Communicating Space Exploration: Challenges, State of the Art and Future Trends (Space and Society) 303033211X, 9783030332112

Table of contents :
Acknowledgements
Contents
About the Author
References
Abbreviations
1 What This Book Is About
2 Science and Space in Society
2.1 Science in Society
2.2 Science and Its Values
2.3 The Role of Science Communication
2.4 The Fascination of Space
References
3 Institutional Space Communication
3.1 Strategic Questions and Target Groups
3.2 Assets and Limits
3.3 Powerful Messages but in a Competitive Information Society
3.4 Challenges of Space Communication
3.5 The Communication Funnel
3.6 Crisis Communication
3.7 Available Communication Tools and Their Evolution Over Time
References
4 Space Communication for the Public
4.1 The Interested, the Neutral and the Residual Publics
4.2 The General Public’s Attitudes Towards Space
4.3 Some Important Segments of the General Public
4.3.1 Astronaut Followers and Amateur Astronomers
4.3.2 The Science-Informed General Public
References
5 Space Communication for the Stakeholders
5.1 Decision-Makers
5.2 Media, Opinion Leaders and Influencers
5.3 The Scientific Community
5.4 Industry
References
6 Some Space Missions and Events as Case Studies on Space Communication
6.1 Sputnik 1
6.2 Yuri Gagarin
6.3 Apollo (11-13)
6.4 The Hubble Space Telescope
6.5 First Crew Aboard the ISS
6.6 Mars Rovers
6.7 Massimino’s First Tweet from Space
6.8 The International Space Station Cupola
6.9 The Rosetta Mission
6.10 The Stratos Mission
6.11 SpaceX
References
7 Future Trends in Space Communication
7.1 Introduction
7.2 Trends in Space Industry and Science
7.3 Trends in Communication
7.4 Institutional Space Communication in the Future
References

Citation preview

Space and Society Editor-in-Chief: Douglas A. Vakoch

Fulvio Drigani

Communicating Space Exploration Challenges, State of the Art and Future Trends

Space and Society Editor-in-Chief Douglas A. Vakoch, METI International, San Francisco, CA, USA Series Editors Setsuko Aoki, Keio University, Tokyo, Japan Anthony Milligan, King’s College London, London, UK Beth O’Leary, Department of Anthropology, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM, USA

The Space and Society series explores a broad range of topics in astronomy and the space sciences from the perspectives of the social sciences, humanities, and the arts. As humankind gains an increasingly sophisticated understanding of the structure and evolution of the universe, critical issues arise about the societal implications of this new knowledge. Similarly, as we conduct ever more ambitious missions into space, questions arise about the meaning and significance of our exploration of the solar system and beyond. These and related issues are addressed in books published in this series. Our authors and contributors include scholars from disciplines including but not limited to anthropology, architecture, art, environmental studies, ethics, history, law, literature, philosophy, psychology, religious studies, and sociology. To foster a constructive dialogue between these researchers and the scientists and engineers who seek to understand and explore humankind’s cosmic context, the Space and Society series publishes work that is relevant to those engaged in astronomy and the space sciences, while also being of interest to scholars from the author’s primary discipline. For example, a book on the anthropology of space exploration in this series benefits individuals and organizations responsible for space missions, while also providing insights of interest to anthropologists. The monographs and edited volumes in the series are academic works that target interdisciplinary professional or scholarly audiences. Space enthusiasts with basic background knowledge will also find works accessible to them.

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/11929

Fulvio Drigani

Communicating Space Exploration Challenges, State of the Art and Future Trends

123

Fulvio Drigani Frascati, Italy

ISSN 2199-3882 ISSN 2199-3890 (electronic) Space and Society ISBN 978-3-030-33211-2 ISBN 978-3-030-33212-9 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33212-9 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

“You know,” said Arthur, “it’s at times like this, when I’m trapped in a Vogon1 airlock with a man from Betelgeuse, and about to die of asphyxiation in deep space that I really wish I’d listened to what my mother told me when I was young.” “Why, what did she tell you?” “I don’t know, I didn’t listen.” —Douglas Adams, “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”. 1985.

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The Vogons are aliens from the planet Vogsphere in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. They are unpleasant bureaucrats who destroyed Earth to make a Galactic hyperspace route by-pass.

To my parents.

Acknowledgements

First of all, I would like to thank Stefano Sandrelli, currently Head of the Education and Outreach Office at INAF, Italian National Institute for Astrophysics, and writer of space books for adults and kids, who actively participated in the early phase of the project and has provided contributions that were included in Sects. 2.4 and 4.2. Secondly, I also have to thank Rossella Spiga, astronomer and science communicator at the University of Padua, Italy, who was an active contributor to the book. In fact, she wrote the entirety of Chap. 2 and made some contributions to Chap. 6. A special thanks goes to my daughter, Valeria Irem, for her technical and graphical support, and to Fabrizio L’Abbate, Head of Corporate Identity Unit, ESA, who advised me on the notion of Corporate Identity.

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Contents

1 What This Book Is About . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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3 Institutional Space Communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 Strategic Questions and Target Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Assets and Limits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Powerful Messages but in a Competitive Information Society 3.4 Challenges of Space Communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.5 The Communication Funnel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.6 Crisis Communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.7 Available Communication Tools and Their Evolution Over Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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4 Space Communication for the Public . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 The Interested, the Neutral and the Residual Publics . . . 4.2 The General Public’s Attitudes Towards Space . . . . . . . 4.3 Some Important Segments of the General Public . . . . . 4.3.1 Astronaut Followers and Amateur Astronomers . 4.3.2 The Science-Informed General Public . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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5 Space Communication for the Stakeholders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1 Decision-Makers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2 Media, Opinion Leaders and Influencers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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2 Science and Space in Society . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 Science in Society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Science and Its Values . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 The Role of Science Communication . 2.4 The Fascination of Space . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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5.3 The Scientific Community . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.4 Industry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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6 Some Space Missions and Events as Case Studies on Space Communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.1 Sputnik 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2 Yuri Gagarin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3 Apollo (11-13) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.4 The Hubble Space Telescope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.5 First Crew Aboard the ISS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.6 Mars Rovers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.7 Massimino’s First Tweet from Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.8 The International Space Station Cupola . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.9 The Rosetta Mission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.10 The Stratos Mission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.11 SpaceX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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7 Future Trends in Space Communication . . . . . . . . . . 7.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.2 Trends in Space Industry and Science . . . . . . . . 7.3 Trends in Communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.4 Institutional Space Communication in the Future References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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About the Author

Fulvio Drigani having graduated from “Bocconi University” in Milan, Italy, he spent a good part of his career at the “European Space Agency (ESA)”, first in the Science Programme Directorate, for which he became Head of Science Communication, then at the Corporate level, as Head of ESA’s Online Communication, Social Media, Multimedia Distribution, Publications and Corporate Branding Office. Later on, he also managed the Italian Country Desk taking care of the social media campaigns of astronauts Paolo Nespoli, Luca Parmitano and Samantha Cristoforetti. During his career, he launched the first Science Communication website, the first ESA web portal, www.esa.int (ESA 2000; Drigani and Scholz 2019) and introduced social media as a Communication tool of the Agency. He also introduced the present ESA corporate visual identity (Drigani et al. 2010).

References Drigani, F., L’Abbate, F., Simões H., Walker C.: The way we ESA, introducing ESA corporate visual identity. ESA Bulletin 141. https://m.esa.int/About_Us/ESA_Publications/ESA_i_ Bulletin_i_141_February_2010 (2010). Accessed Aug 2019 Drigani F., Scholz J.: ESA portal brings Europe’s Mars adventure to the millions. ESA Bulletin 119. http://www.esa.int/esapub/bulletin/bulletin119/bul119_chap7.pdf. Accessed 29 Aug 2019 ESA. (Press release 61-2000): ESA’S new portal—gateway to Europe’s space presence. https:// www.esa.int/Newsroom/Press_Releases/ESA_s_new_web_portal_-_gateway_to_Europe_s_ space_presence (2000). Accessed Aug 2019

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Abbreviations

DTH ESA ESO ESOA FSS INAF ISS JAXA JPL MSS NASA NSF RosCosmos STS STScI UK US, USA USSR

Direct to Home European Space Agency European Southern Observatory EMEA Satellite Operators Association Fixed Satellites Services Italian National Institute for Astrophysics International Space Station Japanese Space Agency Jet Propulsion Laboratory Mobile Satellite Services National Aeronautics and Space Administration National Science Foundation Russian Space Agency Space Transportation System Space Telescope Science Institute United Kingdom United States of America Soviet Union (Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics)

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Chapter 1

What This Book Is About

For centuries, humankind has been fascinated by journeys into the unknown, and books and novels on that subject have always been very popular. A discovery in space has always been one of the most sought-after achievements, as the universe remains mysterious and fascinating. In the idea of space, humans find emotions, thrills, excitements and the far-reaching destiny of the species (Fig. 1.1). Today, space journeys are a fact. Space is actually a place where human beings can have new direct experiences and even communicate them in real time to the rest of the planet, thanks to the web and social media. But Space has also become the territory of important business in many fields, from telecommunications to earth observation.

Fig. 1.1 The Jantar Mantar, a collection of astronomical instruments built by the Maharaja of Jaipur in the eighteenth century. Credit Knowledge Seeker

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 F. Drigani, Communicating Space Exploration , Space and Society, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33212-9_1

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1 What This Book Is About

All of this makes Space a crucial element for Society. Its successes, if properly communicated, can significantly increase public awareness of Science at large, leading authorities to invest more money so as to boost the industry, also contributing, in this way, to technological progress and culture. This work is devoted to Institutional Space Communication, i.e., communication undertaken by Space Agencies and other public institutions, and describes the main steps taken within that discipline since the beginning of the space era in the ‘50s, showing how it has changed following new social and political issues and through taking advantage of new technologies. Modifications in the social environment and the evolution of communication tools will therefore be analysed, since they can significantly affect institutional communication. The fact that communicating about Space implies talking about the shared mission of humankind to explore new frontiers, new forms of progress and the future itself will also be discussed and observations will be provided on how it is being promoted by scientists, space agencies, etc. However, I would like to underline that this work is not intended to provide a comparative analysis among space agencies, nor a historical review of the most memorable space missions. A small number of missions will be taken into account in Chap. 6 as case studies, but only for their relevance in the evolution of space communication over the last six decades. The book will also stress, in Chap. 3, that one of the main challenges of Institutional Space Communication is the fact that many different audiences have to be reached. They include the General Public at large, the science-informed public, space followers, industry, media, decision-makers, opinion leaders, different stakeholders and, last but not least, the scientific community. Each audience inevitably has very different interests and objectives, and it is therefore a very complex undertaking to reach all of them in a proper way. In Chaps. 2 and 4, the role of Science and Space Communication in relation to the attitudes of the general public in today’s world will also be discussed, since modern life is largely dependent on the rational approach typical of Science, but a non-negligible part of society seems to refuse scientific thinking, tending to believe in online rumors or improvised theories. This is a risky situation, since politicians are very concerned by short-term trends in public opinion and may be influenced by vociferous movements and lobbies that oppose science, and Space science in particular. Moreover, the Space science movement may have difficulties in the present multimedia society in making sure its voice is properly heard. At the beginning of the Space Era, in fact, information only came from public organizations. Today, a multitude of media is able to communicate news about Science and Space1 through many different channels, and the truly relevant messages in regard to Space may therefore be overwhelmed by other topics that are more popular in a certain moment. Moreover, communicating about Space in many ways and through various channels does not necessarily mean obtaining significant results in terms of real awareness in the general public. Awareness, in fact, often remains very superficial, lasting only as 1 Not

always in a proper way.

1 What This Book Is About

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long as it takes a major event to unfold, and doesn’t guarantee that the society at large will provide its support to space research. Space communication also faces other challenges. First of all, a significant part of the public doesn’t see any immediate benefits to human life resulting from space research. Moreover, many day-to-day applications, such as geo-localisation, Earth mapping and monitoring, are perceived mainly as technological advancements of computing technology and mobile communication, and not as consequences of Space research. Finally, risks associated with Space, like the high costs of launch failures, are often overemphasised by the media. Despite all of these difficulties, Space is perceived by many as fascinating and necessary for human development, and it attracts fans who are enthusiasts and want to be involved as much as possible. It is therefore a pleasure and a duty of communication officers to provide a sufficient amount of exciting content for them and to try to inspire further enthusiasts. In Chap. 5, Space communication for stakeholders will be discussed. Stakeholders represent a very broad category that includes: • • • • •

Decision-makers, the ones who determine public budgets for Space research; The media, constantly on the lookout for news; Opinion leaders, such as pundits, who are always looking for controversy; Influencers, mainly active on social media, who try to convince selected audiences; The Scientific Community, who are looking for increased visibility as a return on investment on space communication; • Industry, which looks for ways to promote their achievements, in order to obtain more contracts and publicise their technological spin-offs. Each of them needs targeted communication, messages and support, a major communication challenge that will be analysed in detail. Finally, in Chap. 7, some indications on the future trends of space communication will be given. Taking all of this into account, I would expect that this book will be useful for many readers, ranging from Space scientists and communication experts, to people fascinated by exploration and discovery, Space stakeholders and fans.

Chapter 2

Science and Space in Society

Abstract Democracy needs Science, since Democracy has the task of administering technology, while Science has the duty to manage the dissemination of knowledge, ideally in a fully integrated system. All of us, as citizens of a society based on knowledge, are involved in this unstoppable process called progress, and science promotes the iconic image of the rational enterprise capable of changing our daily lives, our modes of communication and our vision of the world. Outer space is the extreme horizon of our world, and its fascination for human beings is driving us towards multi-faceted communication in regard to science and space exploration.

2.1 Science in Society Science is what drives us forward as a society; we depend on science for everyday life, and scientists work to make a contribution towards a greater understanding of how the world works. Scientific knowledge, technological development and innovation represent the core of economic growth and the engines of progress in modern societies. New technologies continuously deliver solutions to environmental and health problems, and advancements in medicine and mobile communications are only the first examples that come to mind of large-scale industrial achievements that have created major social changes. All of us are involved in this unstoppable process called progress, and science promotes the iconic image of the rational enterprise capable of changing our daily lives, our modes of communication and our vision of the world. We can unquestionably define our society as a knowledge society. In such a context, it is therefore an ethical imperative of modern research to carefully consider its broader impacts (Duke Science & Society 2019) and to communicate them, and it is also a growing expectation of the organisations funding research to be informed on the benefits generated by science. From all of this, we can derive that, since society is steeped in science, science must take responsibility for its societal implications (Barron 2017) and the political system has to support active measures to improve its citizens’ scientific culture.

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 F. Drigani, Communicating Space Exploration , Space and Society, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33212-9_2

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The beginning of modern science policy was marked by the landmark report “Science—The Endless Frontier” (Pielke 2010), published by the United States government in 1945. Commissioned by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, it was prepared by Vannevar Bush, who directed US government research during the Second World War. The document invoked federal support of science and stated that scientific progress is an essential key to security, better health, more jobs, a higher standard of living, and cultural progress. Although its bold recommendations were only partly implemented, the still unsettled nature of science policy had been transformed. As a consequence of that, government funding for research and development increased by a factor of more than ten from the 1940s to the 1960s (Pielke 2010). A centralised approach to government-sponsored science, largely shielded from political accountability, determined a significant revolution in the relationship between science and society and broadened the meaning of “basic research”. With that, the President expressed the different interests of scientists and politicians in pursuing research: governments demand relevance, but scientists need freedom. Policy-makers invest to get practical innovations, while scientists need to promote a curiosity-driven research. “Science—The Endless Frontier” (Pielke 2010) can therefore be considered the turning-point in the transition from an academic to a post-academic science (Ziman et al. 1996), that redefined US scientific policy. Since the end of the Second World War, due also to the competition between the United States and the Soviet Union, governments have invested in applied research to gain military and economic supremacy. Science has, in this way, become the engine of capitalist development, and the importance of active support for research has been recognised by most industrialised countries. On October 4, 1957, another watershed event occurred that changed the “science and society” landscape, marking the beginning of the Space Age. The Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite, an event that greatly encouraged investments in research and the promotion of scientific culture. Furthermore, the interest in scientific literacy in the United States during the late 1950s demonstrated the public support given to the American scientific community responding to the Soviet launch of Sputnik. Alan T. Waterman, at that time, Director of the US National Science Foundation (NSF), stated that: Progress in science depends to a considerable extent on public understanding and support of a sustained program of science education and research. (Laugksch 2000)

In 1957, a survey of the American public found attitudes that were clearly in favour of science, but that also showed modest levels of understanding; a result that was used to justify greater investments in science education programmes. It was for the purpose of appraising the impact of these programmes that, in the 1970s, the NSF included “scientific literacy”1 (Bucchi 2010) among its “science 1 Scientific

Literacy is defined as the knowledge and understanding of scientific concepts and processes required for personal decision-making, participation in civic and cultural affairs, and economic productivity.

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indicators” (Bucchi 2010). Six months later, in 1958, the NSF introduced a Public Understanding of Science programme, costing one and a half million dollars. 2.1 Science in SocietytextIn 1958, the US President Dwight D. Eisenhower responded to the national fear of falling behind the Soviets in the utilisation and exploration of outer space by creating a new civilian space agency, NASA (2019) (the National Aeronautics and Space Administration), replacing the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). The new independent agency would be responsible for human, satellite and robotic space programs, as well as aeronautical research. In 1958, Europe, thanks to the visionary ideas of two prominent Western European scientists, Edoardo Amaldi of Italy and Pierre Auger of France, also started to discuss cooperation among Western European Countries in Space research. The Western European nations decided to have two agencies: ELDO (the European Launch Development Organisation), specifically tasked with building a launch system, and ESRO (the European Space Research Organisation), both precursors of the European Space Agency. From 1968 to 1972, ESRO launched seven research satellites. In 1975, ESA (2019) (the European Space Agency) was founded by merging the two. It had ten founding member states: Belgium, Denmark, France, West Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Today, ESA has 22 member states.

2.2 Science and Its Values In contemporary democratic societies, the relationship between scientists and citizens, and in general between scientific knowledge and democracy in general, is a very complex theme. Since the seventeenth century, the members of the scientific community have reached a rational consensus of opinions on a specific world vision by means of an ensemble of shared values (Merton 1942). This set of values is based on: • “Communalism” (Merton 1942): the results of science should be regarded as “public knowledge” that can be freely communicated to other scientists, students and the public at large; • “Universalism” (Merton 1942): contributions to science cannot be excluded due to differences in nationality, religion, race, gender or social status; • “Disinterestedness” (Merton 1942): research institutions act for the benefit of science, and not for their own interests; • “Organised scepticism” (Merton 1942): any new contribution to science should be exposed to critical discussion before being accepted. In parallel with the growth of Modern Science, citizens have acquired several human rights, and the fundamental values of democratic societies now include freedom of research and accessibility to knowledge. Thus, history demonstrates that

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diffusion of science and the diffusion of democracy are not independent, but rather intertwined. Democracy needs Science, since Democracy has the task of administering technology, while Science has the duty to manage the dissemination of knowledge, ideally in a fully integrated system. One would also say that Science needs Democracy, in which it can find its basic values: universality and transparency. However, the issue in this case is rather complex. It is, in fact, true that Science needs freedom and cannot thrive in an environment in which ideology or religion dictate the scientific agenda, as it did in the case of Galileo. However, totalitarian regimes2 often give Science freedom in areas such as military, research, the achievements of which they can benefit from, and many scientists have worked and still work to support non-democratic regimes. It is, in any case, true that Science thrives more in a Democratic environment, and, in particular, in a liberal economy, since, in that environment, it is easier to share information and results. Today, roughly one third of total funds for research comes from local companies without a global dimension, and two thirds of their income are represented by governative funds, which means that a liberal economy largely contributes to the progress of Science even if there is a large component of research that is subject to political laws (elections, votes, social consensus). The majority of scientists believes that science and democratic societies should not conflict, because they accomplish different tasks. Science deals with the explanation of facts, society is concerned with the use of the acquired knowledge to pursue social aims through an appropriate institutional framework. Science is value-free and morally neutral. It is, in fact, a totally different thing to explain (or predict) facts than it is to choose moral or social values, a task that belongs to the individuals and that depends on a collective decision-making process. There is, therefore, a well-defined boundary between science and society, and each defends its own autonomy from the other. One can at this point cite the iconic case of Galileo Galilei during the Scientific Revolution, which represents a clear lack of freedom of science caused by the society, but, of course, the opposite case can be cited as well, represented by scientists and experts who ignore the values and purposes of society. Science is competitive competitive, but, at the same time, collaborative, and it promotes international cooperation. The research of truth is the constitutive value of science, while moral or ethical values belong to the free debate that takes place in democratic societies (Barrotta 2018). The question “is Science democratic?” is very common in public debate, and both experts and non-experts in science-related issues—as members of the same global democratic community—are called to answer. The Collins Dictionary gives the following definition of democracy: With the notion “democracy” we define a system of organisations, businesses, and groups in which each member is entitled to vote and take part in decisions. (Collins Dictionary 2019) 2 The

initial space research successes of the Soviet Union are an example of that.

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In line with that definition, citizens nowadays look for information that will enable them to take part in society’s decisions, and they don’t necessarily trust one single source. They are critical consumers of knowledge and they assert their will to actively participate in the public debate. There is, therefore, an uneasy relationship between science and democracy, and public skepticism towards science is growing, negatively affecting the mutually supportive relationship between science and democracy. The engagement of citizens in scientific and technological controversies is unavoidable, making it necessary that institutions find solutions. They face the fact that the need to make democratic decisions on controversial issues comes from the bottom, as citizens’ desire to actively participate in the decision-making process and populist excesses are part of the same process, since they are a misguided interpretation of the concept of a “collaborative science”. Whenever science produces an “inconvenient truth” (Revkin 2006)—as Al Gore famously calls the science of climate change—scientists like to remind society that: You can’t vote on the laws of physics!

2.3 The Role of Science Communication In Europe, an important landmark dealing with the relationship between Science and Society was represented by the report on “The Public Understanding of Science”, published by the Royal Society in 1985. Quoting that report: Better public understanding of science can be a major element in promoting national prosperity, in raising the quality of public and private decision making and in enriching the life of the individual. (The Royal Society 1985)

The report specified the benefits for both individuals and the society. First of all, people who are better informed about scientific matters are able to make more rational choices in their daily lives (for example, on health). Secondly, as to society, if citizens are better informed about science and technology, they will better understand political and economic decisions, and thus contribute more effectively to the democratic process. The report concluded that: Scientists must learn to communicate to the public and consider it their duty to do so. (NASA 2019)

However, a science-centred view considers any problematic relationship between citizens and science to be a consequence of people’s ignorance and irrationality, while science is regarded as revealed truth. For a long time, filling the gaps in public knowledge has, for scientists, meant nothing more than reaching public agreements on science-related issues. Connecting science and society should instead mean trusting scientists as sources of information; this has to do with emotions, social identity (Nisbet and Scheufele 2012) and, ultimately, democracy. Public understanding of science is not simply

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matter of scientific literacy, as defined in Sect. 2.1,3 but it can be one of the major elements in promoting national prosperity, in raising the quality of public and private decision-making and in enriching the lives of individuals (The Royal Society 1985). People do, in fact, expect experts to provide them with scientific information that is useful to their lives. In fact, common topics of science communication are health, food, risks, climate change, all issues directly affecting the quality of citizens’ lives. Science communication therefore has the task and the ultimate duty to facilitate the relationship among scientific experts, political decision-makers and public opinion and, in doing so, ensuring that the principles of Science communication such as rigour, transparency and open access to debate, are the same as those of science. In this respect, let us spend a few moments revisiting the case of the former United States Vice President Al Gore and “An inconvenient Truth” (Gore and Guggenheim 2006), the 2006 documentary about Mr Gore’s campaign to educate people on global warming. This was a good example of science communication and undeniably raised public awareness on climate change. The movie had a much greater impact on public opinion and public awareness of global climate change than any scientific paper or report (Stecula and Merkley 2006; Yeo et al. 2018; Smith and Howe 2015) published on the subject in those days. This example shows that science communication is useful for connecting science with the values and interests of citizens through participatory processes: it is a bridge between the scientific community and the society. Furthermore, science communication is useful for increasing the participation by experts in addressing non-expert audiences in order to resolve public controversies (for example, certain issues related to health risks are particularly relevant). Without effective science communication, the potential for the dangerous phenomenon of polarisation of communication (either authoritative or populist) around scientific issues becomes that much greater. At first sight, the topics of greatest debate are more interesting for citizens than for research institutions (a well-known mediatic case is that of vaccine safety), but, from a deeper perspective, effective science communication improves the awareness of citizens on issues regarding public debate, enhances trust in the institutions that fund research and increases the credibility of decision-makers. Society and science, in this context, are not independent, and mediatic pressure on a specific issue is capable of triggering a public demand and influencing policy-makers. These mechanisms will be discussed in more depth in Sect. 5.2. In this framework, good communication practices are useful for putting in place a democratisation process that leads to a convergence between science and the values and interests of citizens by means of a participatory process. In line with that, one of the institutional tasks of universities is to accomplish the so-called “third mission”. Thus, the university is not only responsible for qualifying human capital (Education—the first mission) and for producing new knowledge (Research—the second mission), but also for communicating scientific results in an understandable way (the third mission). Today, universities develop their strategies 3 See

footnote 1

2.3 The Role of Science Communication

11

around these three missions. Governments develop third mission policies by allocating funding in that direction, while policy-makers and experts implement specific indicators in order to evaluate the societal impacts of research results. Furthermore, in modern research, making people aware of the so-called broader impacts (Duke Science & Society 2019) of research—defined as the potential benefits for society—is also necessary to address the growing expectations coming from the organisations that fund the research work.

2.4 The Fascination of Space We had the sky, up there, all speckled with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss about whether they was made, or only just happened - Jim he allowed they was made, but I allowed they happened; I judged it would have took too long to make so many. (Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. 1884)

What do the Brazilian flag, Giotto, Shakespeare, the alternative progressive rock band Muse and the actress Emma Watson have in common? The answer is only surprising on the surface: outer space. The Brazilian flag—the so-called “a auriverde”—is a green field with a yellow rhombus at its center. Within the rhombus is inscribed a blue disc decorated by a starry sky—namely, the Southern Cross asterism. A slightly tilted band across the disk shows the motto “Ordem e Progresso”, “Order and Progress”. The flag of Brazil is not a rare case: plenty of flags display images related to outer space (Wikimedia Commons 2019): from Croatia to Kazakhstan, from Tunisia to Australia, from Niger to North Macedonia, from Nepal to the USA, from Malawi to Uruguay to the European Union, just to name a handful of nations or confederations. Space can be represented by stars or planets, by a simple full Moon or by the star and crescent, by constellations or asterisms, as in the Brazilian case (Fig. 2.1). Giotto (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giotto) (c. 1267—January 8, 1337), was one of the most amazing artists of the late medieval age. He changed the way that nature was represented in paintings at that time. One of his masterpieces, the decoration of the Scrovegni Chapel, is a sort of narrative series, and includes the “Adoration of the Magi”. Here, Giotto paints the “Star of Bethlehem” as a comet (or a comet-like star): since the decoration was completed in 1306 and Halley’s comet had appeared four years before—it is easy to determine a correlation. In 1986, the European Space Agency launched a space probe to study Halley’s comet’s nucleus: the name of the mission was—can you guess?—Giotto. What else? Shakespeare’s works are an endless sequence of reference to outer space (Nichols 2016): according to McCormick-Goodhart, he used the word “heaven” over 800 times. But only a few times does he directly refer to the physical concept of the universe. At the end of sixteenth and the beginning of seventeenth century, stars meant, above all, astrology, destiny and fate. In the drama Romeo and Juliet, stars

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Fig. 2.1 The Brazilian Flag

are often a sign of the two lovers’ disgrace and future doom; but they are also the strongest seal of the height of their romantic love, as in the scene in the Capulet’s orchard (act III, scene II):

Fig. 2.2 The ESO 3.6-m telescope at La Silla, during observations. The Milky Way, our own galaxy, stretches across the picture: it is a disc-shaped structure seen perfectly edge-on. Above the telescope’s dome, here lit by the Moon, and partially hidden behind dark dust clouds, is the yellowish and prominent central bulge of the Milky Way. The whole plane of the galaxy is populated by about a hundred thousand million stars, as well as significant amounts of interstellar gas and dusts. Located 600 km north of Santiago, at an altitude of 2400 m on the outskirts of the Chilean Atacama Desert, La Silla was the first ESO site in Chile and the largest observatory of its time. Credit ESO/S. Brunier

2.4 The Fascination of Space

13

Come, gentle night, come, loving, black-brow’d night Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die, Take him and cut him out in little stars, And he will make the face of heaven so fine That all the world will be in love with night And pay no worship to the garish sun. (William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, 1591–1595)

The relevance of the stars in Shakespeare (Condie 2013) is so consistent that there have been attempts to shed light on his real identity by analysing the references that can be found in his work to important contemporary discoveries (Altschuler 1988). The English band Muse (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muse_(band)), formed in 1994, has sold more than 20 millions albums worldwide. Its second album, “Origin of Symmetry” (2001), took its inspiration from modern physics, while their fourth album (2006) has the title “Black Holes and Revelations”. Muse are astonishing in their scientific interest and their ability to feed their expressiveness with science, but they are not the only ones. Rock music is full of links to modern space science. As in flags or in Shakespeare, those links are deeply and largely inhomogeneous, going from plain suggestions (as in “You’re a Sky Full of Stars”, Coldplay, 2014) to real scientific declarations (as in “We Are All Made of Stars”, Moby, 2002). But the relationship with the sky is there: a source of divergent feelings: the cosmos can be infinite or consolatory, representing romantic love, a frontier or just doom. And what about Emma Watson (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Watson), who appeared in the entire “Harry Potter” film series? Well, she is a star. Today, outer space is everywhere on Earth. It is on flags, in songs, poems, comics, movies, simple words, advertisements, hackneyed phrases. It is one of the most pervasive concepts that you will ever encounter. It is like dragons, as Borges describe them in the preface to The Book of Imaginary Beings (Borges 2006), mysterious and necessary: We do not know what the dragon means, just as we do not know the meaning of the universe, but there is something in the image of the dragon that is congenial to man’s imagination, and thus the dragon arises in many latitudes and ages. It is, one might say, a necessary monster, not some ephemeral and casual creature like the chimaera or the catoblepas. (Borges 2006)

And the same can be said about the universe: our fascination with it has been preserved through ages, civilisations, religions, education, languages. The Universe and dragons are both necessary monsters. Can we try to come to terms with this peculiar essence of the universe—or outer space, as it is often called? Let us start from the horizon. Whenever we lift our heads and look into the deep distance in front of us, we encounter the unknown: even if we have a perfect understanding of what we are looking at—a city or a mountain, an ocean or a lake— the truth remains that we are looking at places other than where we are. Places that host new possibilities, maybe even a new life. Those infinite chances that we can attribute to the unknown define our own existence, our choices, our reality. That is why we feel ourselves becoming thrilled, filled with emotion and, sometimes, overcome. Outer space is the extreme horizon. Every time you look upwards and direct your gaze to the starry sky, you are seeing the Elsewhere in the eye (Fig. 2.2). It inspires

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mysteries and inquiries, mystical and mythological questions about our origin and fate. It demands answers about the meaning of our too short existence—in comparison with the apparently eternal life of the stars. While the ancients thought that the sky (or the heavens or the cosmos) could influence our lives and destinies, since it was beyond understanding, even for a contemporary scientific attitude, it still retains most of the fundamental questions in a different form: what is the nature of space and time? What are the fundamental constituents of the universe? What is life? Are we unique in the cosmos? Can we inhabit planets or moons different from our Earth? Can we travel through space-time? Is our universe one representation of a multi-verse? Outer space also defines a new border for human beings: how might we able to leave our pale blue dot—Earth—and start to find our way through space? Indeed, even though we often relate to space as simply new frontier, it needs to be understood that it is, in fact, a brand new environment. One to live in, one to understand and to explore, but also one “to conquer”, a very dangerous verb, which has caused so much suffering on this planet and that can do the same in Space. It means extreme adventure (rockets, spacecrafts, spaceships) and excitement, packed with danger, but also steeped in scientific method—the most versatile tool that human beings have developed during our evolution. Scientific method has allowed for the development of astonishing technologies and cultural achievements, as well as a proper dialogue between the two. Let us consider the progress of human spaceflight, or the use of General Relativity for satellite-guided navigation, or our capability to reveal gravitational waves from black holes through the use of interferometers, or even our ability to understand how atoms behave and use that comprehension to better our daily lives. However, science and technology have also reinforced our fantastic vision of the universe: they have provided us with many answers. But they have also revealed an increasing number of doubts and questions. In a sense, they have enlarged the universe itself, pushing the ultimate frontier even further while leaving that feeling of fascination that the unknown inspires in us untouched. As Giacomo Leopardi, maybe the most relevant of modern Italian poets, wrote in 1819: This solitary hill has always been dear to me And this hedge, which prevents me from seeing most of The endless horizon. But when I sit and gaze, I imagine, in my thoughts, Endless spaces beyond the hedge, An all encompassing silence and a deeply profound quiet, To the point that my heart is quite overwhelmed. And when I hear the wind rustling through the trees I compare its voice to the infinite silence. And eternity occurs to me, and all the ages past, And the present time, and its sound. Amidst this immensity my thought drowns: And to flounder in this sea is sweet to me. (Leopardi 1819)

The hedge stands there, waiting for us to walk around it; to explore, investigate and contemplate. Have doubts? Choose a good starry night, go outside and lose yourself in Romeo’s little stars: the face of heaven.

References

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References Altschuler, E.L.: Searching for Shakespeare in the Stars. History and Philosophy of Physics, Cornell University. https://arxiv.org/pdf/physics/9810042.pdf (1988). Accessed 29 July 2019 Barron, D.: Scientists break out of that ivory tower, “Science and everyday life cannot and should not be separated.” Rosalind Franklin. Scientific American. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/ observations/scientists-break-out-of-that-ivory-tower/ (2017). Accessed 29 July 2019 Barrotta, P.: Scientists, Democracy and Society—A Community of Inquirers. Springer, New York (2018) Borges, J.L.: The Book of Imaginary Beings (trans: Hurley, A.). Penguin Classics Deluxe, London (2006) Bucchi, M.: Beyond Technocracy—Science, Politics and Citizen. Springer, New York (2010) Collins Dictionary: https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/democracy (2019). Accessed 29 July 2019 Condie, B.: Shakespeare and the stars. Cosmos. https://cosmosmagazine.com/physics/shakespeareand-stars (2013). Accessed 29 July 2019 Duke Science & Society: https://scienceandsociety.duke.edu/research/birc/what-are-broaderimpacts/ (2019). Accessed 29 July 2019 ESA: https://www.esa.int/ (2019). Accessed 29 July 2019 Gore, Al, Guggenheim, D.: The Inconvenient Truth. Documentary, Lawrence Bender Productions (2006) Laugksch, R.C.: Scientific literacy: a conceptual overview (2000). https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/ 2ddf/47f7974fe6a7052f8b1fecc7adf02f428235.pdf. Accessed 29 July 2019 Leopardi, G.: The Infinity. http://www.babelmatrix.org/works/it/Leopardi%2C_Giacomo/L_ infinito/en/4782-The_infinity (1819). Accessed 29 July 2019 Merton, R.K.: The Normative Structure of Science in the Sociology of Science: Theoretical and Empirical Investigations. University of Chicago Press, Chicago (1942) NASA: https://www.nasa.gov/ (2019). Accessed 29 July 2019 Nichols, M.R.: Shakespeare: How Many of His Plays Were Influenced by the Stars. Schooled by Science. https://schooledbyscience.com/shakespeare-plays-influenced-stars/ (2016). Accessed 29 July 2019 Nisbet, M., Scheufele, D.A.: Opinion: scientists’ intuitive failures. The Scientist. https://www.thescientist.com/news-opinion/opinion-scientists-intuitive-failures-40709 (2012). Accessed 29 July 2019 Pielke Jr., R.: In Retrospect: science—The endless frontier. Nature (2010). https://www.nature.com/ articles/466922a. Accessed 29 July 2019 Revkin, A.C.: ‘An Inconvenient Truth’: Al Gore’s Fight Against Global Warming. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/22/movies/22gore.html (2006). Accessed 12 Aug 2019 Smith, P., Howe, N.: An Inconvenient Truth: The Power of Ethos. Cambridge University Press. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/climate-change-as-social-drama/an-inconvenienttruth-the-power-of-ethos/927D250F7F120B876B473F2A57683F7E (2015). Accessed 29 July 2019 Stecula, D., Merkley, E.: An inconvenient truth about an inconvenient truth. The conversation. J. Sci. Commun. (2006). http://theconversation.com/an-inconvenient-truth-about-an-inconvenienttruth-81799. Accessed 29 July 2019 The Royal Society: The Public Understanding of Science. https://royalsociety.org/~/media/Royal_ Society_Content/policy/publications/1985/10700.pdf (1985). Accessed 28 Aug 2019

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Wikimedia Commons: Astronomica Flags. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Astronomical_ flags. Accessed 30 July 2019 Wikipedia: Giotto. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giotto. Accessed 30 July 2019 Yeo, S.K., Binder, A.R., Dahlstroem, M., Brossard D.: An inconvenient source? Attributes of science documentaries and their effects on information- related behavioural intentions. Sissa JCOM J. Sci. Commun. (2018). https://jcom.sissa.it/sites/default/files/documents/JCOM_1702_2018_ A07.pdf. Accessed 29 July Ziman, J.: Post-academic science: constructing knowledge with networks and norms. Science & Technology studies (1996). https://sciencetechnologystudies.journal.fi/article/view/55095. Accessed 29 July 2019 Wikipedia: Muse (band). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muse_(band). Accessed 30 July 2019 Wikipedia: Emma Watson. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Watson. Accessed 30 July 2019

Further Readings Brown, M.B.: Science in Democracy: Expertise, Institutions, and Representation. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA (2009) Bucchi, M.: Scienza e società. Raffaello Cortina Editore, Milano (2010) Bucchi, M: Norms, competition and visibility in contemporary science: The legacy of Robert K. Merton. J. Classical Sociol https://www.academia.edu/30135419/_Norms_competition_ and_visibility_in_contemporary_science_The_legacy_of_Robert_K._Merton_Journal_of_ Classical_Sociology_2015_Vol._15_3_233_252 (2015). Accessed 30 July 2019 Bush, V.: The endless frontier, report to the president on a program for postwar scientific research. National Science Foundation. https://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/nsf50/vbush1945.htm (1945). Accessed 30 July 2019 Castelfranchi, Y., Pitrelli, N.: Come si comunica la scienza?. Edizioni Laterza, Bari (2007) Davies, S.R., Horst, M.: Science Communication, Culture, Identity and Citizenship. Palgrave McMillan, London (2016) Fogg-Rogers, L., Sardo, A.M., Grand, A.: Beyond dissemination—science communication as impact. Sissa JCOM J. Sci. Commun (2015). https://doi.org/10.22323/2.14030301. Accessed 30 July 2019 Greco, P.: Science and society of knowledge. Sissa JCOM J. Sci. Commun. (2007). https://doi.org/ 10.22323/2.06030701. Accessed 30 July 2019 Greco, P., Pitrelli, N.: Scienza e media ai tempi della globalizzazione. Codice Edizioni, Torino (2009) In’t Veld, R.J. (ed.): Knowledge Democracy—Consequences for Science, Politics, and Media. Springer, New York (2010) Jamieson, K.H., Kahan, D., Scheufele, D.A.: The Oxford Handbook of the Science of Science Communication. Oxford University Press (2017) Latour, B.: Pandora’s Hope: Essays on the Reality of Science Studies. Harvard University Press, Cambridge (1999) Macleod, R.: Science and democracy: historical reflections on present discontents. Minerva 35(4), 369–384 (1997) McLuhan, M.: Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. New American Library, New York (1964) McLuhan, M., Fiore, Q.: The Medium is the Massage. Gingko Press, Corte Madera (2001)

References

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Spiga, R.: Strategie di comunicazione degli astronauti e delle agenzie spaziali. Università degli Studi di Ferrara, Tesi Master Comunicazione Istituzionale e Giornalismo Scientifico (2010) Stehr, N.: Knowledge Societies. SAGE Publications Ltd, Newbury Park (1994) Turney, J.: Public understanding of science. The Lancet 347(9008), 1087–1090 (1996). https://doi. org/10.1016/S0140-6736(96)90283-4. Accessed 30 July 2019 Wilkinson, C., Weitkamp, E.: Creative Research Communication: Theory and Practice. Manchester University Press, Manchester (2016)

Chapter 3

Institutional Space Communication

Abstract This chapter gives an answer to the basic questions of the communication process, i.e., who delivers the messages, why they do that, who the recipients are and how the messages are delivered. After having established that the focus of the book is institutional communication as carried out by space Agencies and Research Centres, it analyses the practice’s strengths and weaknesses in today’s society. One of space communication’s greatest strengths is certainly in the messages that it conveys, but it faces several problems, including the following: a good part of the public is not interested in it, or is even hostile towards it; it is hard, in today’s media world, to make your voice heard; public awareness tends to be very superficial, and space research can be subject to severe criticism when it comes to such matters as launch failures. Despite all of these difficulties, the chapter stresses how important space communication is, and underlines its benefits, not only for space research, but for the society as a whole, providing strategies on how to create awareness, how to attract and retain larger and larger portions of the public and how to defend space organisations in crisis situations.

3.1 Strategic Questions and Target Groups I would like to stress, first of all, that there are some very fundamental and strategic questions that guide the whole communication process, no matter who the initiator is; these are summarised in Fig. 3.1. The chart makes it clear that the communication process is governed by four basic questions: • Why? (the reason for engaging in the communication) • Who? (the audience, i.e., the target groups,1 that the communication is directed at) • What? (the messages that one wishes to deliver to the target groups) • How? (the way in which the message will be delivered, including what channels and which form will be used). 1 The

group of people that a communication campaign aims to reach and possibly influence.

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 F. Drigani, Communicating Space Exploration , Space and Society, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33212-9_3

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Fig. 3.1 Strategic questions of communication

It is only by carefully answering to these questions that a communication strategy, no matter what the subject is, can be put into place, providing it with a good chance to become effective. Having established that, the very first point to be raised is actually the point of view from which one should look at Fig. 3.1, or, in other words, who should actually be the initiator of the space communication process. Many groups of actors do, in fact, engage in space communication, and each of them has its own audiences, messages and tactics. The main groups are: • Institutions such as Space Agencies and primary Science Research centres, either independent or at universities; • Industry; • Museums, science parks, planetariums; • Specialised media; • Specialised publishers. As anticipated in Chap. 1, and in order to make the intentions of this chapter clear, I would like to state that this book focuses on institutional space communication. In fact, I consider this type of communication to be fundamental, since Space Agencies and Research Centres are, to a large extent, the main sources of space visions, news and content. Analysis therefore needs to be concentrated on them. Once we

3.1 Strategic Questions and Target Groups

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have established which initiator’s viewpoint is to be used to look at the chart, the first question is, of course, why institutional communication officers should actively promote space, i.e., why they should invest significant resources and money instead of simply relying on what will be published or broadcasted anyway by media who are already interested in space events. An initial answer to that has already been given in Sect. 2.3, but it covers only the very broad debate on science, its information responsibilities and democracy. However, some further, more specific reasons as to why space communication officers should make a considerable effort in regard to their audiences are necessary, and are given here below: • Foster a fascination with Space within the public and the young generation; • Raise awareness of both the achievements and the long term goals of the Space program; • Make decision-makers aware of the importance of a certain space institution and of the relevant industry; • Explain the scientific discoveries and the technological innovations introduced by SpaceResearch and the benefits that they have provided for humankind in general, and to economic growth in particular; • Create understanding and positive attitudes towards the organisation that engages in space activities; • Create support in words and deeds; • Justify the money spent. Such a variety of goals (WHY?) implies that institutional space communication has to deal with different target groups (WHO?), each of which is sensitive only to very specific messages (WHAT?). This also implies that resources are best used to find the optimal way (HOW?) to reach these goals. I will therefore now deal with these issues and with the difficulties that space communication officers encounter in achieving their objectives during their day-today activities.

3.2 Assets and Limits Primarily, communication is about delivering messages. Each message can be very important for a certain individual or community, but not at all suited for others, and today’s society is very complex and segmented in various ways. This may often lead to miscommunication. Space is, in fact, a subject that draws the attention of many different segments of the public, ranging from those with a deep scientific interest in astrophysics to those who have a simple curiosity about the unknown. Even if it is difficult to draw very clear lines, it is useful to make an attempt to categorise messages into groups. In order to be effective, in fact, communication inevitably has to face the complex task of devising and delivering different kinds

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of message in its campaigns, ranging from very rational scientific considerations to emotions, beliefs and motivations. Space messages can be classified into broad groups, such as those indicated below, each of which is accompanied by examples: Generic Messages that do not need to be substantiated and that can be used as buzzwords: • Space research is cool and trendy; • Famous people support space research; • Space research is human. Astronauts are human beings who are doing today what we will all do tomorrow; • Space is the future. Dream Messages that try to capitalise on the fascinating nature of space: • • • • •

We are pioneers and our new frontier is space; Discovery is a basic element of human nature; We want to overcome our limits, we want to go beyond; Reaching for the sky; Understanding the origin of the Universe.

Informative Messages based on certain scientific, technological or economical consequences of space research that can be substantiated with a detailed analysis: • Our understanding of the origin of the Universe has been dramatically improved thanks to satellites; • Space is not an expense, but rather a strategic investment; • The European space sector is one of the most successful examples of European cooperation with high-tech industry that is not delocalised outside of Europe; • Every Euro spent in space applications returns 20 Euros to the European economy; • Telecommunication, navigation and meteorological satellites deliver tangible services to consumers on a daily basis; • Some technological spin-offs from space research have significantly improved life on Earth. Engaging Messages that are not simply delivered to the audience, but that inspire the public to participate in various ways in space-related events and social activities: • Meet astronauts live in a chat; • Interact via Twitter with astronauts onboard the ISS; • Travel to the comet with Rosetta by following the encounter live from ESA’s operations centre;

3.2 Assets and Limits

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• Land on Mars with us! • Watch our movie to understand the dramatic nature of climate change—occurring now! Factual Messages that provide the public with information to make it aware of upcoming launch events, space project milestones, conferences, and the announcement of results: • Launch of satellite XYZ is set for March 2020; • With the delivery of the service module, the company ABC will contribute to the final assembly of satellite XYZ; • The first images of satellite XYZ will be released at a conference on January 9, 2021. Detailed Messages containing background information or technical data useful to communities that are deeply interested or involved in space activities: • Mission data of satellite XYZ will be available online on June 1, 2021; • Solar System Conference proceedings; • Satellite XYZ instruments brochure. As already mentioned above, all of these types of message have to be properly used to communicate to the different audiences about space communication, taking into account that each target group is interested in some of them. However, as in the case of messages, it is difficult to categorise target groups precisely. Consumers of information are, in fact, very fragmented in today’s society, but some broad categories can be identified, even if the “space information consumers” may vary from case to case, depending on the specific space subject that we want to promote at a given time. One acceptable categorisation of target groups interested in space is that which I propose below2 : A. B. C. D.

The general public at large The general public with an interest in space Decision-makers Politicians, boards, institutions, councils, etc., in other words, all those who make recommendations to decision-makers on funds, scientific objectives and industrial matters and who monitor space activities and their results E. The media F. Space Agencies

2 Not all target groups are interested in each space activity. For example, a mission cataloguing stars

will not raise any curiosity in the general public, and efforts dedicated to that target group will largely be a waste of time and money. On the other end, some space endeavours, like, e.g., some astronaut missions, may appeal to the public more than they do to the scientific community.

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3 Institutional Space Communication

Primary Science Research Centres The space industry The Scientific Community at large Outreach centres such as museums, science parks, planetaria, etc.3 Educational institutions such as Universities, schools, etc.4

It is important to underline that target groups F, G and H are interchangeable, i.e., one of the three is usually the one that, in a particular case, delivers the messages, since it is the active player in space-related endeavors, while the other two are, in that case, recipients. For example, the one delivering messages in the case of a launch programme is usually a Space Agency, while Industry and the Scientific Community are recipients. However, in the case of development of a new launch technology, Industry is the main player and will deliver the messages, while the other two will be recipients. In our case, since the book mainly focuses on Space Agencies and Science Research centres as institutions that deliver messages, all other groups will be treated as targets. Another aspect to consider is that the media is a target group that acts as an intermediary to reach the others. This is particularly important for space communication, since it is impossible to reach all potential consumers of space information. The effort is simply too big, competition with other information sources too high and the means available too inadequate to do that. This, even today, when social media has significantly contributed to the creation a direct communication channel between the source and the end users. Media is therefore very important, but, at the same time, difficult to handle. The end message that reaches the “space information consumers” can, in fact, be substantially different, not only in its packaging, but also in its actual content, from the one that the communication team wants to deliver. In this respect, the role of opinion leaders and influencers, which will be described in Sect. 5.2, is particularly important. There are many reasons behind the fact that media often distort messages. Some of the most common ones are listed below: • Science, and space science is no exception, thinks in terms of the very long-term vision. Media outlets, contrastingly, think about the short term, and are therefore not so interested in promoting space content that does not count as breaking news and that does not have an immediate impact on life on Earth; • A corollary to the point above is the fact that media outlets think in terms of “what’s new about it?” and consequently tend to discard information that is scientifically very relevant, but that does not give a satisfactory answer to that question; • Media outlets follow hype. If the communication scene is dominated by certain major events that attract huge audiences, no matter how important a piece of space news is, media outlets will play it down and will concentrate their efforts on the main events of that moment;

3 Education and outreach activities such as museums, planetaria, etc., are not dealt with in this book. 4 See

previous note.

3.2 Assets and Limits

25

• Media outlets need to simplify their message and, in doing so, tend to oversimplify in favour of catchy but not necessarily accurate slogans; • The media are a business, and therefore follow that logic, no matter how important a message is considered by the scientific community; • Last, but not least, media outlets do not necessarily buy the political line that Space Agencies and primary Research centres pursue to achieve their goals. Journalists want information with which they can first make their own judgement on the matter and then publish or broadcast. That’s their job. These difficulties that space communication officers encounter in dealing with the media tend to favour the idea that major institutions should not only release news and content to them, but should also maintain direct communication channels to reach their target groups. This is the only way to maintain the freedom to deliver messages that are considered appropriate by an organisation, both in terms of sound content and of political positioning. This, however, also has its drawbacks, since institutions are not always capable of communicating effectively with the public in the way that the media do, and may therefore not be able to reach their objectives anyway. This point will be dealt with in Sect. 3.3. Returning now to the list of target groups, all of the others apart from E, F, G and H, should instead be considered information end receivers. Let us now recall the communication objectives of the Space Agencies and the primary Research Centres: • Encourage in the public and the younger generation a fascination for Space; • Raise awareness of the achievements and of the long term goals; • Make decision-makers aware of the importance of certain space institutions and the relevant industry; • Explain the scientific discoveries and the technological innovations have been introduced through Space research and the benefits that they have provided to humankind in general and to economic growth in particular; • Create understanding and positive attitudes towards those organisations that engage in space-related activities; • Create support through words and deeds; • Justify the money that have been spent. This is a very broad list indeed, and it can be achieved only if each target group receives the type of communication content that it is interested in. The general public, for example, will be most sensitive to engaging and dreamrelated messages, but not at all to the informative, factual and detailed ones. Contrastingly, decision-makers will need informative messages, while Boards and Councils will need informative and factual ones. This great variety of messages and target groups requires a lot of ingenuity and a great number of resources to make for effective communication, and there is always the risk of missing at least one key point needed to achieve the objective. As a consequence, space communication teams need a good mix of skills. Those who can

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set up an efficient campaign on social media are, e.g., most likely not the ones suited to devise a brochure for decision-makers. Lack of a proper targeting strategy and/or adequate resources to deliver different types of content to each target group is a common reason for the failure of a communication campaign.

3.3 Powerful Messages but in a Competitive Information Society As mentioned in Sect. 3.2, institutional space communication may encounter difficulties in making its voice heard properly in the present society, dominated, as it is, by media. At the beginning of the Space Era, in fact, information only ever came from public organisations. Today, a great number of media outlets are able to communicate news about science and space in many different ways, and it may be difficult to find the best channels to effectively reach the relevant target groups. In this respect, it is important to think about how the media business has changed in the last twenty-five years. John Kuefler has published an article (Kuefler 2019) containing Table 3.1 that compares communication channels that were available in 1993 with those available in 2018. The change has been dramatic. Table 3.1 Comparison between communication channels available in 1993 and 2018 1993

2018

Broadcast

Broadcast and cable TV, broadcast radio

Broadcast TV, cable TV, addressable TV, broadcast radio, satellite radio, podcasts, streaming video and audio (e.g., Hulu, Netflix, iTunes, Amazon, YouTube, Pandora, Twitch and hundreds of other streaming video/audio services), digital cinema ads, music sharing (e.g., Spotify), 360° video, augmented reality video, virtual reality video, Facebook LIVE, Periscope, Meerkat, Apple Music “Beats One” Station

Print

Newspapers, magazines

Newspapers, magazines, iPad, Kindle, Nook and many other e-readers, RSS feeds, social bookmarks (e.g., Digg, Reddit), online editions of print publications, online aggregators of digital pubs (e.g., Flipboard, Pocket)

Direct

Direct mail, telephone, fax

Direct mail, telephone, fax, email, pURLS, SMS/MMS instant messaging, mobile apps (push notifications), WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, marketing automation (e.g., Marketo, Hubspot) (continued)

3.3 Powerful Messages but in a Competitive Information Society

27

Table 3.1 (continued) 1993

2018

Outdoor

Billboards, transit posters

Billboards, transit posters, digital outdoor signs, projections on the sides of buildings, outdoor installations, digital banners at sporting and entertainment events

PR

Press releases, media events

Press releases, media events, social media influencer outreach (e.g., bloggers, Instagram celebrities, YouTube stars), digital content distribution, on-line livecast/streaming, online events, Guerilla marketing, flashmobs promoted on YouTube and other social outlets (see Social Media for more “PR” tactics)

In-Store

Printed or handwritten POS signs

Printed or handwritten POS signs, digital POS signs, motion-activated coupon dispensers, touch-screen POS kiosks, mobile shopping apps, location-based/GPS-enable apps/devices, Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, Google Pay, 2-D barcodes, NFC

Digital Devices

Walkman CD and tape players

TiVo/DVRs, iPod/MP3 players, game consoles, portable gaming devices, laptops/PCs (and see the Artificial Intelligence entry for more digital devices)

World Wide Web

Didn’t exist

Websites, e-commerce, mobile web, smartphone and tablet apps/games, banner ads, native advertising, rich media ads, video ads, website takeovers, streaming video and audio (e.g., Hulu, Netflix, iTunes, Amazon), live public discussions, webinars, native advertising)

Search Engines

Didn’t exist

SEO, authority/inbound linking, PPC/paid search (e.g., Google Adwords, Bing Ads, Yahoo! Ads), content marketing

Social Media

Didn’t exist

Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest, Tumblr, Foursquare and hundreds of other social networks, forums, discussion boards, more than one hundred million active blogs/vlogs, video and audio podcasts, online gaming

Mobile

Didn’t exist

Smartphones, tablets, e-readers, smart watches (e.g., Apple Watch), location-based technologies, apps

Marketing Tech

Didn’t exist

Thousands of software platforms and SaaS systems for planning, managing and measuring marketing programs

Internet of Things

Didn’t exist

Amazon Dash, smart home devices (e.g., connected appliances, security systems, lighting, thermostats, video doorbells), smart apparel, smart speakers

Artificial Intelligence

Didn’t exist

Facebook Chatbots, Apple Siri, Alexa/Amazon Echo, Google Assistant, Microsoft Cortana, IBM Watson

Credit Kuefler (2019)

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The table is a good example of the opportunities, but also of the difficulties, that space communication faces today, considering the fact that budgets have not grown in the same way that channels have. Since resources are limited, this has led to the need to plan the use of channels according to their expected capabilities to reach the relevant target groups. One could argue at this stage that entry costs needed to use a communication channel today are much lower than they were twenty five years ago, social media being a perfect example. This is true. However, keeping a large number of channels updated with new content all at the same time is a significant effort that is often underestimated and that can become even more of a burden if communication officers try to be present on all of the new social media that are continuously popping up. In conclusion, channel planning is very important today if one wants to avoid wasting resources in the desperate effort to be present everywhere all of the time. But how can Space communication officers avoid wasting resources without missing opportunities? The same article cited above (Kuefler 2019) lists a certain number of points to be taken into account. Some of them, adapted to space communication, are very relevant: • Make the best out of your content channels, since users tend to invest more trust in self-generated content. A Space Agency that delivers content directly is very credible, much more so than others that “resell” its content. • Try to understand who your target groups are. This point was dealt with in Sect. 3.2, but it is important to reemphasize here that audiences are not so clearly defined as they were in the past, since they are more fragmented and often tend to overlap. They therefore need to be analysed in detail with certain specific tools5 that help in understanding which channels engage them most and make sure that their sentiments6 are constantly being monitored. • Produce more content than you used to in the past.7 The amount of content that the public is consuming continues to grow, and new media are simply adding on content to the stream already churned out by traditional media, which themselves are still as popular as before. Theoretically, there is no limit to the amount of content that could be produced, since there is always a segment of the audience that will be interested in a particular piece of information. The only limit is the budget available. This means that one has to increase the production of content, while simultaneously making difficult choices. Without going into too much detail, I would like to underline that each category of communication products has significant differences in terms of costs and benefits:

5 Sophisticated

big data analytics tools exist today to help in understanding the behaviour of the public. 6 Sentiment analysis means the mining of computer text for the purpose of understanding if opinions are positive, negative, or neutral. 7 People like to be entertained more than they like to be informed or educated. This has to be kept in mind during content production.

3.3 Powerful Messages but in a Competitive Information Society

29

• Movies are very emotionally resonant, but they require significant financial resources that can be absorbed only by organisations with a very rich communication budget. They should therefore be produced only if they do not jeopardise the basic communication activities. Moreover, because of the nature of artistic products, their success is not guaranteed; • Video clips and photos are also expensive, but not as much as movies, and are able to generate emotions effectively. With a limited communication budget, they are a better investment than movies; • Gadgets and promotional items in general are also expensive to be designed and produced, and they also have a limited distribution. However, a certain quantity still needs to be produced, since they are long-lasting, are useful as VIP presents and are needed to meet the expectations of space fans.8 A possible way to improve the situation is to design gadgets to be sold in shops or via an agent; also, publications are expensive and, in many cases, have a short life and a limited distribution. It is cheaper and more effective in terms of distribution to publish them solely online, with a printer friendly version. The printed version should be on demand and have a price tag; • Articles published in newspapers or interviews shown on TV and on the web are not expensive as such, but it often represents a labor-intensive effort for a PR division to obtain them, since it entails constant contact with the media, not only to make their production possible, but also to monitor that the messages do not get distorted; • Websites are cheap to develop and are useful containers of content, but they are not enough to establish an interactive relationship with the public; • Social media have several advantages, since they are free to use, they make interactivity possible and are very effective for covering events. However, you will people who are highly skilled in social media if you want to effectively engage the public. • Make sure that the content that you produce is engaging. It has to be a continuous flow of fresh, useful, extremely beautiful and entertaining material, since users nowadays are used to high quality content packaged in a great variety of ways. It also has to be conveyed through multimedia (videos first of all, but also animations and high resolution images), since the public is attracted by that type of content and starts reading only when its interest has been captured by multimedia. If users are not provided with such an emotional experience, they can easily move on in a search for better sources. • Reduce mass communication in favour of making direct connections with individuals. This, even with the help of modern technology, is a very difficult task that involves a lot of effort. Users can be plentiful, but, in general, there is always a core of people in the public that wants to participate and be engaged. It is important to

8 This

last point will be further discussed in Sect. 4.3.1.

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establish direct connections with members of that particular segment of the public, because those people can become important allies in propagating your messages.9 • Be as genuine as possible in your social interaction, and also persistent in the social channels that you choose to use, always keeping in mind that you first of all have to foster participation, rather than simply pushing messages. • Social media selection should be based on: – Their demographics. Not all channels reach the target groups that you are looking for; – The content that you can provide through them. There is no point of choosing a channel that users go to find types of content different from that which you are able to produce. • Make sure that your content is optimised in such a way that it ranks high in search engines. • Also, optimise it for mobile access, since users are most likely to view it on smartphones these days than on computers. One does, in fact, have to keep in mind that it is often the first glance at your content on a smartphone that most influences their decision as to whether come back again or not. • Define key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure your success and constantly monitor analytics against them so that you can change content strategy in a timely fashion along the way. To the points above, I would like to add that branding is also very important for institutional communication. A corporate identity is the way that an organisation presents itself to the public, and it is therefore one of the key assets of institutional space communication. It is, in fact, extremely important that, as soon as the name of a Space Agency or Research Centre is mentioned, the public associates it with a precise look and feel.10 This can be achieved by carefully designing a visual identity and applying it consistently at all times. This identity is, in a way, the organisation’s “personality”, which the public perceives through its websites, clips, social media, publications, gadgets, etc. A coherent corporate identity has to be derived in a consistent manner from the organisation’s vision and from its differentiating values. If these are clearly defined, it is possible to create a strong brand. If not, the corporate identity will inevitably reflect this weakness and ambiguity and the audience will feel confused. The main elements of the Corporate Identity are: • Logo. It should immediately identify the organisation, possibly to the point of becoming a cultural icon. • Typography. Typefaces, fonts, spacing, etc., are very effective tools for conveying the character of an organisation and, in this way, its differentiating values. An 9 This

point will be further discussed in Sects. 3.5 and 4.3.1.

10 The importance of a consistent Corporate Identity for fans of space-related activities is particularly

relevant and will be dealt with in Sect. 4.3.1.

3.3 Powerful Messages but in a Competitive Information Society

•

• • •

31

Agency or a Research Centre may look bold, friendly, distant, aggressive, etc., depending on its typography. Color palette. It has to be simple, usually with no more than three primary colours, but it can contribute effectively towards establishing the “personality” of the organisation. It is, in fact, a powerful way to convey emotions, thanks also to tints and shades. Page layout. This refers to the way a website or a batch of publication pages are presented. Consistency is very important, since it helps the public to navigate the content easily and to feel increasingly at home. Imagery. “A picture is worth a thousands words”, and a variety of images or illustrations collated together in a consistent fashion contribute efficiently to the organisation’s look and feel. Corporate Identity guidelines. Detailed guidelines are needed to ensure the coherent application of the graphical assets of the corporate identity in all channels and products. If the Corporate Identity is updated, so must the guidelines be, at a level of great detail.

Corporate identity goes hand in hand with content production and distribution. Part of the impact that one is anticipating from the content can be lost if the public does not relate to the brand and the values that it represents. Taking all of the points above into consideration, an adequate communication office for a space agency or a research centre should contain, or contract out, the following competences: • • • • • • • • • • •

Communication officers and public relations experts; Content managers; Market researchers; Writers and editors; Translators; Creative graphic designers; Brand experts; Web site and content developers; Data analysts; Social media experts; Multimedia producers.

3.4 Challenges of Space Communication Space is one of the most exciting scientific and technological subjects, and events related to it are followed by an important community of space enthusiasts. They think, as all fans do, that everybody should be eager to follow space-related events, if only they were properly informed. They also believe that politicians should always place space high on their agendas, since it is one of the pillars of modern society.

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However, this view is too optimistic. Let us look at why through analysis of some empirical data. (A) People’s opinion on science The first point that I would like to raise is that a non-negligible part of the population does not seem to realise the enormous added value that science in general generates for mankind. While I recommend that you keep in mind the margin for error in the percentages for all surveys, one conducted in 2014 in the US and published in 2015 (Pew Research Center 2015) by the PEW Research Center, “a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world (…)” (About Pew Research Center 2019), produced the following results (Fig. 3.2). These results show that the percentage of those who consider science to have made the lives of human beings more difficult is not negligible, even in domains like health care, and that number is, in fact, increasing. It stood at 10% in 2009; by 2014, it had risen to 15%.

Fig. 3.2 Public still largely positive about the contribution of science to society, but uptick in negative views. Credit Pew Research Center, Washington DC (2015)

3.4 Challenges of Space Communication

33

Moreover, part of society refuses to accept certain specific scientific findings. Some examples are given below. In 2013, YouGov published the results of a survey (Chambers 2013) conducted in the UK showing that 30% of the population either thinks that the climate is not changing or that it is changing but not because of human activity (Fig. 3.3). With their opinions, these people simply deny that which science, including observation of earth carried out from space, has achieved in recent decades. Unfortunately, some important politicians think the same way. A similar survey (Cox et al. 2014) conducted in 2014 in the US obtained results in line with those from the U.K. (Fig. 3.4). Another example is people’s opinion on evolution. This theory has many active opponents, in particular, amongst religious people, and a survey (Newport 2009) conducted in 2009 in the US showed that only 39% of the population really believes in the theory of evolution, while 25% does not and the rest have no opinion. Finally, another survey (Moore 2015) conducted by YouGov in 2015 showed significant opposition to mandatory vaccination, in particular, among young parents (Fig. 3.5):

Fig. 3.3 Climate change opinions in the UK. Credit YouGov (Chambers 2013)

Fig. 3.4 Climate change factions in the U.S. Credit PRRI/AAR (Cox et al. 2014)

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Fig. 3.5 Survey on mandatory vaccination in the US. Credit YouGov (Moore 2015)

(B) Importance that people assign to space-related activities A second major issue for space communication is the importance that the public assigns to this branch of science. Empirical data show evidence that space is regarded by the general public as less important than one may think. A survey (Dahlgreen 2013) conducted in the UK in 2013 shows that just a bit more than half of the population considers space exploration important for human beings (Fig. 3.6). Moreover, a public opinion study (National Research Council of the National Academies 2014) financed in 2013 by NASA on support for spending on the highest priority National issues showed that there is little backing for space exploration, compared with other issues. This, despite a generally positive attitude towards NASA.

Fig. 3.6 Importance of Space exploration in the UK. Credit YouGov (Dahlgreen 2013)

3.4 Challenges of Space Communication

35

The support for new medical discoveries reached 60%, followed by that for local issues (55%). Space exploration came in ninth, with a meager 22%. The same study also showed that, despite all of the achievements made through space research and exploration, public interest in space has not increased, but rather has slightly decreased in the last 30 years and that, overall, less then 20% of the American population is interested in space (it was about 25% in 1980) and only 5% is attentive (defined as being both very interested and well informed). The latter number was about 8% in 1980. In conclusion, one may say that, after the incredible hype generated by the Moon landing, only a fraction of the population has continuously retained interest in space. If you now think about the fact that the US is the country with the most important and influential space agency in the world, it is reasonable to assume that the attitudes of populations in other countries are even less favourable towards space-related activities. (C) Political agendas Considering the empirical results of the surveys on public opinion given in points (A) and (B) above, it comes as no surprise that science and space rank low among priorities of politicians. Politicians do, in fact, concentrate on those issues that they believe garner more public interest and, in particular, on short-term trends. Unfortunately, this plays against the visibility of science and space, both of which require a long-term approach. Once again, empirical data provide evidence of this problem. In Fig. 3.7, you can find the results of a survey (Pew Research Center 2015) conducted in 2015 on public priorities. Science is at the bottom of the list, while space exploration is not mentioned at all. In conclusion, contrary to what space enthusiasts would like to believe, space communication does not have a very large captive audience. On the contrary, it has to fight its way through to be heard among many other subjects that seem to be more attractive to people and politicians. Space-related activities suffers from: • The negative attitude of part of the population towards science; • The fact that public opinion is more energized by other branches of science, such as health care; • Its rather limited captive public, i.e.,. those who are both interested and, above all, attentive; • The fact that politicians, the natural decision-makers, do not see it as an issue that makes them win or loose an election.

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Fig. 3.7 Public policy priorities for 2015. Credit Pew Research Center, Washington DC (2015)

3.5 The Communication Funnel In Sect. 3.4, I highlighted the fact that the segment of the public that is interested in space represents a substantial minority of the population and that the attentive public (interested and also well informed) represents, at least in the US, less than 10%. This conclusion was based on data that came from surveys. Nowadays, however, it is important to find some empirical evidence in data that comes from social media. More and more, in fact, the importance of a person or an organisation in modern

3.5 The Communication Funnel

37

society is dependent on how popular they are on social media. So, let us look at who is a star on Facebook and Twitter and what sort of role space plays there. By the end of February 2018 (Fan Page List 2018), the most liked Facebook pages were: Cristiano Ronaldo 122,566,537 Likes Shakira 103,739,797 Likes Not surprisingly, a football player and a singer. The first space-related Facebook page, that belonging to NASA, scored more than 20 million likes. It was therefore far from the top, but nevertheless qualifies as a mass phenomenon, in part because NASA scores very well on Twitter, a tool more suited to institutional communication. On the list (Friend or Follow 2018) of the most followed Twitter accounts, by the end of February 2018, NASA 52nd. Coming back to the Facebook page ranking site (Fan Page List 2018), its list included the first 200 most liked pages on Facebook. In the last position, there was another musician, A.R. Rahman, who, with 22,800,768 likes, scored only slightly better than NASA, confirming, in this way, the popularity of the American Space Agency on social media. However, Scott Kelly, who is considered a star among space enthusiasts, had only 1.1 million likes, considerably less than popular football and music stars, and also NASA. A similar pattern can be noticed on Twitter as well, where NASA has about 30 million followers and Scott Kelly only somewhat more than 5 million. One could at this point say that space as a branch of science attracts more attention than individual celebrities of space-related activities, i.e., that content, in terms of missions and scientific results, is more popular than the human angle, represented in space by astronauts. This is a quite interesting opinion that will be especially appreciated by space communication officers, who see their job as being to promote space research and exploration and are afraid that the public only cares about astronauts, who are seen more as pop stars than as parts of a scientific endeavour. In reality, since astronauts add the human dimension to space-related activities, they are undeniably very important for making space popular. They are complementary to the communication of scientific results and are particularly suited to attracting new people who do not yet know that much about space. In conclusion, there is a significant niche of an attentive public that is completely aware of space-related activities and that follows news of such on social media and in other ways, but what about the rest? What can be done to attract other segments of the public that are, at present, vaguely interested or not interested at all? A combination of astronauts and social media is often the key to reaching new segments of the public that are not yet attracted to news about space, and images often do the trick in drawing in new fans. The online Australian news site ABC (O’Brien and Sherden Amy 2016) reported on Samantha Cristoforetti, the Italian astronaut of the European Space Agency:

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Fig. 3.8 ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti took this picture from the International Space Station during her Futura mission in 2015. And commented: “Alaska and the Moon. Goodnight from space!”. Credit ESA/NASA

Ms Cristoforetti became something of an online hit thanks to her unique photos from orbit and regular videos about life on board the ISS. (O’Brien and Sherden Amy 2016)

Samantha Cristoforetti now has about 1 million followers on Twitter and half a million on Facebook, and what she and other astronauts are doing is great and has a lasting impact on many people (Fig. 3.8). All space communication officers should thank them for that. However, there is a risk that interest generated in this way in the public at large may remain superficial, not clearly focused and ephemeral. It can be superficial because only very simple messages come across. In many cases, it is merely the visual power of the image that strikes people’s imaginations, and this is what they retain later on. The objectives of space exploration remain, in general, unknown to them. It can lack clarity of focus because people engaged by a particular image or a simple message, without a genuine awareness of space-related activities, may end up with incorrect views or complete misunderstandings. They mix up which space agency the astronaut belongs to, they misunderstand the mission scope, etc. It can be ephemeral because the hype created by such events may only last for as long as the media and social media talk about it, to be quickly obliterated later on. At this point in time, one should obviously ask the question as to whether it is worth spending time and money on communication activities targeted at the general public if they have so many limitations. The answer is yes. It is still worth it, and there are two main reasons that justify this assertion: • Out of the many people who will become superficially involved for a day or two, but not really engaged, there are always some who become sincerely interested

3.5 The Communication Funnel

39

in space for the first time and can be more involved later on, up to the point of becoming part of the attentive audience; • As to space, politicians are substantially the same as the non-informed general public, following hype and social trends as a way to understand the mood of their potential voters. If space-related hype can be triggered close to an election campaign, politicians will suddenly become space supporters and make electoral promises in favour of space research and exploration. An opportunity not to be missed if you want to be adequately funded. In conclusion, space communication officers cannot simply hope that the hype created by a spectacular picture or by another astronaut’s social media event can solve the problem of converting new public into space enthusiasts. Rather, they need to build on such hype to ensure that the positive effect that it generates is lost all too quickly. They therefore need a strategy, and marketing can help them to define it. The following six steps, typical of marketing terminology (Strong 1925), but slightly reworded to fit to space communication language, are suggested for developing a sound strategy: 1. Profile your public11 If you don’t know the profile of your potential public, how can you understand what they want and create the right messages and content for them? 2. Awareness Once you know which is your public, you need them to become aware that what they are looking for is available. 3. Consideration Once they have become aware of the information that you supply, you need them to get used to coming to you to get it when the need arises. 4. Conversion It is time to convert them into a loyal public. Offer them your content in a proactive way. 5. Loyalty Since it takes a lot of effort to obtain one’s own public, you have to keep them loyal to you as long as possible. Offer them exclusive content and opportunities to share experiences with you. 6. Advocacy At this stage, they are your fans, and also your best ambassadors. You must support and reward them in various ways. This strategy is called the marketing funnel,12 and is depicted in Fig. 3.9. You cannot convince the entire public to embrace the cause of space, but you can retain part of it at different levels of participation.

11 A

point already covered in Sects. 3.2 and 3.3. concept was developed by Elias St. Elmo Lewis in 1898. The relevant model was presented in (Strong 1925). Subsequent versions have been introduced by many marketing experts. 12 The

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Fig. 3.9 From identification of your public to advocacy

3.6 Crisis Communication Space is a fascinating subject and its discoveries and achievements are very impressive. This is the good news. The bad news is that space failures13 are also very impressive. There are, of course, various types of failure, and not all of them have a big impact on public opinion, but if one thinks about the sort of human loss that occurred in the case of the Columbia space shuttle, as well as launch failures or satellites lost in space and probes lost on Mars, it will be easy to remember the degree to which those disasters continued to echo throughout subsequent media and public opinion related to space. Those events are, in fact, not only dramatic, with significant economic, technological and, sometimes, human implications, but they are often highly spectacular and difficult to forget. Figures 3.10 and 3.11 are two striking examples of this. Just go to YouTube and watch videos about space disasters that have been collected by people who are trying to catch the public’s attention with sensational clips. They have a lot of viewers! From the standpoint of a professional communication officer, however, the most important thing is probably to convince the public that the answer to the question: – “since the costs of such failures are so high, is space exploration justified?”—has to be “yes”. No matter how successful your space programme has been for many years, that question will immediately be raised as soon as you experience a failure, and the consequences can be dramatic for the future of your projects. This is why crisis communication is so important for space communication officers. Having said that, it follows that crisis management is a key issue (Bundy et al. 2016), a matter of survival, and that a lot of effort has to be put into it by space communication officers. In the old days of limited information, the approach to a crisis was very often to bury one’s head in the sand like a ostrich and to avoid any kind of comment 13 Apart

from failures, one can also expect that, in the future, space debris will become more and more of an issue of crisis communication.

3.6 Crisis Communication

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Fig. 3.10 Debris raining down after the self-destruction of Ariane Flight 501 on 4 June 1996. Credit ESA

all the way up to the point, which could occur months or even years later, that an investigation team produces a report on why the failure happened. The hope behind such a behaviour was that the negative publicity created by a failure would slowly go away by itself. That approach, which was just as questionable in the past, is not at all possible these days. In the era of social media, news travels fast and cannot be easily controlled. The crisis can quickly get out of hand, with the public and the media putting the failure on trial and causing severe damage to the credibility of an organisation, with negative consequences for its image and, ultimately, for funding. A crisis communication plan therefore needs to be prepared in advance to anticipate any crisis situation that may arise. Its main objectives are: • Avoid perception that the organisation is inadequate in facing the crisis, or even negligent; • Protect the image and reputation of the organisation;

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Fig. 3.11 The Orbital Sciences Corporation Antares rocket, with the Cygnus spacecraft onboard, suffers a catastrophic anomaly moments after launch from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport Pad 0A, Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2014, at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. The Cygnus spacecraft was filled with about 5000 lb of supplies slated for the International Space Station, including scientific experiments, experiment hardware, spare parts, and crew provisions. Credit NASA/Joel Kowsky

• Identify, in advance, potential crisis situations and establish a strategy to effectively respond to them; • Make sure that major stakeholders are well informed in due time of what is going on; • Establish procedures and develop informative content and messages adequate to face the points above. The first steps necessary for developing a crisis communication plan are to appoint a team to manage the crisis, with each member being given well-defined duties and responsibilities. The team should be made up of key people in the various programme areas and those members of the staff who have very deep technical and scientific expertise in certain specific areas that will probably be “under fire” in case of crisis. The team leader should always be the organisation’s director, as he/she is ultimately the one who has to defend the institution, its image and reputation. Once the team is in place, its first task will be to identify potential crisis situations. After that, scenarios will have to be devised, questions that might possibly arise from the media and the public identified and proper answers prepared. At this point in time, the main issue will be to appoint, well in advance, spokespeople who will be the only ones in charge of speaking and giving answers to media in their respective areas of responsibility. Usually, but not necessarily, spokespeople are part of the crisis communication team. Attitudes towards speaking in public, giving interviews or interacting on social media may vary a lot from person to person, and

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the most competent staff member on a given subject or a top ranking official may not be the individual most suited to becoming a spokesperson. Or maybe he/she is, but to find it out, intensive media training will be required. If, even after training, a senior officer turns out to be unsuited to the role of spokesperson, it would be better to find a more junior substitute within the organisation with outstanding communication skills. Inevitably, the Director should anyway be the one standing up in the most critical cases, such as casualties, complete launch failure, or loss of the mission, and should therefore receive a very intensive media training as well. Luckily, the majority of possible space failures, such as launches, encounters, and landing on other planets, are always scheduled for given times in the future, and so it is possible to prepare a set of scenarios and a list of questions and answers and to appoint the most suited spokespeople before the crisis can break out. This also provides time to properly train them in giving public and filmed interviews and mastering social media. One important reason why training is so fundamental is that, in the case of a crisis, communication focuses on how to defend an organisation under fire, something that is very different than promoting a space programme. Unfortunately, many high ranking staff think that they can easily skip training and give an interview anyway, because they know the subject so very well. Maybe they are capable of promoting a space programme, a subject that they have completely mastered from the scientific, technical and economic points of view, but it is not so easy to properly answer tricky questions asked by skeptical or even hostile journalists who may be looking for a scoop on the hidden story behind the failure. If one is not adequately prepared, this can lead to public image disasters that can be very hard to recover from and that can have significant consequences for funding. In any case, even in cases in which media are not necessarily aggressive, making a point in front of a camera in a crisis situation is something that should not be improvised, also taking into consideration that all of the space programme’s stakeholders14 should receive timely, appropriate and clear messages as to how the situation is evolving. Analogously, social media channels should be set up in advance and standard messages prepared to be sent out in due time. In this respect, a set of ready-to-use statements for each possible crisis scenario is important, since it will reassure the public and convey the message that the organisation feels that it has a responsibility to inform them as soon as new findings are available. Nothing is, in fact, more worrying than an empty webpage. A simple statement such as: We are currently investigating the possible causes of the accident and we will inform you as soon as we have new information.

instead gives much-needed reassurances instead reassuring. Moreover, before the potential crisis takes place, communication officers should have already analysed the sentiment of stakeholders and of the public on social media 14 Decision-makers and the scientific community are usually stakeholders in cases of crisis communication. A space organisation should know very well what its target groups are. For more on this, see Sect. 3.1.

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towards their organisation and towards the space programme in general. In this way, answers, messages and statements can be crafted to meet actual expectations and worries. Last, but not least, when the team has been established, the spokespeople selected and the answers and messages identified, the whole organisation must be set up in such a way to ensure that, in case the crisis actually breaks out, all necessary and relevant information is channeled to the spokespersons quickly. Password-protected phone loops and chats should be set up to guarantee confidentiality. Throughout the crisis, in fact, actions must be taken immediately and efficiently at all levels of the organisation, and there must be no uncontrolled information leakage. Only in this way will the spokespeople be able to do their job properly and protect the image and future of the space programme. Monitoring reactions in real time during the crisis will also be important, since it will allow for prepared messages and statements to be fine tuned in line with the “mood” of the stakeholders as it evolves during the crisis, keeping in mind that a minimal number of simple messages is always much more effective than complex explanations full of technical jargon. Twitter, in this respect, is a very powerful social media platform for crisis communication. The limitation placed on the number of characters helps in getting to the point. In conclusion, a good crisis communication plan put properly into practice is a fundamental tool for facing one of space communication’s greatest nightmares: failure. If all of the players in the organisation act properly, the impact on the public image can be minimised, since stakeholders will end up sympathising with an organisation that is perceived as having done a very difficult job in the most scrupulous and transparent way. In some cases, sympathy will even turn into support, and this will become a key factor in ensuring funding for future space missions.

3.7 Available Communication Tools and Their Evolution Over Time The number of tools available to institutional space communication officers has continued to grow over time. In this section, a brief summary of this evolution is given, while Chap. 6 will be devoted to explaining in greater detail how this happened in recent decades, taking as examples some missions that were particularly relevant from a communication point of view. In the early days, those of Sputnik 1 and Yuri Gagarin, the available communication kit was rather limited: • Media events • Press releases • Various gadgets, stamps, models and coins and communication content was constrained by the highly political environment typical of the Cold War.

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The response by media was also limited to newspaper, magazine and radio coverage, which, in the Soviet Union, were controlled by the regime anyway. A major step forward was taken with the advent of television. This outlet imposed itself gradually after World War II and had become a formidable communication tool by the time of the Moon Landing of Apollo 11, which can be considered as the first space event in which the public felt itself to be actively participating. This feeling was cultivated again in the dramatic moments of Apollo 13. At that time, TV journalists, as well as opinion leaders, became very important to the spread of space news and it was customary to feed them with rich press kits. A new major change occurred at the time of the NASA Mars rovers, in particular, the first one, Sojourner. The potential of the Internet to disseminate information became evident when NASA started to distribute images of the Red Planet in Near Real Time. This gave the Agency a lot of power to reach the public directly and, in turn, gave many people the opportunity to become media themselves, since it was easy to open sites and blogs to further distribute and comment upon space content. Hubble, moreover, demonstrated that space images could have an artistic appeal that would attract people not necessarily keen on astrophysics. In 2009, with STS 125, the social media era started for space as well. The first ever tweet from space was made by Massimino, a NASA astronaut, and from then on, social media became a direct communication tool for astronauts of all nationalities, giving communication officers new ways to reach the public directly. The addition of the Cupola to the International Space Station added another communication dimension, i.e., the ability to distribute high resolution images taken from the ISS with practically no limitation in terms of field of view. All of these new possibilities created the opportunity for many new media to participate in the distribution of Space information in a sort of democratisation process of communication. Today, one can say that the category of space-interested media ranges from the powerful TV corporation to the smart guy with a Twitter account living in the middle of nowhere.

References About Pew Research Center: www.pewresearch.org/about/ (2019). Accessed 9 July 2019 Bundy, J., Pfarrer, M.D., Short, C.E., Coombs, T.: Crises and crisis management: integration, interpretation, and research development. J. Manage. XX(X), 1–32 (2016). https://media.terry. uga.edu/socrates/publications/2017/03/BundyPfarrerShortCoombsinpress.pdf. Accessed 26 July 2019 Chambers, L.: Climate is changing—but some believe the threat has been exaggerated. YouGov. https://yougov.co.uk/news/2013/09/23/climate-change-real-it-man-made/ (2013). Accessed 9 July 2019 Cox, D., Navarro-Rivera, J., Jones, R.P.: Believers, Sympathizers, and Skeptics: Why Americans are Conflicted about Climate Change, Environmental Policy, and Science. PRRI/AAR, Religion, Values, and Climate Change Survey. https://www.prri.org/research/believers-sympathizersskeptics-americans-conflicted-climate-change-environmental-policy-science/ (2014). Accessed 10 July 2019

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Dahlgreen, W.: Space Exploration Still Seen as Important. YouGov. https://yougov.co.uk/news/ 2013/11/08/space-exploration-still-important/ (2013). Accessed 11 July 2019 Fan Page List: http://fanpagelist.com/category/top_users/ (2018). Accessed 28 Feb 2018 Friend or Follow: http://friendorfollow.com/twitter/most-followers/ (2018). Accessed 28 Feb 2018 Kuefler, J.: Media Fragmentation: 10 Things You Can Do Right Now. http://www.callahancreek. com/media-fragmentation-ten-things-you-can-do-right-now-1/ (2019). Accessed 9 July 2019 Moore, P.: Younger Americans are Much More Skeptical of Vaccination than their Elders. YouGov. https://today.yougov.com/topics/lifestyle/articles-reports/2015/01/30/youngamericans-worried-vaccines (2015). Accessed 26 July 2019 National Research Council of the National Academies: Pathways to Exploration -Rationales and Approaches for a U.S. Program of Human Space Exploration. https://www.nap.edu/read/18801/ chapter/5#89 (2014). Accessed 23 July 2019 Newport, F.: On Darwin’s Birthday, Only 4 in 10 Believe in Evolution—Belief Drops to 24% Among Frequent Church Attenders. Gallup. http://news.gallup.com/poll/114544/darwinbirthday-believe-evolution.aspx (2009). Accessed 10 July 2019 O’Brien, J., Sherden Amy: Astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti returns from record-breaking space mission, becomes internet sensation. ABC news, 24 Feb 2016. http://www.abc.net.au/news/ 2015-07-08/astronaut-samantha-cristoforetti-internet-sensation/6604868sensation/6604868. Accessed 12 July 2019 Pew Research Center: Public and Scientists’ Views on Science and Society. http://www.pewinternet. org/2015/01/29/public-and-scientists-views-on-science-and-society/ (2015). Accessed 9 July 2019 Pew Research Center: Majority of Americans Believe It is Essential That the U.S. Remain a Global Leader in Space. Public’s policy priorities reflect changing conditions at home and abroad. http://www.people-press.org/2015/01/15/publics-policy-priorities-reflect-changingconditions-at-home-and-abroad/1-15-2015-priorities_01/ (2018). Accessed 12 July 2019 Strong, Jr., E.K.: The Psychology of Selling and Advertising. McGraw-Hill Book Co., New York (1925)

Chapter 4

Space Communication for the Public

Abstract The chapter focuses on space communication in regard to the general public. First of all, it tries to make differentiations, since ‘general public’ is a very vague expression that includes many different elements. In this respect, data are shown that clarify exactly what the public is interested in, with particular attention being paid to analysis of the behaviours of certain groups within the general public who are particularly important for communication, such as fans of astronauts, amateur astronomers and the science-informed public. In this way, it becomes clear that branding (the Agency’s logo, its colour palette, the layout of its web pages, its fonts, etc.) is fundamental for those segments of the public, since they want to identify themselves with the “space brand” in a way that is not very different from customers who are loyal to commercial brands.

4.1 The Interested, the Neutral and the Residual Publics NASA depends on the will of the people, as expressed through their senators and representatives and the president, for its funding and direction. NASA has to take the pulse of the American people and obtain its good will. […] (NASA’s Headquarters Library 2018).

It may sound a bit too oversimplified and rhetorical, but the NASA declaration is substantially true: today, national space agencies, such as NASA, JAXA, ESA, and so on, depend on public and private funding bodies made up of citizens, in NASA’s case, and, indeed, in their own words, the American people. This means that these Agencies have to take the pulse of their citizens. This is something that is unavoidable, and also not easy. At present, in fact, it is quite hard to find a political motivation as strong as the one that existed during the Cold War, when landing on the Moon was much more a matter of predominance than it was a purely scientific achievement. If citizens are so important, they need to be known very well. So, who is the general public? What is its attitude towards science in general, and towards space science in particular? The situation varies from country to country. Here, I will mainly refer to the U.S. and Europe. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 F. Drigani, Communicating Space Exploration , Space and Society, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33212-9_4

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Talking simplistically about “the general public”—or “publics”—is imprecise, since the public is not at all homogeneous. It represents a very multifaceted audience. We can distinguish experts from non-experts, but a too rigid categorisation is simplistic and can lead scientific institutions into dangerous misunderstandings while planning their communication strategy. However, what is certain is that you can always find people within the public who represent one of three groups: the interested, the neutral, and residual, the latter being those people who are not interested at all, even though they really should be, given their professional or public roles. This categorisation applies to everything. Whatever you are talking about or doing, you will always find enthusiastic and interested people on the one hand and indifferent or even hostile people on the other hand. In the middle, you will find the bulk of neutrals, who may or may not appreciate your communication on a case by case basis and that may or may not become engaged. It will depend on the context, on the period, and on whatever they may be doing when they are informed about space science; finally, it will depend on the type of communication news and information. In a certain sense, the percentage of neutrals you are able to captivate will measure your success as a communication officer. The greater percentage of the public that you can acquire from this central category, the better you are doing.1 In this chapter, I will therefore discuss the main characteristics of the general public and try to identify certain positive attitudes towards space that can be utilised to involve as much of the public as possible, I will then analyse the interested public and the peculiar group of followers and amateurs separately. Space and Astronomy have many of these.

4.2 The General Public’s Attitudes Towards Space According to the Pew Research Center, more than 70% of American citizens say “it is essential for the U.S. to continue to be a world leader in space exploration, and eight-in-ten (80%) say the space station has been a good investment for the country” (Pew Research Center 2018). In spite of the rising role of the private sector, in such ventures as SpaceX, Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin, 65% of the population thinks that NASA should retain its leading position. Moreover, this result seems to be generation-neutral, as this belief can be found in people from the oldest to the youngest. But what are the main goals for space exploration and exploitation, according to this survey? The answer emerges clearly from Fig. 4.1. Climate and the monitoring of asteroids are the only subjects that dominate the majority of the public interviewed. Looking for extraterrestrial life and sending astronauts to the Moon or to Mars appear to be minority interests. The message that is

1 See

Sect. 3.5 on the communication funnel.

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Fig. 4.1 Percentages of US adults who say that each of the following should be a top priority for NASA. Credit Pew Research Center, Washington DC (Pew Research Center 2018)

coming from the American citizenry seems to be much more of a request for care and attention than one of passion for space and astronomy. From this point of view, it is understandable that Americans would prefer that their Country retain its leading position in the world. If space has to play a role in looking after us, its exploration must be guided by those whom they trust. However, it is interesting to note that the report also says that 58% of Americans thinks that “astronauts, not only robots, should explore space” (Pew Research Center 2018). What about European citizens’ attitude towards space? In theory, the European attitude should be different from the American one for several reasons. Europe did not take part in the race to the Moon and its engagement with space exploration has clearly been less that found in America.

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Moreover, the European Space Agency was fully established only in 1975. The first selection of European astronauts was conducted in 1978—ten years after the beginning of the Apollo missions—and the first European astronaut flew into space five years later with the Spacelab mission, done in collaboration with NASA. To make things worse, for a long time, ESA efforts to involve European citizens were essentially very limited, relegated to institutional brochures and media contacts on the most important occasions. Things started to change at the end of the ‘90s, when ESA became more ambitious from a communication point of view. Based on that, one could assume that ESA and space play a minor role in and have a negligible impact on European society in comparison with NASA’s, even if ESA was able to rely on very successful missions from the very beginning. In 1986, as an example, Giotto became ESA’s first deep-space mission to reach the nucleus of Halley’s Comet. In 2011, the Special Eurobarometer 403 (SE 403) addressed the “Europeans’ attitudes to space activities” (EU Open Data Portal 2014), in the European Union and in Croatia, at that time, a Country that was not yet part of the Union. The SE403 had the goal “to gain insight into Europeans’ awareness and expectations of spacebased services and their opinion on the role that the EU should have in developing space activities and space exploration” (EU Open Data Portal 2014). It also addressed three different points: (a) Opinions and perceptions about space-based services and technologies; (b) Threats from space, and (c) Space exploration. The conclusions are interesting, but not too surprising. While Europeans think that the main priorities in the next 20 years will be Employment (47%), Health (42%), the Economy (34%), the Environment (32%), Education (31%), Energy (28%)—astonishingly, almost all of them, Health excluded, begin with the letter E, as does ‘Europe’ itself—they credit space-related activities with having a positive effect in many fields. The most frequently cited challenges that can benefit from space-derived services are Energy (37%), the Environment (33%) and Communication (31%). There is also an overall consensus among European citizens that investing in space will foster the creation of new jobs and economic opportunities. About 70% thinks that “space activities can have a positive impact on environmental protection, more efficient agricultural activities and understanding climate change” (EU Open Data Portal 2014). And 60% of the respondents stated that “space technologies and services can be used to predict weather factors such as winds, sunshine and water availability” and that “investing in human space exploration can lead to medical progress” (EU Open Data Portal 2014). Education, too, seems to be very well-linked to space activities. This is bidirectional: at least 73% of the respondents suggests that “including subjects linked to space activities in educational materials would encourage more students to choose careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics” (EU Open Data Portal 2014) and that it would help children to imagine our future society (71%). On the

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other hand, if the level of education of the respondents is high, they are definitely more positive about the impact that space-related activities can have on European society. In comparison with Employment or Health, large asteroids do not worry Europeans too much, even if 30% of them think of that as a problem. A very similar percentage is worried about space debris (35%). At a first glance, data shown in this section seem to contradict that which was stated in Sect. 3.4, where it was argued that space does not have a very large captive audience and has to compete, from a communication standpoint, with other subjects that are definitely more popular. However, if one dives into the matter more deeply, it becomes clear that this is not the case. If space is specifically mentioned to interviewees, they focus on that subject; if not, it does not come to their minds so easily. In fact, it is one thing to ask people about the importance of space and to identify areas in which space research might be useful and another thing to ask them to rank issues without mentioning space as a possible answer. The results shown above have to be looked at from the former perspective and are very important for understanding what the general public is expects from space-related research but, when it comes to deciding whether or not space has priority in the allocation of resources in contemporary society, the picture changes. Worried about our present and well-rooted in our reality, the European citizen is divided about investing in space exploration: of the people interviewed, 47% think that it is important, 46% don’t. Only 29% think that it could be used to test new technologies and 24% believe space is important for making unexpected scientific discoveries. The conclusion is that “Europeans who do not think that further investment in space exploration is important are most likely to say this because they think there are other more pressing issues (72%)” (EU Open Data Portal 2014). As we saw earlier, the same conclusion holds for the U.S. It is not that space and astronomy are losing fascination or interest. They still impress and interest people, but, when citizens are asked to prioritise, they think that there are other more urgent problems to solve and questions to address.

4.3 Some Important Segments of the General Public The majority of the general public is space illiterate or has a very superficial knowledge of some aspects of space exploration, but there are also citizens who are actually fans of space, even if they have only amateur knowledge of space science, and others who are actually experts. Section 4.3.1 talks about the fans, Sect. 4.3.2 about the experts.

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4.3.1 Astronaut Followers and Amateur Astronomers Astronaut followers and amateur astronomers represent a very large group of people, very interested in space and also very active. These two groups have some points of contact, but they are usually separated from each other. Both of them constitute a largely non-homogenous ensemble of people who have a passion in common, although their backgrounds can differ a lot from person to person. They can be space engineers, policemen, farmers, teachers, writers or retired people, but all of them are keen on astronomy (if amateur astronomers) or human spaceflight (if astronaut followers) and, according to their background and personal inclinations, they can be very knowledgeable in their amateur field. What they are looking for is very detailed and dedicated information, precise and trustworthy, that they cannot otherwise find. This is a request that is not always easy to satisfy. However, their passion for space leads them to have another thing in common. They want to belong! In order to meet that need, let us, for a moment, think in more general marketing terms. In the book “Brands and branding” (Clifton 2009), Tom Blackett, one of the contributors, writes in his chapter that brands are intrinsically striking and that their role is to create an indelible impression. In the same book, another contributor, Shaun Smith, quotes the brand promise by Harley Davidson “We fulfil Dreams” (Harley Davidson 2019) and also includes the expanded version: Fulfilling dreams for people from all walks of life who cherish the common values of freedom, adventure and individual expression, involves much more than building and selling motorcycles. The secret of our enduring brand lies in delivering an experience rather than just a collection of products and services. (Clifton 2009)

Inevitably, this book from The Economist deals primarily with the economic importance and value of a brand, which is definitely not the subject of this book. However, it is important to underline here that expressions such as: • • • •

Intrinsically striking; Indelible experience; We fulfil Dreams; Delivering an experience.

are also suited to describing what a Space Agency or a space research centre can offer, thanks to their exciting missions and experiments and to their amazing astronauts. NASA, ESA, RosCosmos and the major space research institutions are therefore brands2 around which the communities of space enthusiasts, such as astronaut fans and amateur astronomers, cluster. Those individuals want to feel a sense of belonging 2 The

importance of the corporate identity as major tool of institutional communication for Space Agencies and Research Centres has been already discussed in Sect. 3.3. In this section, we underline the fundamental role that is plays for space fans.

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to the brand, are ready to dedicate their free time to it, hope to see their dreams come true and wish to be somehow rewarded for their loyalty. How do you identify a brand? Brands are always recognised by their logo, and this is also true in the case of space. Successful logos must possess certain important features. First of all, they have to be simple. You should not have to spend time trying to understand them; they have to convey the brand’s key message(s) to you straight away. Moreover, they also need to be unique, highly visible, adaptable, easy to remember, universal and long-lasting, if not timeless (Schools 2015). The logo is the main element of an identity, but, as described in Sect. 3.3, there are also other components (ESA Corporate Visual Identity 2019), such as typography, colours, page layout, imagery and guidelines. Thanks to these, the corporate identity reflects and makes apparent the differentiating values that are part of the culture, history and ambitions of a brand (Drigani et al. 2010). For all of these reasons, the corporate identity is particularly relevant for space fans who are eager “to feel” their brand. The logo is also the basis for a considerable amount of memorabilia that is useful for reinforcing the feeling of belonging, such as: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

Patches T-shirts Mugs Backpacks Models.

and many other products (Fig. 4.2). Since all space fans have their favorite mission and astronaut, mission logos are also important in creating the feeling of belonging. In the case of a human space

Fig. 4.2 ESA astronaut patch. Credit ESA

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flight, the logos are usually a combination of a mission element with the names of the astronauts (Figs. 4.3 and 4.4). Moreover, there are other tools that have been devised in the past to increase the sense of community, such as competitions in which winners get attend the launch, special events featuring the distribution of awards, or appearances with astronauts signing cards and books, and so on. With the arrival of social media, however, fans have inevitably come to expect to feel the space experience in new and exclusive ways. This has led to the introduction of space ‘tweet-ups’, which have quickly become common communication tools for these types of audiences. Fig. 4.3 STS 133 crew patch. Credit NASA

Fig. 4.4 Soyuz TMA-09 M crew patch. Credit RosCosmos

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Tweet-ups are organised gatherings of people who belong to the same Twitter community for the purpose of becoming closer friends, sharing opinions and strengthening personal networks. Little by little, tweet-ups have become more and more structured, up to the point that NASA has developed a social network programme called NASA Social (2019). On the home page of NASA Social, there is an explanation of what the programme is, in the course of which a number of important benefits of this social media type of communication are showcased. They are: • A way for NASA followers to meet NASA scientists, astronauts and engineers and share information with them about their programmes; • A way to bring interested people together; • A great opportunity to go behind the scenes at NASA facilities, which is exactly what that type of audience dreams of doing; • A way to offer social media followers the same kind of experience and the same access to premises, media briefings and facilities that is given to professional journalists. Followers attending the NASA social events have to go through an accreditation process to ensure that they can contribute in spreading the news and information that they receive. In particular, they have to meet the following criteria: • 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 and/or NASA audiences. • Must have an established history of posting content on social media platforms. • Have previous postings that are highly visible, respected and widely recognized. • Do NOT feature items such as profanity, spam, adult-oriented material, and/or other inappropriate activities (Follow NASA 2018).

In short, they represent an additional resource created by volunteers, who are able to contribute to the NASA communication campaigns in the social media environment in a significant and original way (Fig. 4.5). What we have been discussing so far applies to space fans in general, no matter whether they are astronaut followers or amateur astronomers. However, it is interesting to note here that astronomy is one of the few cases in which it is accepted that amateurs may make genuine contributions to science. A notable example of that was the Hubble Space Telescope in its early days.3 This is unquestionably a very efficient way to ensure that they are more and more engaged in space-related science activities and increase their motivation to support professional communication officers.

3 See

Sect. 6.4 for a description of that.

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Fig. 4.5 NASA Tweet-up participants gathered at the launch clock, Friday, July 8, 2011, prior to the launch of the space shuttle Atlantis (STS-135) at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Credit NASA

4.3.2 The Science-Informed General Public That which is described in Sect. 4.3.1 is not yet enough for a very specific kind of public, i.e. those who, even if they do not work in the field, have a very good knowledge of Space Science and technology. These are people who do have an intellectual curiosity about the subject, not just a simple curiosity, and they have a desire to discuss scientific and engineering matters with professionals. They want to understand, they wish to go to into a great amount of detail and they want to participate as well, not only from an emotional point of view, but with the ability to add their own comments and suggestions. Engaging them is not easy, since communication skills alone will not be sufficient, requiring real scientific support by experts as well, but it can be rewarding. These people are, in fact, great fans and clever commentators. The best tool for reaching them is probably the blog, since it allows for going into detailed explanations. Figure 4.6 shows the NASA Mars Rover Curiosity Mission updates (2017), a typical mission blog. As indicated on the right, its updates are provided by the mission team members. This is the best way to approach such a blog, since the subject tends to be very technical and team members have the adequate skills to meet the expectations of that particular audience. Many blogs on space exist today, are fed not only by agencies, but also by private entities, magazines and individuals. A list of sixty important blogs is provided in Feedspot Blog (2019). They play a very important role, since they offer platforms for the space expert community to obtain detailed information and discuss space-related topics. Parallel to that, there are more traditional tools, utilised since the beginning of the space era, such as scientific documentaries and reports. While blogs exist solely on the internet, these are usually broadcast on TV. In this case, the public remains passive, but the awe generated by high quality images and the power of direct interviews

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Fig. 4.6 NASA Mars Rover curiosity: mission updates blog. Credit NASA

edited by an art director in such a way as to tell a story can fascinate and engage science-informed viewers considerably.

References Clifton, R.: Brands and branding. The Economist, London (2009) Drigani, F., L’Abbate, F., Simões, H., Walker, C.: The Way We ESA, Introducing ESA corporate visual identity. ESA Bulletin 141 (2010). https://m.esa.int/About_Us/ESA_Publications/ESA_i_ Bulletin_i_141_February_2010. Accessed 5 July 2019 ESA Corporate Visual Identity: http://www.esa.int/identity/ (2019). Accessed 17 July 2019 EU Open Data Portal: Special Eurobarometer 403, the Europeans’ Attitudes to Space Activities. http://data.europa.eu/euodp/en/data/dataset/S1085_79_4_403 (2014). Accessed 15 July 2019 Feedspot Blog: https://blog.feedspot.com/space_blogs/ (2019). Accessed 18 July 2019 Follow NASA: https://www.nasa.gov/connect/social/credential.html (2018). Accessed 17 July 2019 Harley Davidson: https://www.harley-davidson.com/us/en/about-us/company.html (2019). Accessed 16 July 2019 Mars Curiosity Rover Mission Updates: https://mars.nasa.gov/msl/mission/mars-rover-curiositymission-updates/ (2017). Accessed 18 July 2019 NASA Socials: www.nasa.gov/connect/social/index.html (2019). Accessed 17 July 2019 NASA’s Headquarters Library: https://www.nasa.gov/centers/hq/library (2018). Accessed 5 July 2018

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Pew Research Center: Majority of Americans Believe It is Essential That the U.S. Remain a Global Leader in Space. https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2018/06/06/majority-ofamericans-believe-it-is-essential-that-the-u-s-remain-a-global-leader-in-space/ (2018). Accessed 15 July 2019 Schools, D.: The 7-Step-Paul-Rand Logo-Test. Entrepreneur’s Handbook. https:// entrepreneurshandbook.co/the-7-step-paul-rand-logo-test-5c7b546af17b (2015). Accessed 16 July 2019

Chapter 5

Space Communication for the Stakeholders

Abstract The chapter focuses on institutional space communication in regard to its main stakeholders, identified as the media, decision-makers, opinion leaders and influencers as far as the public is concerned, and the scientific community and industry in terms of communities that participate in the space exploration endeavour.

Since space research largely depends on public funding, influencing decision-makers is the first point examined. Secondly, we discuss which stakeholders contribute to establishing a consensus. Media are fundamental in this respect, but it is felt that they often fail to convey the original messages intended by the community, preferring to craft their own messages instead. Furthermore, a trend that has developed in modern society is that young people do not trust the media. They feel to be manipulated by media and believe in social media. For all of these reasons, it is deemed necessary to rely on other stakeholders to convince the public: opinion leaders and influencers. The former are particularly active on traditional media and offline, while the latter are on social media and are continuously growing in terms of clout. As to the scientific community and industry, their needs in terms of communication are discussed in detail separately, paying attention to the fact that today’s “space industry” is a very complex reality with far reaching economic implications.

5.1 Decision-Makers One of the main aims of institutional space communication is to help gaining the support of decision-makers1 since this ultimately means obtaining funds. In the case of space, decision-makers are, in general, politicians, who do not necessarily have space at the top of their agendas, being more concentrated on other types of science or industry.

1 Decision-makers exist at various levels: ministers, high level committee members, local authorities,

etc. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 F. Drigani, Communicating Space Exploration , Space and Society, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33212-9_5

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A lot of effort therefore has to be put into convincing them to invest in space, and there is a set of communication tools that are widely used by space communication officers to obtain this objective: • • • •

Dedicated events; Visits to industry facilities and scientific laboratories; Invitations to launches and key operational moments; Dedicated publications, ranging from detailed reports to fact sheets.

However, the most important point is, in reality, how best to approach these decision-makers. Space Agencies and Research Institutes are full of very talented and highly skilled scientists and engineers who, in particular moments, have to face decision-makers at various levels and need to be able to get the most out of them that they can. Unfortunately, this often leads to a clash between two different mentalities. Some suggestions2 (Goldsmith 2009) are given here on how to overcome these difficulties and influence decision-makers in the best way. When preparing a strategy to influence decision-makers, institutional communication officers should remember that: 1. The decision will not be made by the ‘right’ person, or the ‘smartest’ person, or the ‘best person but by the person who has the power to make it. One has to accept that. (Goldsmith 2009) 2. When presenting ideas to decision makers, realize that it is your responsibility to sell not their responsibility to buy. (Goldsmith 2009)

Decision-makers are often a laity in regard to space science, even if they have decisional powers. They are definitely not experts at the level that you might expect them to be, but you have to live with it, since they have been elected. For that reason, in order to convince them buy into the idea of investing more in Space, you need to expend a lot of energy improving the way that your proposal is presented, rather than blaming the decision-makers for not to being able to understand the importance of your ideas. The worst thing that you could do, in fact, would be to arrogantly assume that the decision-maker will take the superiority of your scientific and technical points for granted. 3. Focus on contribution to the larger good - and the needs of the decision maker - not just the achievement of your objectives. (Goldsmith 2009)

Decision-makers should be convinced that a certain decision meets their needs and/or is useful for their constituency. They should not get the impression that a decision solely benefits the Space Agency or the Research Center. Moreover, it is up to the communication officers to highlight that there is a connection between 2 The

author has given permission for us to take his recommendations (in italics) directly from the quoted article. In his article, he is actually considering the relationships between experts and the management that oversees them, while this book analyses the interactions between Space Agencies and political decision makers. I think, however, that there is a very strong analogy between the two cases and that the same recommendations can also be applied to interactions between space communication officers and decision-makers.

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the benefits the decision-makers expect and those of the Space Agency or Research Center, since this link may not be entirely obvious. 4. Strive to win the “big battles” - don’t waste your energy and “psychological capital” on trivial points. (Goldsmith 2009)

One is unlikely to be able to retain a decision-maker’s attention for too long. Only primary issues that are vital for a particular space activity are worth a battle. Also keep in mind that too much time spent on small points is bound to annoy a decision-maker. 5. Present a realistic “cost-benefit” analysis of your ideas - don’t just sell benefits. (Goldsmith 2009)

Decision-makers are used to thinking in terms of trade-offs, and cost inevitably plays a major role, since there is never enough money to go around for all of the projects that are proposed to them. A presentation that highlights benefits alone is therefore not only useless, but even counterproductive, since the decision-maker will feel that he/she is being confronted with unknown risks. A realistic cost-benefit analysis is therefore the only way forward and should contain some margin for sacrifices. Decision-makers must also feel that the space communication officers are listening to their points as well, because, like all human beings, they tend to be resistant to change. Let them object, and be ready to explain the reasoning behind your point in detail. Keep in mind that credibility is a very important asset to be used at the next proposal presentation. 6. “Challenge up” on issues involving ethics or integrity - never remain silent on ethics violations. (Goldsmith 2009)

Ethics violations can have devastating effects on Agencies and Research Centres, and you have to react quickly and strongly to the risk of being drawn into unethical behaviours by decision-makers. However, before shouting begins, the real intentions of the decision-makers should be carefully checked. In many cases, what may seem to be an unethical request is just the result of a series of misunderstandings due to the cultural diversity that exists between politicians and scientists. 7. “Realize that powerful people are just as “human” as you are - don’t say, “I am amazed that someone at this level…” (Goldsmith 2009)

Since decision-makers are as human as anybody else, they make mistakes. However, when you are trying to influence them, you should not emphasise their mistakes, but try to help them. This was the case, for example, in June 2019, when the US President tweeted that NASA should not go to the Moon, but rather to Mars. This caused a lot of turmoil in the space community, which was expecting NASA to go to the Moon as part of its Mars program. However, NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine was quick to react, and, a few days later, he declared that nothing had changed, reiterating the point that the Moon

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remained a valuable waypoint on the way to Mars, and that this was what the President has actually meant. 8. Treat decision makers with the same courtesy that you would treat customers - don’t be disrespectful. (Goldsmith 2009)

One should not flatter decision-makers, but neither should one stab them in the back with negative comments. They are unnecessary and counterproductive. 9. Support their final decision (Goldsmith 2009)

Even if the decision-maker’s final decision is not what you had expected or hoped for, it must be publicly supported anyway. One has to take seriously one’s duty to execute decisions made at a higher level and must be committed to accepting what was decided. Be patient and wait for the next opportunity to change decision-makers’ opinions. 10. Make a positive difference - don’t just try to “win” or “be right.” (Goldsmith 2009) 11. Focus on the future - “let go” of the past. (Goldsmith 2009)

Moaning about what happened in the past does not help. It could actually be counterproductive, and could annoy decision-makers, who might regard the Agency or the Research Center as being incapable of finding solutions. This can generate a lose-lose situation, since decision-makers are always looking for ideas that can help them in the face of public opinion and dislike being reminded by others of their previous failures. Concentrating on the future is a way to create a win-win situation. To these suggestions, I would like to add a strategic point that I consider very relevant in dealing with decision-makers. It is fundamental to understand their decision cycle3 (Jolles 2019). If you want to get approval from decision-makers, you need to act in line with their decision cycle. Failing to do that will lead nowhere. However, while respecting their decision cycle, you should create a sense of urgency. If decision-makers do not feel this, they will be inclined to refrain from making a decision. Once they have felt the urgency, you need their commitment. Without a clear commitment, you have not reached any substantial result.

5.2 Media, Opinion Leaders and Influencers As already discussed in Sect. 3.3 (Kuefler 2019), nowadays, there is an incredible number of media that can reach the public. One can classify them in various ways: • By type, such as television, radio, web, print, etc.; • By approach, such as general or in-depth information;

3 As

to (Kuefler 2019), the same comment from the previous note applies.

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• By subject, such as sport, science, travel, etc.; • By size, such as multimedia corporations, local news, etc. and so on, but it is pointless to try to list them all. What counts here is the fact that there are at least two categories of media that have been important since the beginning of the space era: • The main news channels (regardless of medium); • Science reports and documentaries (regardless of medium). Space-related activities often represent breaking news. This was true at the time of Yuri Gagarin and Apollo 11, and it has been true ever since. I am actually proud to say that it often stands as the only good news amid the wars, economic crises, crime and natural disasters that make the headlines in the evening news. No wonder, then, that the attention of journalists from news channels who report on space-related activities has always been high on the agenda of space communication officers, who regularly invite them to major space events such as launches, image releases or announcements of scientific discoveries. They also provide them with press kits and other useful background material and offer them interviews with top ranking executives, scientists and astronauts. It is then up to the space journalists to make the best possible use of all of that information and footage. When media put their news programs on the air, or on the internet, they are seen by a multitude of people, varying from the space fan to the guy who is waiting for the upcoming sports results. Each news outlet is therefore in competition with all of the others to grab the public’s attention, and the space journalist4 must have the ability to convey the main message immediately with punchy comments and impressive footage. If this works, the benefits in terms of awareness can be very significant. Also important for space communication officers is the category of journalists and film makers who specialise in space (or science) programs. These are not people who come in at the last minute with a high tech crew and disappear as soon as the last interview is done; these are patient and persistent researchers of archive material, footage, and expert interviews who will propose ideas for shooting brand new material. Their work is crucial to that of space communication officers, because they are the ones who are going to produce documentaries and reports that will be appreciated by that portion of the public that wants to understand more about space and its related science. News journalists create the hype, documentary filmmakers plant the seeds of long term engagement for a segment of the public.5 For all of these reasons, the media are therefore a key target group for space communication officers. Without their work, the voices of Space Agencies and Research Centres would hardly ever reach the general public. However, this is still not enough. Paul Lazarsfeld, in fact, defined, in 1948, the “Two-step flow model of communication” (Lazarsfeld et al. 1944), which states that interpersonal interaction is more effective in influencing public opinion than mass media. 4 Of

any journalist. Sect. 3.5 on the communication funnel.

5 See

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This means that there are people, the so-called opinion leaders, who are able to interpret media messages and disseminate information to the public in a very effective way. In doing so, they become very powerful, since their opinions are highly regarded by that segment of the public that trusts them more than the media, who are perceived as pushing certain agenda-related messages. They trust them because of the values that they represent, because they recognise their competence, and also because they are able to create social networks (Katz and Lazarsfeld 1955) (Fig. 5.1). Inevitably, opinion leaders have played an important role in space communication since its early days. All kinds of media—television, radio and newspapers—have hosted them in various ways, and their views have been fundamental to shaping public opinion. However, with the advent of internet and, above all, of social media, a new type of profession has emerged. This new profession is called an influencer. In a way, influencers are similar to opinion leaders, but it is necessary to address them separately, because their activity is strictly related to social media. This means that they are in continuous interaction with their public, which is not the case with opinion leaders. And the “two steps communication flow” (Lazarsfeld et al. 1944) theory therefore does not apply to them in the same way as it does to traditional opinion leaders. However, influencers are not simply substitutes for opinion leaders, since a good part of the influential exchange of information still occurs offline (Carl 2006); rather, they complement them. Let us now look at who the influencers are in more detail.

Fig. 5.1 The two-step flow model of communication

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In essence, they engage in testimonial advertising on the social media platforms, and can therefore play a significant role in space communication, since people rely more and more on social media to form their opinions. Space Agencies and Research Centres do not advertise, but this does not mean that they cannot work with influencers. The typical influencers’ behaviour is to be active in an adequate number of channels (Shaughnessy 2012) whereby they interact with users and try to convince them on certain positions, not necessarily with strict logical argumentation, but more through persuasion (Cialdini 2006). In doing so, they can be positive, but also detractive. Their strength derives from the fact that they can reach large communities directly, are able to create original content and have their followers’ trust. In order to achieve their client’s purpose, effective influencers are able to change their followers’ attitudes through a psychological process that6 : • Encourages their target group to share opinions on social media in order to participate in the subject. The influencer is the one starting and facilitating the discussion. • Converts followers into supporters. • Engages supporters permanently and makes them loyal. However, two points have to be kept in mind: • Their reputation is key to their role, and if this is put into question for whatever reason, it immediately affects the organisation that they are supporting. In that respect, they can also influence in a negative way and, if this happens, the consequent damage to image can be enormous; • Influencers with big audiences are not necessarily the best ones; It is, in fact, often the case that influencers with small audiences are engaging them in a way that those with large numbers of followers are not capable of. This has much to do with the particular level of competence of an influencer on a given subject. Their main platforms are the most common social media, with Instagram being the most utilised one, and, as far as space is concerned, they are, in general, scientists, journalists, industry analysts, specialised advisers and consultants. It can be useful for a Space Agency or a Research Center to have influencers create social conversations around their missions and experiments, and for that reason, space communication officers should be ready to support them with relevant content. There are several ways to classify influencers. A common one is (Phynthian 2019): • “Celebrities”; these have millions of followers and can generally create awareness more than conversion; • “Experts”; these do not have as many followers, but they can involve their followers on particular topics more than celebrities can; • “Bloggers and content creators”; these produce good quality content that is useful for creating conversion; • “Micro-influencers”; these are very useful for creating engagement. 6 Communication

and marketing are not the same thing. However, there are points of contact, and reading about the digital marketing RACE model can be useful at this stage (Chaffey 2017).

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Space communication officers will have to think carefully in deciding who to contact and, in doing so, some considerations on the strengths and weaknesses of each influencer will have to be made. For example, some may be more trusted than others, or they may be more or less capable of setting trends. However, one should be aware that the web is full of fake influencers7 who buy followers, likes, comments and more. A recent study (Hickman 2019) has shown that 54% of UK Instagram accounts have engaged in some kind of illegal behaviour, such as buying mass followers and comments, using internet bots, etc., a problem that is common all over the World. Another source (Jones 2018) has stated that, in 2018, 12% of UK Instagram influencers were still buying followers, and today, spotting fake followers is the biggest concern of marketeers (Mediakix 2019), in spite of the recent crackdown by Instagram on “inappropriate content” (Hutchinson 2018).

5.3 The Scientific Community Activities related to space research continued to increase over time and is now being conducted by a large community of scientists working worldwide. If you take just one important and complex instrument like the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS-02), which is mounted on the International Space Station (ISS) to measure anti-matter in cosmic rays, you will find that its development involved 500 scientists working at 56 institutions in 16 countries around the world. Five Space Agencies participated. And this is just one experiment! Institutional communication has the duty to provide adequate information to this particular group of insiders, not just on the individual instruments that they know about in detail but also, generally speaking, on the space programmes and missions of which their instruments are part. Many scientists, in fact, work in their laboratories, contributing to the development of a spacecraft, but do not necessarily have access to the broader picture. A Space Agency or a major Research Center can fill that void for them by creating web sites with: • • • • • • • •

The mission overview; Information on the observations made by the spacecraft; A data archive where all data are ingested; The relevant data products; An on-demand reprocessing system; The relevant documentation; An updated catalogue of relevant publications; A help desk.

7 Despite

this, the majority of the public continues to place blind trust in social media.

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This, however, is only within the real of information associated with scientific activity and, strictly speaking, is not communication. Nowadays, scientists need more. First of all, they need participation. Without them, a space mission could not be accomplished and, for that reason, when it comes to the launch and to the scientific results, events have to be created at various levels, not only for the principal investigators and the main co-investigators, but for the whole scientific community, down to the level of young graduated trainees. Secondly, scientists, in particular, the young ones, need to be exposed to media and their stories have to be told to the public. This is an important way for Space Agencies and Research Centres to reward scientific team members, and there are many examples (ESA Space for Earth 2019) of that, but this also has some important consequences in terms of motivation for young boys and girls who may see examples to imitate in the future. Young scientists describing their careers and successes is one of the best ways to promote space among younger people.

5.4 Industry The title of this section can be subject to interpretation, since, in regard to space, industry may mean different things. A clarification is therefore needed to make sure that there are no misunderstandings, and it is also necessary from a communication viewpoint. Most likely, the majority of people understand the notion of a space industry in a rather restrictive way, i.e., only those companies and their contractors who manufacture or integrate spacecraft, launchers and the relevant ground segment. However, it is much more than that, and a more comprehensive definition can be given if one associates space industry with the broader concept of a space economy, which is defined as follows: All public and private actors involved in developing and providing space-enabled products and services. It comprises a long value-added chaining, starting with research and development actors and manufacturers of space hardware and ending with the providers of space-enabled products and services to final users. (OECD 2007)

In this definition, a value-added chain means all activities, both upstream (from design to operations in space) and downstream (applications, distribution, services), that add value. In order to make this concept clear, let us take a concrete example of a value chain, i.e., DTH (Direct to Home) television services, which can be divided into fixed satellite services (FSS) and mobile ones (MSS). Figure 5.2 shows the turnover of the various elements of the DTH value chain (Omelyanenko 2017). This particular example shows that satellite manufacturing and launch services combined, i.e., what many people consider to be the space industry, represent just a

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Fig. 5.2 Satellite technology value chain. Credit ESOA (Omelyanenko 2017)

fraction (5%) of the entire DTH value chain. Even the entire upstream part (manufacturing, launch services and satellite operators) constitutes only 16% of the value chain. DTH is just one of the many space-related value added chains. Others are, just to name a couple, geolocalisation and remote sensing, each of which contributes significantly to the space industry turnover. In order to make the size of the space economy clear, I will mention some data from the Space Foundation publication “The Space Report 2015: The Authoritative Guide to Global Space Activity” (Space Foundation 2015). According to that report, the global space economy in 2014 reached a total of $330 billion worldwide, up from 2013’s $302.5 billion. The Report also indicated that the total of the space economy in 2013 can be subdivided as follows: 24% in government spending (13% USA, 11% non-USA) and 76% in commerce (37% commercial infrastructure and support industries, 39% commercial products and services). At this point in time, one could be tempted to conclude that communication related to the space industry should consider the whole space economy as its domain. However, there is still something relevant that needs to be added. The space sector, in fact, is in the peculiar position of using cutting edge technologies that can find application in other domains later on. For this reason, there is another type of industry, which cannot be considered space industry, but that can be very relevant for communicating space-related achievements to the public. It is made up of a large number of companies that have benefited from space technology and research through technology transfer and industrial spin-offs (Nasa 2007).

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For example, scratch resistant lenses were developed in 1983 and publicly released in 1989. Prior to their development, lenses were primarily made of ground and polished glass (Fig. 5.3). It should now be clear that the term ‘space industry’ is usually understood in the reductive context of the upstream space industry, but that there are, in reality, many other companies that are active in businesses related to space. Having said that, let us now look at the role that communication plays in all of these cases. Since this book concentrates on institutional communication, it is evident that the narrow definition of space industry, which includes only satellite, launcher and ground segment manufacturers, is particularly important. This type of company was already collaborating with Space Agencies from the outset in their effort to explore space, and consequently took on their own share of the risks. Services were, in fact, relatively limited at the beginning of the space era, and only started to play a predominant role in the industry turnover later on. Moreover, the success of a Space Agency largely depends on its upstream contractors, since taxpayers notice successes (or failures) in launches and satellites operations. As a consequence of that, cooperation on communication between the Agencies and that type of industry has been very important, and still is, to the degree that space mission communication plans contain several points that have been jointly agreed upon between the relevant Agency and industry. The identification of the points in time when joint communication activities have to be carried out is strictly linked to the life cycle of a space project. The typical phases of a space project are the following: 0. “Pre-A Concept Studies A. Concept & Technology Development; B. Preliminary Design & Technology Completion;

Fig. 5.3 Scratch-resistant glasses. Credit Pixabay

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C. D. E. F.

Final Design & Fabrication; System Assembly, Integration & Test, Launch & Checkout; Operations & Sustainment; Closeout” (Nasa 2007)

In line with this, communication activities shall be scheduled so as to underline the most significant milestones of each phase in the project’s life cycle. Examples of such milestones are: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

Award of a feasibility study; Selection of the mission main contracts; Award of a design and development contract; Demonstrations of technology; First integrated hardware visible at industrial facilities; Testing of flight hardware testing; Shipment to launch base; Launch; Key operational events during the mission; Announcement of decommissioning or extension of mission; Main results (first image, new discovery, etc.).

All of these points in time give the industry some important opportunities: • Take pictures and shoot videos of the industry’s top management with high ranking Agency directors and political decision-makers; • Explain the technological and economic assets of the company, as well as its future industrial and job creation plans, to the media; • Organise visits to facilities and hardware; • Share success at launch and during operations so as to highlight the key role of a certain company in important scientific and technological endeavours. For all of these reasons, institutional communication must support the satellite launch and operations industry. It is of mutual advantage that the public perceives that space projects foster the development of a strong and technologically advanced industry in a particular country. However, communication officers should keep in mind that all of the events that precede the launch have a limited impact on public opinion. They are more suited for specific target groups: • Decision-makers; • Certain sectors of the media, such as newspapers, television networks, websites and bloggers who specialise in technology or economics; • Local media in areas where the relevant industrial facilities are located. These groups, although limited in size, are very important in their support for the project, including in regard to future requests for funds, and all communication efforts should therefore be concentrated on them. Let us now focus on the downstream space economy, which is very important today and which plays, in terms of turnover, a bigger role than the upstream space industry.

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The number of companies involved is big and the fields of application enormous. In the example of the DTH industry shown above, the number of upstream companies is 70, the downstream 1000. It is unreasonable to expect institutional communication to use every single mode of relevant communication to use every activity in order to pass along its space-related messages and, in several cases, it also does not make sense. The public may, in fact, not see the link between a certain application and space, or may feel annoyed by information that it does not consider relevant. However, this is exactly the reason why some significant efforts should be made by institutional communication in regard to downstream industry. Let us look at why. Starting with TV broadcasting, services that depend on space technology have increasingly shaped the day-to-day lives of human beings. Think about weather forecasting, geolocalisation, remote sensing and all kinds of possible applications. However, all of that does not bring adequate publicity to space and space research and, consequently, does not generate support for future funding. Today, space technology is, in fact, seen by the vast majority of human beings as a sort of commodity, i.e., an available resource that can be plugged into all sorts of applications without significant effort. Those who deal with space should, in a sense, be proud of it, because it shows that space is perceived in contemporary society as a part of daily life, but the danger is that there is no true understanding in the society concerning the efforts needed to set up and maintain space infrastructures, not for the fact that space-related activities in general, and space science in particular, need to be adequately financed. The statistics given in 3.4 confirm this perception. Awareness campaigns on the need for a technologically advanced space industry to foster and sustain our daily lives are therefore needed and have to be engaged in not only in support of individual companies in the downstream space sector but of that industry as a whole. In this respect, campaigns aimed at youths and students are particularly relevant, since they can help them to understand what drives our society and shapes their future. In this case, the communication campaigns should not be linked to specific space projects or programmes of limited duration, but should be done continuously over time and should stress the role of space as an enabler of many sectors of modern society. In order to achieve this, a strong link has to be established with national governmental institutions, who should, in principle, share the same objectives as Space Agencies. Let us now move on to technology transfer. Institutional communication also has to play a role in regard to those industries that are not a part of the space sector, but that benefit from space technology transfer and spin-offs. Major Agencies are, in fact, very active in this field, which, in the past, has often led to outstanding and sometimes unexpected results. A list of the top ten NASA spin-offs published in 2010 (McFadden 2018) clearly shows the importance of this space-related activity. They are: • “Satellite Television; • Memory Foam/Ear Thermometer; • Invisible Dental Braces; • Scratch-Resistant Lenses;

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5 Space Communication for the Stakeholders • Modern Insulation; • Cordless Tools; • Water Filters/Purification; • Adjustable Smoke Detectors; • Computed Tomography Scanners” (McFadden 2018)

to which others have been added in other articles and publications. This is, of course, just the tip of the iceberg, since thousands of technology transfer cases have occurred in all kinds of business, many of which, although perhaps less impressive to the general public than the ones mentioned above, have been important anyway from a technological point of view and have helped mankind take significant steps forward. Space Agencies need to communicate these successes and to make clear, within the real of public opinion, that space plays a key role, not only in regard to space exploration and space services, but, in a more general sense, in shaping the future of our citizens through technology transfer. Websites, publications and participation in fairs have to be planned so as to get this message across. Moreover, successful start-up cases need to be awarded with prizes at public events and ceremonies to which specialised media, opinion formers and decision-makers are invited. Finally, the figures shown at the beginning of this section to indicate the size of the space economy include other important activities that have not been considered so far from a communication point of view. These are those space-related upstream and down-stream activities that are completely managed by private enterprises, without any intervention by or contribution from Space Agencies or Research Centres. A typical example of this is space tourism, an industry that will grow in the future, but which already has big private companies involved, such as SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic, developing space planes that should soon make access to space possible for common people. Another area in which private companies have gone very far is small and nanosatellites, which can be built very quickly and for very little money. Traditional satellites were heavy, cost a huge amount of money and required years to be built and launched. As a consequence of that, “… only governments and large corporations had the necessary deep pockets.” (Datta 2018). With the advent of small and nanosatellites, the barrier to entry, in terms of complexity, timing and cost, is now much lower (Datta 2018). Another obvious area is launchers. SpaceX has made all kinds of headlines with its reusable boosters, and now offers very competitive launch prices with its Falcon 9 rocket (Fig. 5.4). Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic are also working hard to enter into this promising field. How should institutional communication position itself in regard to all of these cases? It will, of course, not contribute to campaigns engaged in by private enterprises, which have rich promotional budgets of their own. However, it should not act or react towards these activities with hostility, i.e., with the fear that private companies are “stealing” space activities from Space Agencies.

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Fig. 5.4 Artist’s rendering of the approach to Mars. Credit SpaceX

Such an attitude would lead nowhere, and could even be counterproductive. Space is simply becoming more and more of a pervasive component of our modern and technological society, and it is therefore normal that actors would come onto the scene who are attracted by new business opportunities. In the future, space will inevitably become increasingly privatised,8 but still with a substantial governmental Agency contribution to ensure that space science, exploration, research and technology demonstrations are carried out regardless. They may not be profitable for the downstream industry, but they will be useful for society at large in terms of the increase in knowledge. What also really matters in this case is that younger generations be constantly informed through promotional campaigns of the fact that space improves our daily lives in many ways, as well as opening new frontiers. In this respect, institutional space communication officers should be open-minded, promoting not just those thing that their Agencies develop, but the whole spectrum of space-related activities.

References Carl, W.J.: What’s all the buzz about? Everyday communication and the relational basis of word-of-mouth and buzz marketing practices. Manage. Commun. Q. 19(4), 601–634 (2006). https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0893318905284763?journalCode=mcqa. Accessed 19 July 2019 Chaffey, D.: Introducing RACE: a practical framework to improve your digital marketing. Smart Insights. https://www.smartinsights.com/digital-marketing-strategy/race-a-practical-frameworkto-improve-your-digital-marketing/ (2017). Accessed 19 July 2019

8 This

point will be expanded in Chap. 7.

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Cialdini, R.: The Psychology of Persuasion, revised edn. Harper-Collins Publishers, New York (2006) Datta, A.: Top five small satellite start-ups that are transforming the EO industry. Geospatial World. https://www.geospatialworld.net/blogs/top-small-satellite-start-ups-that-aretransforming-the-eo-industry/ (2018). Accessed 22 July 2019 ESA Space for Earth: Marta Ferraz, Scientist, ESA robotics Exploration. https://www.esa.int/Our_ Activities/Preparing_for_the_Future/Space_for_Earth/Marta_Ferraz_Scientist_ESA_Robotics_ Exploration (2019). Accessed 21 July 2019 Goldsmith, M.: Influencing decision-makers. Harvard Bus. Rev. https://www.marshallgoldsmith. com/articles/effectively-influencing-decision-makers/ (2009). Accessed 18 July 2019 Hickman, A.: Majority of UK Instagram influencers engage in fakery—landmark new study. PR Week. https://www.prweek.com/article/1590362/majority-uk-instagraminfluencers-engagefakery-landmark-new-study (2019). Accessed 6 Aug 2018 Hutchinson, A.: Instagram launches new crack down on fake followers gained via third party apps. Social Media Today (2018) Jolles, R.: 6 Keys to Influencing People, Not Manipulating Them. Business Know-how. https:// www.businessknowhow.com/growth/influence.htm (2019). Accessed 19 July 2019 Jones, M.: 12% of UK Instagram Influencers are Still Buying Fake Followers. https:// www.digitalmarketing-conference.com/12-of-uk-instagram-influencers-are-still-buying-fakefollowers/ (2018). Accessed 20 July 2019 Katz, E., Lazarsfeld, P.F.: Personal Influence. Free Press, New York (1955) Kuefler, J.: Media Fragmentation: 10 Things You Can Do Right Now. http://www.callahancreek. com/media-fragmentation-ten-things-you-can-do-right-now-1/ (2019). Accessed 9 July 2019 Lazarsfeld, P.F., Berelson, B., Gaudet, H.: The People’s Choice: How the Voter Makes Up His Mind in a Presidential Campaign. Duell, Sloan and Pierce, New York (1944) McFadden, C.: 23 Great NASA Spin-off Technologies. Interesting Engineering. https:// interestingengineering.com/23-great-nasa-spin-off-technologies (2018). Accessed 22 July 2019 Mediakix: Influencer Marketing 2019: Key Statistics from Our Influencer Marketing Survey. https://mediakix.com/influencer-marketing-resources/influencer-marketing-industry-statisticssurvey-benchmarks/ (2019). Accessed 20 July 2019 Nasa: NASA Systems Engineering Handbook, pp. 8–9. https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/ atoms/files/nasa_systems_engineering_handbook_0.pdf (2007). Accessed 30 Aug 2019 OECD: The Space Economy at a Glance. OECD Publishing, Paris (2007) Omelyanenko, V.: Basics of optimization strategy for integrating space industry technology package into global value chains. Econ. Bus. https://www.degruyter.com/downloadpdf/j/eb.2017.30.issue1/eb-2017-0010/eb-2017-0010.pdf (2017). Accessed on 22 July 2019 Phynthian, S.: The Rise of Influencers: What They Do, How to Find Them, and How They Can Help Grow Your Startup. https://www.eu-startups.com/2019/01/influencer-marketing/ (2019). Accessed 6 Aug 2019 Shaughnessy, H.: What are The Key Behaviours of Top Social Media Influencers? Forbes. https:// www.forbes.com/sites/haydnshaughnessy/2012/01/13/what-are-the-keybehaviors-of-top-socialmedia-influencers/#2b3d9fd8544b (2012 ). Accessed 6 Aug 2019 Space Foundation: The Space Report 2015. https://www.spacefoundation.org/2015/07/18/thespace-report-2015-pdf-is-now-available/ (2015). Accessed on 22 July 2019

Chapter 6

Some Space Missions and Events as Case Studies on Space Communication

Abstract The chapter is not intended to provide neither a comparative analysis among space agencies, nor a historical review of the most memorable space missions. Only a handful of missions and events are taken into account as case studies, and only for their relevance in regard to the evolution of space communication over the last six decades. In this way, the main steps taken by this discipline are described, showing the way in which it has changed following new social and political issues and by taking advantage of new technologies.

The mission and event-related topics considered are: • • • • • • • • • • •

Sputnik 1 Yuri Gagarin Apollo (11-13) The Hubble Space Telescope The first crew aboard the ISS The Mars rovers Massimino’s first tweet from space The International Space Station Cupola The Rosetta Mission The Stratos Mission SpaceX.

6.1 Sputnik 1 The Space Era started on October 4th, 1957, when the Soviet RosCosmos State Organisation launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial Earth satellite. The event was celebrated worldwide as one of the greatest scientific programmes ever undertaken and was understandably the first case of media coverage of space activities (Fig. 6.1).

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 F. Drigani, Communicating Space Exploration , Space and Society, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33212-9_6

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Fig. 6.1 The front page of the Communist Party newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda from October 6th, 1957, two days after Sputnik’s first orbit of the Earth. Credit Komsomolskaya Pravda

Its impact, from a communication point of view, was underestimated by the authorities. Only on October 6th, following the enormous coverage that took place worldwide, did the Soviet Union begin to celebrate the event (Russian Through the Lens 2017). It was actually a shock for America, which realised that the USSR was ahead in the Space Race, a realisation created reactions at different levels, generating the so-called Sputnik effect. Many Americans, in fact, began to reflect upon their educational system, and thus Sputnik, in a way, played a major role in introducing reforms, in regard to both the formation and recruitment of researchers, by putting a spotlight on the

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national problem. Furthermore, the Sputnik effect increased government investments in technology research and development. As a consequence of that, less than a year after the launch of Sputnik 1, a new civil space agency became operational: the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), with the broad mission to develop space activities, and to involve the nation’s scientific community in these activities by widely disseminating information about them. Since then, NASA has become the space agency that represents space in the collective imagination.

6.2 Yuri Gagarin The flight of Yuri Gagarin is a very interesting case from a communication standpoint. That event, surely one of the most significant events of the Twentieth Century, was exploited politically by the propaganda machine of the Soviet Union to demonstrate the superiority of Socialism with respect to Capitalism. On April 12th 1961, Yuri Gagarin to took flight in the Vostok 1 spacecraft. His flight lasted 108 min. During the flight, Gagarin issued some quotes, containing messages such as: Looking at the earth from afar, you realise it is too small for conflict and just big enough for co-operation. (Mortimer 2017)

and Circling the earth in the orbital spaceship, I marvelled at the beauty of our planet. People of the world!! Let us safeguard and enhance this beauty-not destroy it! (Mortimer 2017)

which were addressed to the whole of mankind, but also greatly enhanced the Soviet propaganda. After his return to Earth, he remained a fixture in newspaper headlines in the Soviet Union and all over the world (Krasnova 2019) (Fig. 6.2). Gagarin thus became an international hero. The Soviet Union was quick to capitalise on his flight in terms of propaganda, claiming that this achievement embodied the genius of the Soviet people, the powerful force of socialism and its superiority in all aspects of science and technology. The communication campaign surrounding Yuri Gagarin’s flight was done through all of the means typical of those days: • Official press releases were published. Their source of information was the Soviet military organisation, and thus the releases were highly political; • Events were arranged to celebrate the success in a very patriotic way; • Radio, in particular, and, to some extent, TV broadcast theses events; • A good number of articles were published in newspapers and magazines controlled by the regime, such as Pravda;

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Fig. 6.2 Literaturnaya Gazeta article about Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space. Credit RIA Novosti/CC-BY-SA 3.0

• • • •

All media in the Communist Countries widely covered the event; Western media that sympathised with Socialism did the same; Large use was made of gadgets, medals, stamps and coins; Monuments were built in Gagarin’s honor.

The success of the Soviet campaign was facilitated by the resonance that the flight of the first man in space had worldwide. All media around the Globe covered the event, despite the fact that the world was living through the Cold War. Even more than after the Sputnik 1 launch, space became a battlefield for the international rivalry between the US and the USSR, two superpowers with two opposite

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Fig. 6.3 First in Space Yuri Gagarin 12 April 1961. Credit Russian Federation, Soviet-Art-Ru

Fig. 6.4 A Russian 10 rouble coin commemorating Gagarin, 2001. Credit Russian Federation

visions of politics, economics and society. What was at stake in the Space Race was prestige and a demonstration of international leadership. Finally, as to the communication tools, it is particularly interesting to underline the role played in those days by stamps, medals and coins. Since the ‘30s, designing inspirational airmail stamps had been very common in the Soviet Union. Industrial achievements and social and political milestones were the dominating themes (Andrews and Siddiqi 2011).

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A collection of stamps commemorating Gagarin’s flight and the Soviet achievement was designed, and was largely destined to be used to communicate Soviet successes abroad, in particular, in the other communist Countries (Fig. 6.3). This was true for coins and medals as well (Fig. 6.4).1 Finally, in the Soviet Union, they even built monuments to celebrate Gagarin and the other cosmonauts. The most striking example of this is the “Monument to the Conquerors of Space” built in 1964 in Moscow (Fig. 6.5).

Fig. 6.5 Monument to the Conquerors of Space. Credit Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication

1 The

coin in Fig. 6.4 is actually from 2001, but it has been chosen as a good example of a very iconic commemorative coin.

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6.3 Apollo (11-13) Two missions of the Apollo programme (NASA Scientific and Technical Information Office 1975; Launius 1994) were historic successes with major implications for communication: the first man to land on the Moon with Apollo 11 and the “successful failure”2 (Lubin 1934) of Apollo 13, a very clever name from a communication standpoint. When the Apollo programme was launched, “Dream” was the main theme of the communication used to convince Americans that it was worth spending a large amount of money on a programme whose scope was to bring human beings to the Moon. This is evident if one reads the speeches made by President Kennedy in 1961: First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him back safely to the earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish. (Gilruth 1975)

And, from 1962: We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organise and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too. (NASA 1962)

This speech focused the attention of the U.S. society on the dream of space exploration. What is particularly impressive in these speeches is that terms such as “expensive” and “hard” are used in a positive sense, as natural elements of the Dream. The idea behind it, in fact, is that the enormous fascination of such exploration will make any criticism of its cost and difficulty irrelevant. Moreover, the possibility of failure is not even contemplated. The dream associated with space exploration was evoked again on July 20th, 1969, when Neil Armstrong landed onto the surface of the moon and said: That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. (Armstrong 1969)

Newspapers and radio were still very important at the time of the Moon landing, but television had, in the meantime, become the dominant medium. Millions around the world watched an unrivalled broadcast in which the astronauts descended into the Sea of Tranquillity on the lunar surface, monitored by the NASA Engineers of the mission control center in Houston. People were fully aware of the importance of the event and made sure not miss it. It was clear to all that this great adventure transcended nationality and had become a milestone for all of humankind. The dream had come true. 2 Expression

taken from the title of filmmaker Arthur Lubin’s first movie in 1934.

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The US immediately exploited that great success to demonstrate that the technological supremacy of the Soviet Union at the time of Sputnik 1 and Vostok 1 had now shifted to the United States, which was establishing its world leadership in that way. From our perspective, it is also interesting to consider some specific features of the communication strategy implemented by NASA before the Apollo 11 mission landed on the moon. President Richard Nixon had to carefully consider what he would say during a telephone call to the astronauts that would be widely broadcasted. He took the line of making some simple, nonpartisan statements and made sure not to have the national anthem of the United States of America played while the men were on the surface of the moon. This would have been obliged them to stand at attention for two minutes of their short visit. He chose to say to Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin words that were not selfcongratulatory: Neil and Buzz, I am talking to you by telephone from the Oval Room at the WhiteHouse. And this certainly has to be the most historic telephone call ever made from the White House. Because of what you have done, the heavens have become part of man’s world. As you talk to us from the Sea of Tranquility, it inspires us to redouble our efforts to bring peace and tranquility to Earth. (Public Broadcasting Service 2019a)

In this way, the American President gained conveyed a message worldwide that was universal and acceptable by all kinds of people, no matter their nationality, culture or religion, but, as in the case of Gagarin’s messages for the USSR, he conveyed a subtle message that the future would be marked by the Pax Americana. Another interesting point in regard to communication was the role played by astronauts’ wives (Public Broadcasting Service 2019b). During the Apollo program, all media, especially Life Magazine, portrayed the astronauts as all-American heroes with rock-solid temperaments, good opinions, and strong morals. Similarly, the wives of astronauts had to maintain the same attitude in front of a worldwide audience, including at some of the most difficult moments in their lives. NASA arranged a contract with Life Magazine, allowing full access to the astronauts’ personal stories for publication. Life, in turn, paid an allowance to the families, as well as setting them up with life insurance policies. The importance of the first moon landing from a communication point of view can also be seen in the fact that it influenced very different kinds of people. For example, the event inspired new generations to become scientists, and also had some interesting effects among conspiracy theorists, who found it exciting to invent theories trying to demonstrate that the landing had been faked. Another example as to how the success of Apollo 11 penetrated mass culture was in a new phrase that entered English and other languages: If they can put a man on the moon, why can’t they [fill in the blank]?

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The reactions were indeed multifaceted. In New York City, on the day of the landing, a resident of Harlem voiced the same concern as seen from the perspective of the black community to a network TV reporter: The cash they wasted, as far as I’m concerned, in getting to the moon, could have been used to feed poor black people in Harlem, and all over this country. So, you know, never mind the moon; let’s get some of that cash in Harlem. (Chaikin 2007)

A defense of the high costs of Apollo came from Arthur C. Clarke, the futurist who wrote “2001: A Space Odyssey”. He underlined the Apollo’s long-term benefits: I think in the long run the money that’s been put into the space program is one of the best investments this country has ever made… This is a downpayment on the future of mankind. (CBS News 1970)

Apollo 13, launched in 1970, was supposed to be NASA’s third moon-landing mission. Instead, when the crew was close to the Moon, mission controllers noticed a warning signal on a hydrogen tank in the orbiter Odyssey. When an explosion occurred aboard the spaceship, the mission, originally designed to be of lunar exploration, quickly became a mission of survival, and ground control in Houston focused on developing an emergency plan in a very short time, an effort that turned out to be successful. The positive conclusion of the accident constituted a demonstration that NASA could be very efficient at saving lives, but showed the dangers of working in space as well. All of this attracted the public, who participated as if it was part of the mission. Later on, in 1995, Apollo 13, the movie directed by Ron Howard, brought to the screen Apollo’s most dramatic mission. The movie even publicised a catchphrase: Houston, we have a problem. (Howard et al. 1995)

This was the first announcement made when Apollo 13 was in trouble, and also the one of Ed Harris as Flight Director Gene Kranz: Failure is not an option. (Howard 1995)

This was a rewording of the original transmission from Apollo 13. Here again, the fact that these phrases became part of the English language, and of many other languages, tells you how important it is to attract the public’s attention with simple but very catchy sentences. They can, indeed, be more effective than long speeches. In conclusion, for the United States, the mission was an element of its Cold War strategy, but for audiences around the world, it was also a dream, an extraordinary and optimistic voyage of discovery and engineering. In this way, it was also a great opportunity for space communication to highlight, for a very broad segment of the public, the fascination inherent in space and its human dimension (Figs. 6.6 and 6.7).

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Fig. 6.6 View of the Lunar Module at Tranquility Base. Image taken by Astronaut Neil A. Armstrong during the Apollo 11 Mission. Armstrong’s shadow is visible in the foreground. Credit NASA

6.4 The Hubble Space Telescope The Hubble Space Telescope, developed by NASA with contributions from ESA, was launched in 1990 and is managed by the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore. It is still operational today, and could conceivably continue to do its duty until 2040 (Harwood 2013), since it has been repaired in space by astronauts on five servicing missions. No other telescope has ever been designed to be repaired in space. The Hubble telescope’s contribution to space science is enormous, because of its discoveries and its incredible images, but, here again, the discussion will be limited to its relevance from a communication point of view. First of all, this was another case of mixed results, in which a failure was later on converted into a success. The optics of its mirror, in fact, soon began malfunctioning, and this made room for a lot of criticism about the high cost of the mission to the taxpayers. However, the fact that it was not only repaired, but, in particular, that it was repaired by the astronauts, who were, after all, human beings, put the whole affair in a completely different light. The public at all levels was thrilled to see the space walks and felt emotionally involved. All criticism disappeared, and

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Fig. 6.7 One of the first steps taken on the Moon, this is an image of Buzz Aldrin’s footprint from the Apollo 11 mission. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the Moon on July 20, 1969. Image #: AS11-40-5877. Date: July 20, 1969. Credit NASA

the astronomical images that Hubble subsequently produced conquered people’s imaginations, and were received with growing enthusiasm. This capability of the Hubble Telescope to involve a large segment of the public made it, at that point in time, a communication workhorse, as it had been planned to be from the outset. If you go to the communication and outreach page of STScI (STScI Communication and Outreach 2018) you will, in fact, find the following mission statement: Making astronomy exciting, engaging, understandable, and relevant to a diverse audience. (STScI Communication and Outreach 2018)

Moreover, it is important to notice that Nobel prize winner Riccardo Giacconi, who became the first director of STScI, made a very interesting effort to involve amateur astronomers in the mission,3 by deciding to devote some of his time to them, a few hours per cycle. That community was immediately enthusiastic about the idea (Hubblesite News Releases 1992), in line with its natural attitude to be engaged as possible in space-related activities. However, in 1997, the programme was abandoned due to budget cuts (O’Meara 1997). Finally, another very interesting aspect of this mission is the Hubble Heritage Project, which is made up of a team of professional and amateur astronomers and people with other backgrounds, and that releases high-quality and aestethically pleasing images of the most significant celestial objects that have been observed. The project 3 This

had a great impact within the amateur astronomers community. Please refer to Sect. 4.3.1.

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has significantly contributed to attracting the public to discoveries in astrophysics by offering images with a strong artistic visual impact. ESA has also significantly contributed to the Hubble telescope’s outreach success, with photos and with the videocast series Hubblecast (https://www.spacetelescope. org/videos/archive/category/hubblecast/). The short videos are of high quality and offer interesting information suited for the space science-informed public. The number of images released by Hubble is, by now, huge, and some have become rather famous for their stunning beauty (Figs. 6.8 and 6.9). In April 2019, space.com proposed a gallery of the best Hubble space telescope images (Weitering 2019) of all time.

Fig. 6.8 This incredible image of the hourglass-shaped Southern Crab Nebula was taken to mark the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s 29th anniversary in space. The nebula, created by a binary star system, is one of the many objects that Hubble has demystified throughout its productive life. Credit NASA, ESA, and STScI

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Fig. 6.9 A disguised spiral, resembling a wizard’s staff set aglow, NGC 1032 cleaves the quiet darkness of space in two in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. NGC 1032 is located about a hundred million light years away, in the constellation of Cetus (The Sea Monster). Credit ESA/Hubble & NASA, CC BY 4.0

6.5 First Crew Aboard the ISS On October 31, 2000, the Expedition 1 crew, composed of Space Station commander Bill Shepherd (US), Soyuz commander Yuri Gidzenko (Russia) and flight engineer Sergei Krikalev (Russia), was the first crew to reach the International Space Station (ISS). It was a historical moment, since the crew established the first human outpost in orbit (Fig. 6.10). From a communication standpoint, that moment represented an opportunity to convey two very important messages: • The dream of a permanent human settlement in space was becoming reality; • That outpost was truly international, i.e., it was a place where people of different nationalities could peacefully live together. The first crew was made up of one American and two Russians, but astronauts from several other countries soon came to live together on the ISS.

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Fig. 6.10 The International Space Station (ISS), against the darkness of space, photographed by STS-97 crew members onboard the approaching Space Shuttle Endeavour. Credit NASA

The event of the arrival of Expedition 1 on the ISS was a tangible example that the process of abandoning the confrontational attitude that had existed between the two blocks of countries had been completed. The process had already started in July 1975 with the Apollo-Soyuz test project. This joint USA-USSR space mission represented an impressive collaboration between the two superpowers, with the Apollo Command/Service Module docking with the Soyuz, allowing American astronaut Stafford and Russian cosmonaut Leonov to engage in a historical handshake in space. After that, the three American astronauts and the two Soviet cosmonauts gave each other presents, visited the respective spaceships and conducted experiments together. All of this was fascinating from a communication point of view and had significant resonance on Earth. In this regard, I would also like to emphasise the symbolic value of the official emblem that NASA and the Soviet Academy of Sciences designed for the mission. The emblem has a circular design with the words “Apollo” and “Soyuz”4 (the latter written in the Cyrillic alphabet) placed around a disk that shows the two spaceships docked together in Earth’s Orbit. A very powerful message! (Fig. 6.11).

6.6 Mars Rovers Mars, probably because it is so bright, has fascinated human beings (Sutherland 2007) since the times of the Ancient Egyptians, to the point that, in many civilisations, 4 As

an interesting curiosity, Soyuz actually means “union” in Russian.

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Fig. 6.11 Official emblem of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project. Credit NASA

including those of the ancient Greeks and the Romans, it was associated with a god, usually the god of war, because it brought to mind the color of blood. Throughout the centuries, major astronomers such as Fontana, Galileo, Huygens, Cassini, Maraldi and Herschel spent a lot of their time studying it, until 1877, when Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli saw channels on Mars, mistranslated in English as canals, leading to Lowell’s misbelief that the planet had plenty of water and vegetation, and was therefore suitable for colonisation. In the meantime, other astronomers instead thought that the canals had been built by Martians! As if this was not enough, on October 30, 1938, Orson Welles’s radio play “The War of the Worlds” was so realistic that Americans feared that Martian invasion had occurred and mass panic spread throughout the USA. Later on, in 1975, that story was told in the movie “The Night That Panicked America” by Joseph Sargent. With this history behind it, no wonder that, in the era of Space Exploration, Mars has been one of the most important mission objectives, with the main Space Agencies sending many orbiters, landers and rovers to the red planet. In the meantime, the public has continuously shown support for the relevant missions, since it is fascinated by the idea of a possible colonisation of our nearby planet. Nowadays, there is a lot of traffic on and around Mars. As of 2018, six spacecraft are orbiting around it and one rover and one lander are active on its surface, with another rover that is inactive. Moreover, images of Mars can be downloaded by the public at any time. From a communication standpoint, what really matters here is the role that NASA rovers played in building up a new way to involve the public. Figure 6.12 features a nice depiction of the family of rovers as an actual family.

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Fig. 6.12 The NASA Rovers. Credit NASA (NASA SpacePlace 2019a)

From left to right: • • • •

Sojourner; The twin rovers Spirit and Opportunity; Curiosity; Mars 2020 (set to land in 2021).

The pioneering rover was the small Sojourner, weighing only 23 lb and with the ability to move only very slowly, reaching a maximum speed of 0.02 miles per hour. Its lander, the Mars Pathfinder, landed on Mars’ Ares Vallis on July 4, 1997, and was also a milestone from a communication stand point. The main reason for that was the campaign initiated by NASA that was centred around daily releases of images and news on the internet. This made Sojourner part of our daily lives. One can even say that the first rover on Mars coincided with a new era, i.e., the era of the web as a major communication tool. Every single moment of Sojourner’s exploration of the Mars surface was, in fact, followed by the public on Earth in Near Real Time, and some encounters, such as the one with the rock cleverly named Yogi, became extremely popular (Fig 6.13).

Fig. 6.13 Sojourner and Yogi. Credit Nasa/JPL

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It was a great experience to sit at home in front of the computer and actually see how the small rover was travelling around on Mars. Even if there had already been cases of the usage of the internet for communication purposes, it was a pioneering case for a space mission, giving the public the feeling not simply of having been given information, but of having participated in an event, and actually of even having been on the planet’s surface. All of this was possible thanks to the capability of the Mars Pathfinder to immediately download images via the Internet. In this way, a great number of people shared that great experience of being part of a Martian exploration mission (Van Dijk et al. 2000). Sojourner drove only short distances and used her camera to take pictures of the Martian landscape. At the end of her mission, she had sent back more than 550 pictures of the Red Planet (NASA SpacePlace 2019b), not counting those taken from its lander. This was covered by all kinds of media worldwide and became part of popular culture. Sojourner became a star: • It was on the cover of Time magazine; • The toy version was tremendously successful; • The clip when Sojourner approaches Yogi was part of the opening credits of the TV series “Star Trek: Enterprise” (IMDb Crazy Credits 2005) in the first-ever case of a science fiction TV programme including images taken not on Earth, but on another planet in the Solar System. Spirit and Opportunity (NASA SpacePlace 2019a) were sent up in 2003; both were definitely bigger and faster than Sojourner. On the way to Mars, Spirit took the first color images ever taken by a rover of another planet, and Opportunity also captured many color images of the Martian landscape. Curiosity, a giant of 1982 lb, the largest robot ever landed, arrived in 2012, with 17 cameras on board. Some were used to take photos, some to avoid dangers, and one, placed at the very end of machine’s robotic arm, to take selfies. Another trendy communication tool (Fig. 6.14). All three rovers were another communication success, because they tremendously improved the quality of the images and offered endless opportunities to tell stories about what they had discovered. As to storytelling, direct coverage from the control room was also particularly significant. Watchers could feel that controllers were not just very skilled engineers performing complex technical and scientific operations, but flesh and blood women and men, capable of being close to tears if something seemed to be going wrong and ready to shout and celebrate at the successful moments of the mission. This greatly helped in narrowing the distance that common people often perceive between scientists and themselves. The top story from a communication point of view was the live coverage of the happiness of the scientists and engineers in the control room when Curiosity touched down.

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Fig. 6.14 A self-portrait of Curiosity on a Martian sand dune. At this site, she used instruments to scoop up and study sand samples. Credit NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Similar scenes had been shown by NASA before, but, in the case of Curiosity, it was particularly emotional and impressive and was followed with sympathy by a large segment of the public worldwide.

6.7 Massimino’s First Tweet from Space From orbit: Launch was awesome!! I am feeling great, working hard, & enjoying the magnificent views, the adventure of a lifetime has begun! (Massimino 2009)

Thus wrote Mike Massimino at 4:30 p.m., Eastern Standard Time (US) on May 12, 2009, and a new era of Space Communication began. This was the first-ever tweet from the International Space Station, and in that very moment, social media started to play a key role in the public’s space experience. The day after, journalist Alyssa Newcomb, of Nbc News, wrote:

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Sure, we all remember the first guy to set foot on the moon, but for the Twitter generation, Mike Massimino holds a special standing as the first person to tweet from space. (Newcomb 2017)

Ten years have gone by since that first, historic tweet, and social media have grown tremendously in the meantime. They have also become a routine activity for of all astronauts in space, and the public now expects them to share their experiences all of the time. Mike Massimino had started tweeting in early April 2009, when he was still in training, gaining about 70,000 followers in a couple of weeks. Just before launch, he posted on Twitter: I’m going to put my spacesuit on, next stop: Earth Orbit!! (Massimino 2009)

By the time of his first tweet from space, he had reached 247,000 followers; at the end of September, about five months later, he was the first astronaut with more than one million followers, ranking 139th overall on Twitter. His comments were: I cannot believe we got to one million followers. (Massimino 2009) I am thrilled that so many people have been following and responding with such wonderful comments. (Massimino 2009)

At that time, only ten years ago, all of those figures were considered incredible. Today, Scott Kelly has more than five million followers on Twitter. Moreover, in those pioneering social media times, posting tweets was not that easy. Massimino could not access the Internet; he had only two opportunities a day to send email and he had to send his messages to the Johnson Space Center, which would then post them on Twitter. Michael “Mike” Massimino was, at that time, already a very famous NASA astronaut. He held a Ph.D. Degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and had already flown in 2002 on STS109, the fourth Hubble Telescope servicing mission, during which he spent 14 h and 46 min on two spacewalks. In 2009, he participated in STS125, the fifth Hubble Space Telescope mission, during which he made two more spacewalks for a total of 15 h and 58 min. He flew with both the Columbia (in its last mission before the accident) and Atlantis Space Shuttles (Fig. 6.15). Mike has also been involved in many communication activities. He has made numerous TV appearances, including playing himself on the CBS hit comedy “The Big Bang Theory.” He frequently appears on both national and local shows about science and space. He also wrote a book, Spaceman (Massimino 2016). The first tweet from Space, however, added a very singular type of achievement to his brilliant career. It was the NASA’s Public Affairs Office who suggested that Massimino tweet. It was felt that this could be a good way to give more insight into the life of an astronaut on board the International Space Station. It was a good idea, and Massimino proved to be the right guy for this type of communication. Some comments that he made after his mission are very significant in this respect and are worth quoting:

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6 Some Space Missions and Events as Case Studies … I tweet because I feel very lucky to have, what in my opinion, is the best job in the world. (Massimino 2009) I have learned that there are so many people around the world who really love the space program and have a heartfelt interest in space travel - just like me. (Massimino 2009)

Massimino confirmed with such statements that he was not only giving actual information and a greater understanding of the mission his one million followers on the ground, but also sharing emotions directly from space, an extremely important asset for space communication. He himself clearly explained the way that social media can be motivating for an astronaut, since it injects immediacy into space communication. He said: It was a way to share the journey, and I think it has helped a lot. (Massimino 2009)

In this way, he demonstrated that a 140-character message can create involvement and excitement for people who otherwise may not be following what is going on in space… and also how efficient those messages are! Massimino, in fact, reminding readers of how busy the day-to-day schedule of an astronaut is, also said: The opportunity to use Twitter has been great, because by definition it has to be short. (Massimino 2009)

@Astro_Mike, as he is called on Twitter, has, in this way, opened up the doors of the International Space Station to the public and given a million people on Earth the opportunity to discover online what onboard life, work and leisure are like. Last, but not least, he also paved the way for the future. Many astronaut colleagues, in fact, followed Massimino’s example immediately thereafter, offering more and more information on activities both on ground and in space. Also, pictures and videos soon became a common feature in their tweets, and this richness of visual media helped tremendously in giving better and better insights into life in space and further increasing interest and curiosity. Finally, NASA astronaut Jose Hernandez was the first to start issuing tweets in both English and Spanish, opening up a new era for the publics of other countries as well. His example was followed by many others.

6.8 The International Space Station Cupola ‘Cupola’ means ‘dome’ in Italian, and this is what this International Space Station (ISS) module actually is. The module was built in Italy as part of an ESA-NASA barter agreement, and this is why it has an Italian name. The dome is an observation post, with a diameter of almost three meters, a height of 1.5 m and seven windows equipped with manually operated shutters. The Cupola holds a record. It has the largest windows ever installed in space. The top window, in particular, has a diameter of 80 cm. Before the Cupola was installed on the ISS, astronauts and cosmonauts could only view the outside from small portholes.

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Fig. 6.15 Mike Massimino repairing the Hubble Space Telescope in the Cargo bay of Atlantis, in 2009, during a nearly 8-hour space walk. Credit NASA

Only the Destiny Laboratory had a single porthole, with a diameter of 50 cm; all of the others were definitively smaller. This is why astronauts supported the launch of the Cupola after the initiative was put in jeopardy due to the Columbia accident, and eventually welcomed its installation on the ISS. Since then, they have utilised it extensively, not only for work, but also in their free time to enjoy views of planet Earth and space and to take pictures (Fig. 6.16). Commander Chris Hadfield alone took advantage of these windows to take somewhere in the vicinity of 45,000 images in his 166 days in space.

Fig. 6.16 The most amazing window ever created by humankind is not on this planet, but floating in space, and it is the most spectacular part of the International Space Station. It is the ISS Cupola. Credit NASA

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Fig. 6.17 A view from the Cupola of the Aurora Borealis over the United Kingdom. Credit NASA

The Cupola was designed to give the ISS crew an observatory module to help in controlling the remote manipulator system, better known as Canadarm2, the robotic arm used for a number of purposes such as handling payloads, capturing and assisting in the docking of spaceships, deploying equipment, supporting spacewalks, etc., and, more generally, supplying at least two ISS crew members with an observation and working area (Worldlesstech 2011). It was completed in 2003. However, following the Columbia accident, its launch was delayed several times before the Cupola finally made it into space on February, 8 2010, when it flew as part of the Space Shuttle mission STS-130. It was one of the last ISS components to reach the station and was berthed facing Earth. In this way, it gives breathtaking panoramic views of our planet (Fig. 6.17). The Cupola has been a turning point for communication activities related to the ISS and, to space in general. The “room with a view”5 (Forster 1908) of the ISS has, in fact, impacted the lives of astronauts and the field of space communication in many ways: • Since the day of its installation, it has provided unprecedented and spectacular views both of activities related to the ISS and of planet Earth. The images that have been produced ever since have been stunning and, coupled with the enormous success of social media in the same years, have contributed to a very large extent to the ISS’s public outreach to the point that some of the images taken from the Cupola have become iconic in contemporary society; • It has changed the psychological perspective of both astronauts and the public towards the ISS in a way that has turned out to be largely beneficial to space communication. Thanks to the Cupola, this human outpost in space has opened 5 This

is the title of a book written in 1908 by Edward Morgan Forster that, in this case, is being used to describe what the ISS Cupola is.

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itself up in the direction of the universe and, in this way, has quickly given the feeling to astronauts and to the public that the ISS is no longer akin to a submarine in the ocean, i.e., a highly protected spaceship surrounded by a hostile environment, but an open window for admiring the beauty and majesty of Earth and space; • Images of astronauts viewing, thinking and meditating inside of the Cupola or waving from its windows have added a new human dimension to their life in space that has intrigued the public. Their images are, in fact, very evocative and, at the same time, convey the message that astronauts have the same emotions, feelings and astonishments that we laypeople have on Earth. The Cupola has been and continues to be today one of the greatest assets that space communication has and a lesson learnt for the design of future human space flights, when the ISS is no longer in use. A room with a view in space will always be important for mankind, both for the pioneers who will be on board the spaceships and for those who will follow them from planet Earth.

6.9 The Rosetta Mission Rosetta is the European Space Agency’s unprecedented cometary exploration mission, which became the biggest European Space Science Communication event ever. It was the first Spacecraft to orbit a comet’s nucleus and, by getting closer to the sun alongside the comet, was the first to examine the behaviour of a frozen comet. Rosetta was launched on March 2, 2004, and ended its mission on 30 September 2016, after more than ten years journeying through space. It passed close by two asteroids (2867 Steins in 2008 and 21 Lutetia in 2010) before reaching its final destination: Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (Fig. 6.18). Rosetta followed the comet as it orbited around the Sun, and its lander Philae was the first to touch down in a controlled manner on a comet’s nucleus. This mission was an extraordinary scientific and technological success (Science Magazine 2015), despite the less-than-perfect landing of Philae on the comet’s surface. The combination of a rendezvous after ten years of hibernation with a comet travelling at a speed of 135,000 km/h and the landing of the probe Philae on its surface gave Rosetta extraordinary communication appeal. This mission summarises, in an perfect way, all of the aspects that make space potentially very attractive for several target groups, from the very educated to the general public, as described in Chap. 3: • This kind of space exploration is fascinating. It is something that attracts all kinds of human beings as if they were children discovering the marvels of the Universe and Life; • It unifies humankind towards an ambitious goal; • It is at the crossroads of Science, Technology and Society. In this respect, the choice of the name of the mission was an important element of its success. It conveyed the idea that humankind was going to decipher the secrets of

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Fig. 6.18 Single-frame enhanced NavCam image taken on March 27, 2016, when Rosetta was 329 km from the nucleus of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Credit ESA/Rosetta/NavCamCCBY-SAIGO3.0

the Solar System, as did its namesake stone in regard to the language of the ancient Egyptian civilisation. One of the goals of Rosetta’s institutional communication was to raise awareness, engagement and understanding, not only about the mission, but about ESA’s activities in general, with scientists in all of the 22 ESA member states hoping for visibility at a national level. However, a failure could have shifted the public’s perception in a negative direction and damaged ESA’s image. Communicating risks and potential failures associated with each step of the mission therefore became one of the most challenging aspects of the communication campaign of Rosetta, due to the extraordinary nature of some key events, such as its emergence from hibernation, playfully named ‘wake up!’ for communication purposes, the rendezvous with the comet, and Philae’s descent on to the comet’s surface. When the landing turned out not to be perfect, it was very interesting to notice that this was accepted by the public, who had, in the meantime, become sympathetic to the difficulties that the scientists and engineers were facing. All kinds of communication tools were used from the beginning of the mission, and a multi-faceted community of followers was created thanks to engaging storytelling that stressed the difficulty and the human dimension of the mission.

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The key people involved were featured extensively in ESA promotional material, on TV channel interviews and documentaries, and across social media. They were shown during live key events, during their daily work and in ESA’s control room in the exciting moments when Rosetta reached the comet. These moments were experienced at ESA in the same way that those of Curiosity were at NASA. It is important to notice that, in this way, probably for the first time in Europe, key people were not only contributing, through their interviews and commentaries, as seasoned professionals, but also as human beings who were emotionally involved in the success of the mission. The Rosetta communication campaign (Bauer et al. 2016) capitalised on the experience of the Mars rovers, releasing real-time information about what was going on hundreds of millions of kilometres away, and providing a continuous coverage via social media, which, in the meantime, had become mature communication tools. In this respect, it is important to notice that Rosetta mission was launched in 2004, before the arrival of social media as mass-communication channels. Despite this, their role in making Rosetta one of the ESA’s biggest communication and public engagement successes was central. The two Twitter accounts—@ESA_Rosetta and @Philae2014—communicated in the first person and, between them, via Twitter, engaged the followers in friendly conversations about their journey and adventures in the Solar System. An interesting aspect that stresses the human dimension of the mission was the fact that the two protagonists, Rosetta and Philae, similarly to what had been done with the Mars rovers, acted as if they were live beings. Their tweets were often accompanied by images from the cartoon series “Once upon a time…” (ESA Science 2017) in order to reinforce the connection between the fictional spacecraft characters and the mission’s human followers. The cartoon (Baldwin et al. 2016) presented Rosetta and Philae as two brave explorers on a pioneering journey across the Solar System and was published on ESA’s websites and YouTube channel. The journey was narrated by a “grandfather,” represented by ESA’s Giotto spacecraft, which, in 1986, was the first spacecraft to get close to a comet. The NASA cometary missions, Deep Impact and Stardust were depicted as cousins (Fig. 6.19). When Rosetta woke up, the message was a familiar “Hello, World!” (Baldwin et al. 2016), tweeted in 23 languages, allowing followers to retweet it in their own native languages. The use of multilingual tweets was also repeated at the arrival. The tweet was: “Hello, Comet!” (Baldwin et al. 2016). The progress made in the meantime by the cellular phone industry also helped, since content was produced in formats that were suitable for social media and mobile devices, preferably in video form, in order to share stories with the relevant audiences as rapidly as possible. Another part of the Rosetta communication campaign was the science-fiction movie “Ambition” (McCaughrean 2016; ESA Space in Videos 2014). Its aim was to entertain and engage non-traditional audiences, including film lovers, gamers and internet surfers. The title referred to the goal of the mission, reminding the audience

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Fig. 6.19 Rosetta’s lander Philae wakes up from hibernation. Credit ESA

of the risks and expectations of such a technological challenge, and the choice of a short format (about 7 min) made it easy to share the video on the internet. The movie represented an innovative but expensive6 approach to communicating the risks. A core message of the film was, in fact, that humans are ambitious, that they want to explore the Universe, and thus accept the risks. Released two weeks prior to the landing of Philae, the movie obtained 1.5 million views.

6.10 The Stratos Mission The Stratos mission (Red Bull Stratos 2012) was a sky-diving project involving the Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner, who, on October 14, 2012, dove in a pressure suit from an altitude of about 39 km to the ground in about 10 min. For the first 4 min and 19 s, Baumgartner was in a free descent, after which he opened his parachute and continued to descend for about 6 min. He reached a maximum speed of 835 km/h and broke the sound barrier without any consequence to his body, something that was seen by the organisers as a significant scientific result. He landed in a desert area in New Mexico, USA. The whole mission was financed by the Austrian beverage company Red Bull, which produces energy drinks. For that very reason, the company has always been a sponsor of extreme sports events. Felix Baumgartner, a controversial figure, was an ideal candidate to perform such as a sky diving. He was in fact at the time known for his very dangerous stunts. 6 Producing

this type of movies is quite expensive, and it can quickly drain the communication budget. With reference to what said in Sect. 3.3 on channel planning and budgeting, one therefore has to consider whether this type of investment is an optimal allocation of money or not.

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One cannot really say that this mission was a space mission. Nothing was actually carried out in space, and the description of the jump beginning “at the edge of space” was catchy, but not correct. Scientifically, the edge of space is set at the so-called Karman line, which is at an altitude of about 100 km. However, there are a number of reasons as to why the Stratos mission is of interest in regard to Space Communication. The main ones are: • Red Bull stated that the “Purpose of the Red Bull Stratos mission is to transcend human limits” (Red Bull Stratos 2012). This statement, in conjunction with the claim that the balloon reached the edge of space, has positioned the mission in the general public’s mind within the evocative dimensions of the “fascination with space” and of “new frontier for humankind”. The fact that the mission was not actually a space mission from a scientific standpoint has proved to be of no relevance for the millions of people who have enthusiastically followed it. • The Stratos mission is a good example of genuine hype, attracting millions of people, most of whom are not knowledgeable on space and space research, who nonetheless got the sense that “space is cool”, and establishing a record on Youtube at the time with more than 8 millions concurrent views. • The mission was a very risky communication campaign for a private company, even one as used to high risk-high reward campaigns as Red Bull. The company, in fact, was not only a sponsor, but also took the scientific lead in the mission. If something bad had happened, Red Bull would have been blamed for the excessive risk taken and its campaign could have turned into a disaster. However, a strong promotion on social media aimed at involving the public in the endeavour well before the jump, made viewers sympathetic and probably also prepared them for the possibility of a dramatic failure. • There was criticism from some parts of the scientific community that did not see much value in the mission, did not qualify it as a scientific research programme and/or did not realise its potential in terms of communication. The statement about “transcending human limits” (Red Bull Stratos 2012) was also challenged. It was, in fact, felt by some that it conveyed a mistaken idea of space to the general public. However, this criticism remained within the boundaries of scientific community, which had not been the target of the mission in terms of communication anyway.

6.11 SpaceX SpaceX is a private Space company launched in 2002 (SpaceX 2017) by the visionary billionaire Elon Musk, creator of PayPal and several other projects and initiatives. The basic idea behind SpaceX is to build relatively cheap rockets to allow humankind, in Musk’s words, to be “a true space faring civilisation” (Chaikin 2012). This can be achieved by avoiding the need to throw away the whole orbital rocket after each launch and reusing its first stage.

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The first SpaceX launch vehicle was named Falcon 1, and it was the first private liquid fuel rocket ever. In 2010, SpaceX became the only private company to return a spacecraft from low-Earth orbit and, in May 2012, its Dragon spacecraft, also designed to eventually carry astronauts into space, delivered cargo to and from the International Space Station. Finally, in 2017, SpaceX successfully achieved the first re-flight of Falcon 9, its orbital class rocket, in this way demonstrating the savings that can be achieved with rocket reusability. As Musk stated in a SpaceX webcast: …you fly and re-fly an orbital class booster, which is the most expensive part of a rocket … (Amos 2017).

SpaceX also developed a very powerful launcher named Falcon Heavy, and its success has created anxiety in the companies who had previously received most of the public funding, because its launch prices are below those of traditional launch vehicles. Elon Musk claims that this is possible because simplicity is the basic principle of SpaceX’s design. He underlines that the Space Shuttle operated in the exact opposite way, calling it “a Ferrari to the nth power” (Galeon 2017). Moreover, rockets such as Atlas V have usually been built in stages, each having different engines. Falcon’s stages, contrastingly, maximise commonality and all have only one type of engine (Figs. 6.20 and 6.21). SpaceX is very interesting from a communication standpoint for a certain number of reasons: • It is a very significant example of the fact that Space is not only a fascinating endeavour and a way to engage in science, but also a high tech industry that creates highly qualified jobs and technological spin-offs and that can also be a lucrative business. These messages are very important for decision-makers worldwide; • Space is increasingly becoming a private business, and not merely a publiclyfunded initiative. The more Space becomes privatised, the more communication about it will tend to be marketing. We will therefore see, in the future, the public becoming aware of Space through marketing campaigns conducted by big high

Fig. 6.20 Lift off of Falcon 9 carrying the Dscovr Satellite, 2015. Credit SpaceX

6.11 SpaceX

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Fig. 6.21 Long exposure of a Falcon 9 launch shows its trajectory, 2016. Credit SpaceX

tech corporations, significantly changing the way that information about space is communicated. Inevitably, public Space Agencies will have to take that into account; • If big corporations invest in Space, it means that the economic development of humankind will go further and further in that direction. Paradoxically, private corporations will probably be in a position to influence politicians more than public institutions, with the advantage being that space will rank higher on their agendas, but with the disadvantage that economic considerations will tend to prevail over scientific ones, obliging Agencies to fight their communication battles even more fiercely. This can be avoided only if Space Agencies reconsider their role and identify areas in which they are unique. This point will be dealt with in the next chapter.

References Amos, J.: Success for SpaceX ‘re-usable rocket’. BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/scienceenvironment-39451401 (2017). Accessed 27 Aug 2019 Andrews, J.T., Siddiqi, A.A.: Into the Cosmos: Space Exploration and Soviet Culture. University Press, Pittsburgh (2011) Armstrong, N.: ‘One Small Step for Man’: Moment of Neil Armstrong’s Famous Line. https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=J6jplPkbe8g (1969). Accessed 27 Aug 2019 Baldwin, E., Bauer, M., Homfeld, A.-M., Marcu, S., McCaughrean, M., Mignone, C., O’Flaherty, K.S., Palazzari, C.: How a cartoon series helped the public care about Rosetta and Philae. CAP J. 19, 12–18. https://www.capjournal.org/issues/19/19_21.php (2016). Accessed July 31, 2019 Bauer, M., Landeau-Costantin, J., McCaughrean, M.: The strategy and implementation of the Rosetta, communication campaign. CAP J. 19, 5–11. https://www.capjournal.org/issues/19/19_ 05.php (2016). Accessed 31 July 2019

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CBS News: 10:56:20 PM, EDT, 7/20/69: The Historic Conquest of the Moon as Reported to American People, page 60. CBS Television Network, New York (1970) Chaikin, A.: Live from the Moon: The Societal, Impact of Apollo. NASA SP- 4801. https://history. nasa.gov/sp4801-chapter4.pdf (2007). Accessed 26 July 2019 Chaikin, A.: Is SpaceX Changing the Rocket Equation? Air & Space Magazine. https://www. airspacemag.com/space/is-spacex-changing-the-rocket-equation-132285884/ (2012). Accessed 27 Aug 2019 ESA Science: 2017. Rosetta outreach resources. http://sci.esa.int/rosetta/53593-outreach-resources/ #once-upon-a-time. Accessed July 31, 2019 ESA Space in Videos: https://www.esa.int/spaceinvideos/Videos/2014/10/ambition_the_film (2014). Accessed 31 Aug 2019 Forster, E.M.: A room with a view. Edward Arnold, London (1908) Galeon, D.: Elon Musk Says His Reusable Rockets Will Make Space Access 100-Times Cheaper. We’re on our way to becoming “a space-faring civilization”. Futurism. https://futurism.com/elonmusk-says-his-reusable-rockets-will-make-space-access-100-times-cheaper (2017). Accessed 27 Aug 2019 Gilruth, R.R.: Apollo Expeditions to the Moon. NASA Scientific and Technical Information Office. NASA SP-350. https://history.nasa.gov/SP-350/ch-2-1.html (1975). Accessed 25 July 2019 Harwood, W.: Four years after final service call, Hubble Space Telescope going strong. CBS News. http://www.cbsnews.com/network/news/space/home/spacenews/files/ 1ae7cac0d167055e41e1f0da7b0ac6a3-588.html (2013). Accessed 26 July 2019 Howard, R.: Apollo 13. Movie. Image Entertainment, Universal Pictures (1995) Hubblecast: https://www.spacetelescope.org/videos/archive/category/hubblecast/. Accessed 27 July 2019 Hubblesite News Releases: Amateur Astronomers Will Use NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, STScI. https://hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/1992/news-1992-23.html (1992). Accessed 27 July 2019 IMDb Crazy Credits: Star Trek: Enterprise (2001–2005). https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0244365/ crazycredits (2005). Accessed 29 July 2019 Krasnova, A.: The first one beyond the Earth: it is eighty five years since Yuri Gagarin’s birthday. Russian Geographical Society. https://www.rgo.ru/en/article/first-one-beyond-earth-iteighty-five-years-yuri-gagarins-birthday (2019). Accessed 23 July 2019 Launius, R.D.: Apollo: A Retrospective Analysis. NASA Monographs in Aerospace History, No. 3. https://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/Apollomon/cover.html (1994). Accessed 24 July 2019 Lubin, A.: A successful failure. Movie. Monogram Pictures (1934) Massimino, M.: https://twitter.com/astro_mike (2009). Accessed 27 Aug 2019 Massimino, M.: Spaceman: An Astronaut’s Unlikely Journey to Unlock the Secrets of the Universe. Crown Archetype, New York (2016) McCaughrean, M.: Ambition: a risky adventure in science communication. CAP J. 19, 21–28. https://www.capjournal.org/issues/19/19_21.php (2016). Accessed 31 July 2019 Mortimer, L.: The first man in space. Norwich Evening News. https://www.eveningnews24.co.uk/ views/the-first-man-in-space-1-4972932 (2017). Accessed 28 Aug 2019 NASA: John F. Kennedy Moon Speech—Rice Stadium. https://er.jsc.nasa.gov/seh/ricetalk.htm (1962). Accessed 25 July 2019 NASA Scientific and Technical Information Office: Apollo Expeditions to the Moon. NASA SP-350. https://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/SP-350/cover.html (1975). Accessed 24 July 2019 NASA SpacePlace: https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/mars-rovers/en/ (2019a). Accessed 28 July 2019 NASA SpacePlace: https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/mars-sojourner/en/ (2019b). Accessed 29 July 2019 Newcomb, A.: How the first ‘Twitter’ astronaut bucked all norms. NBC News. https://www. nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/how-first-twitter-astronaut-bucked-all-norms-n754591 (2017). Accessed 30 July 2019

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Chapter 7

Future Trends in Space Communication

Abstract In line with some considerations that have been made throughout the book, this final chapter underlines the following ideas: • A fascination with space attracts many people and media in specific moments, but it is not enough to convince the majority of citizens to give priority to funds for space; • In reality, space-related research benefits life on Earth considerably, but this is not known as well as it should be; Therefore, in the future, distinct messages will have to be delivered to different target groups, although this will be done in a changed environment; • Space agencies will no longer be dominant in space research. They will become enablers in a space economy that will be increasingly privatised and marketingoriented; • Space exploration will create incredible opportunities for raising interest, thanks to exploration of the Moon, Mars and exoplanets, as well as space tourism; • The evolution of communication tools will continue, allowing space communicators to understand and segment their public with unprecedented precision in order to offer exciting and engaging experiences. In this way, institutional space communication, without jeopardising the quality and rigour of its messages, will have to get closer and closer to marketing analysis and to advanced forms of social media engagement.

7.1 Introduction I am an optimist. Anyone interested in the future has to be, otherwise he would simply shoot himself. Arthur C. Clarke, “The View from Serendip,” 1977.

The future of space communication (Fig. 7.1) will inevitably be the result of the combination of two elements: © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 F. Drigani, Communicating Space Exploration , Space and Society, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33212-9_7

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Fig. 7.1 Space, a planet, a person looking at stars. Credit Pixabay, Michael Hiraeth

(a) The future trends of space industry and science (b) The future trends in communication. Space communication officers will have to face these two factors and they will need to be ready to react to the relevant challenges. Failure to do so, will forever put them in the unpleasant position of having to chase the events and suffer from the change, rather than being part of it. I will try to give some insight on (a) in Sect. 7.2 and on (b) in Sect. 7.3, in order to be able to come to some conclusions in Sect. 7.4.

7.2 Trends in Space Industry and Science In an article recently published on the web (Merhaba et al. 2019), it has been pointed out that Space Agencies are now in the Space 4.0 era. According to the authors, Space 1.0 was the time of the early astronomers like Galileo, Space 2.0 was the era of the Cold War and of the space race between the United States and the Soviet Union, and Space 3.0 was the time of space collaboration, of which the ISS was the best example. Both Space 2.0 and Space 3.0 were eras in which a small number of states around the world spent huge amounts of money through their agencies, who would, in turn, place contracts with a few powerful main contractors. Space 4.0 is instead more and more characterised by the increasing number of private initiatives, with a few main actors, but also a crowd of small- and medium-sized enterprises. In this new situation, new types of collaboration, such as public-private1 and private-private, will become more and more common and will tend to supplant public collaboration projects. As an example of this, the authors 1 NASA

felt that times were changing and truly came to experience that transformation when the Shuttle was retired.

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Fig. 7.2 Space Industry Evolution. Credit (Merhaba et al. 2019)

quote data that demonstrate that venture capital deals made in the USA by private space companies in 2017 were about twice as large as the annual budget of JAXA, the Japanese Space Agency. This shift in space activities towards the private sector is creating a situation whereby space agencies and governments are loosing their dominant position and are now just some of the many actors in the space sector. This evolution of the space sector is depicted in Fig. 7.2. In such a situation, traditional space agencies will now need to redefine their future role in the space industry and become key enablers. According to the same study, in fact, the future role of agencies can be summarised in the following points: 1. Enable the national space sector; 2. Foster private sector growth and attract foreign business; 3. Define and communicate a clear vision and strategy. 4. Establish a conducive and strategic regulatory framework. 5. Be the national space sector’s international face. 6. Drive strategic space activities. (Merhaba et al. 2019).

I tend to share this view and, from a communication standpoint, I am particularly interested in points 1, 3 and 6. As to point 1, “enable the national space sector,” I find that institutional space communication has to play a major role in promoting the space sector in its entirety.2 As to point 3, “define and communicate a clear vision and strategy,” institutional communication has the important duty to inform the public about the national space strategy. As to point 6, “drive strategic space activities,” institutional communication shall continue its traditional role of communicating the achievements of those strategic space-related activities that need to remain public, such as, for example, the science missions in deep space and some of those within the solar system.3 2 As

described in Sect. 5.4. believe that some missions within the Solar System, for example, to the Moon, will become privatised in the foreseeable future.

3I

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Let us now try to imagine the future global trends in Space exploration.4 In the short-middle term, i.e., within a generation, Mars could become a reachable destination and the Moon a docking station for astronauts. It has been said that the first person to travel to Mars has already been born. With the first person to land on Mars, humankind will once again experience a golden age of colonisation, one that will be shared globally and will unquestionably involve the use of new communication tools. The International Space Station has so far represented only a human outpost, but, by reaching another planet, our vision of human frontiers will dramatically change and, thanks to widespread communication at all of the levels of society, all human beings will participate in this epochal revolution. In the middle-long term, the scenario will change again: exoplanets will also become part of our vision of the World, as America started to be in the European culture five centuries ago, and discussing the presence of life on some exoplanets will be part of our everyday lives. Moreover, Space tourism will also become a regular business, allowing people to spend some vacation time in space. All of these new achievements will demonstrate to the entire planet the degree to which space science is deeply shaping tomorrow’s World and society, a truly unique opportunity that space communication shall not miss.

7.3 Trends in Communication Working in communication is and will continue to be challenging. Understanding the needs of the various target groups and following the technological and behavioural trends of modern society is, in fact, a complex task. If you listen to marketing experts (Chrzanowska 2015), you will hear them talking about the four points below when they talk about the marketing of the future: • • • •

Engagement; Experience; Exclusivity; Emotion.

The point that they are making is that people don’t buy products anymore but rather experiences and emotions. One could argue that space communication officers do not sell products, but it is a fact of life that they have to adapt to social trends anyway. The truth is that the public, and millennials in particular, is used to: • Being engaged (through social media); • Participating in experiences (through multimedia and live content); 4 This

discussion does not pretend to analyse the future of exploration from a scientific point of view, but simply to highlight which trends are particularly relevant for institutional communication.

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• Looking for exclusivity (for example, by participating in a club of space fans that offers exclusive opportunities to meet scientists and astronauts and to obtain limited edition gadgets); • Being emotionally involved (the dream of travelling into the unknown, the search for other forms of life, etc.). How can this be done? An important point in this direction is to build one-to-one relations. As mentioned in Sects. 3.1 and 3.2, this approach is already in place, since messages are already defined by the groups at which they are targeted, but with the combination of big data and social media, this process has to go deeper.5 This is possible because data analysis has now reached a level at which the public can be segmented into very small groups with similar interests, preferences and demographics. The next step is to build a deep and solid relationship with them, something that cannot be achieved by simply interacting on social media. This is too superficial a level and only has short-term effects, since the public participates without passion. What is needed is to engage them directly. The second point is that influencers today have the power to shape opinions. The public, especially the younger demographic, feels that influencers speak its language and has confidence in their recommendations. Moreover, no matter whether this corresponds to reality or not, young people tend to believe in what they hear from social media, while they often think that traditional media channels are not trustworthy. Consequently, cooperation with professional and reliable influencers will become more and more of a need for space communication officers, just as it was in the old days6 with space journalists and opinion leaders. A third key point is that, for the same reasons, space research will always need astronauts to promote its activities. Even if robots could do the job, first of all, they would have to be designed to look and behave believably human, becoming real characters. And second of all, actual human astronauts will always remain the best for giving testimonials, provided that they act in a natural way and convince the public that they are genuine in what they say. In this respect, storytelling will be more and more of a key asset (Forbes Communication Council 2018). Public involvement will, in fact, depend on how a particular “space story” is told, and video communication will likely be predominant. As to the technical aspects of their job, space communication officers should remember that they will never be able to impose a communication channel on society. On the contrary, they will always be the ones who will have to adapt to the new technological trends of their target audience. If, for example, Facebook becomes obsolete, they will have to abandon (or substantially reduce) their investment in that platform and move to newer, trendier technologies, even if they have already invested a lot of effort in it.

5 See

Sect. 3.5, the communication funnel. still is.

6 And

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7.4 Institutional Space Communication in the Future Anything one man can imagine, other men can make real. —Jules Verne, “Around the World in Eighty Days,” 1873.

All of us have dreamed about: • • • •

The first satellite in space; The first human being in space; The first landing on the Moon; The first spacewalk.

these are the themes that dominated the first missions mentioned in this book: • Sputnik-1; • Vostok-1; • Apollo. Later on, we saw new frontiers open up: • The Hubble Space Telescope has revealed the mysteries of astrophysics and, by transforming sets of incomprehensible data into images with an artistic touch, has offered all human beings the possibility to pose questions to themselves that were once the exclusive prerogative of philosophers: – – – –

What is the origin of the Universe?; What happened when it all started?; Is the Universe growing or collapsing? What made life possible?

• Mars exploration has opened up the debate on the possibility of life outside of Earth and on the migration of human beings to other planets in the solar system. • Cometary missions like Rosetta made us wonder how the seeds of life came to Earth and also marvel at the incredible precision of a human-made probe that was able to encounter a comet at the right time after years of travelling into the unknown. Yes, it is a fact! Generations of human beings all around the World developed a fascination with space. Yet, despite all this, this book has clearly demonstrated, through surveys and data, that citizens interviewed during their daily lives are not ready to spend money on space exploration if there is no evidence of immediate economic and technological benefits for our life on Earth. In general, they have other priorities, such as health and education. In reality, space has contributed significantly to our daily lives, but this message has only partially reached the general public, even if experts are aware of both the importance of technology transfer and of the dimension of the space economy.

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In such a situation, decision-makers will always oscillate. If the economic and technological experts’ advice coincides with a moment of popularity of space in the media, they will support it. If not, they will prefer a more “prudent” approach that will penalise space exploration in favour of health and other more “Down to Earth” issues. As a consequence of this, in the future, the dichotomy—fascination with space— immediate benefits on Earth—will continue to remain a dilemma for communication officers: • Fascination with space attracts many people and media in specific moments, but is not enough to convince citizens to give priority to funding for space-related activities; • Benefits on Earth exist, are important, and should therefore guarantee funding, but they are not so easy to explain, do not often make the headlines and are not well enough known; In such a situation, communication officers will therefore have no other choice but to continue fighting both battles at the same time. In doing so, they will have to face the following strengths and weaknesses; • Space agencies will no longer be dominant in space research. They will take the role of enablers in a complex environment that, due to the increasing size of the space economy, will be more and more influenced by the decisions of private industry; • In the foreseeable future, space exploration will give them incredible opportunities to raise interest, thanks to trips to the Moon and Mars, Space tourism, the discovery of exoplanets, etc. These opportunities shall not be missed. They could, in fact, help to significantly enlarge the public’s interest and support (Fig. 7.3); • The evolution of the communication tools will continue, allowing space communicators to: – Understand their public with unprecedented precision; – Segment it into small homogeneous groups; – Establish one-to-one relations and offer exciting and engaging experiences. All of this will lead institutional space communication to get closer and closer to marketing analysis on one side and to advanced forms of social media engagement on the other. However, this should be done without jeopardising an essential element of science communication, i.e., the quality and rigour of its messages. In this respect, we should keep in mind the following sentence written by Arthur C. Clarke: The more wonderful the means of communication, the more trivial, tawdry, or depressing its contents seemed to be (Clarke 2012).

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Fig. 7.3 This artist’s concept depicts astronauts and human habitats on Mars. NASA’s Mars 2020 rover will carry a number of technologies that could make Mars safer and easier to explore for humans. Credit NASA

This should be framed and hung on the wall of each person in charge of space communication, not to discourage them from engaging in innovation, but as a sort of warning.

References Chrzanowska, N.: 9 Thoughts About the Future of Marketing. Brand 24 blog. https://brand24.com/ blog/the-future-of-marketing (2015) Accessed 28 July 2019 Clarke, A.C.: 2001: A Space Odyssey, p. 73. RosettaBooks, New York (2012) Forbes Communication Council: Seven Communications Trends Worth Knowing about. https:// www.forbes.com/sites/forbescommunicationscouncil/2018/07/12/sevencommunicationstrends-worth-knowing-about (2018). Accessed 28 July 2019 Merhaba, A., Ainardi, M., Aebi, T., Khairat, H.: The Space Agency of the Future, Arthur D. Little Global, Aerospace and Defence. https://www.adlittle.com/en/FutureSpaceAgency (2019). Accessed 28 July 2019