its way to the Red Planet. Curiosity will reach Mars orbit in August 2012.

The rover impressively outclasses its predecessors: Curiosity is the size of a car and weighs in at a ton. It is nuclear-powered and its many scientific instruments include a laser that can vaporize Martian rock. In a major design innovation, Curiosity won't have to bounce off the Martian surface encased in giant balloons to land in a most undignified manner. Befitting a robot of its sophistication, it will instead be lowered by a sky crane that uses retro rocket and tethers to guide Curiosity to its destination at Gale Crater while hovering above the Martian surface.

A flawless launch atop an Atlas V rocket on November 26, 2011 saw Curiosity off on an 8-month-trip to Mars:

I expect to see NASA Tweetups and space meetups around the world later this year as we celebrate Curiosity's arrival in Mars orbit and track the rover's descent onto the surface of another world. Nuclear-powered, laser-equipped and all that, Curiosity does have a whimsical side as well. The wheels have a tread pattern that spells out J-P-L in Morse code wherever Curiosity travels on the Red Planet. 

At the Tweetup, we were invited to sign a guest list, an image of which is on its way to Mars with Curiosity, along with a million others. I bet I'm not the only one who signed the list who has wondered about future colonists who will encounter Curiosity on the Martian surface and scan that list for the name of a relative or friend.

Mars Rovers Family Portrait:

Curiosity is on the right, Spirit/Opportunity is on the left, and the smallest one is a model of Sojourner, which launched to the Red Planet in 1997. Spirit and Opportunity arrived in 2003. Both Spirit and Oppy were designed to explore Mars for 90 days. Spirit remained operational until the summer of 2011 and Opportunity, roving strong now in its 9th year, is still sending back data.

You can track Curiosity's progress to the Red Planet here in real time:  
Where is Curiosity?