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The Space Shuttle Returns
An anonymous reader writes "NASA's Return to Flight site details the space shuttle's to return to active use. The Flash intensive site features details on the mission, the crew, and the shuttle itself. Additionally, the site features none other than Scott Bakula as Captain Archer on the bridge of the Enterprise (USS, not STS)."
Scott Bakula, an entertainment figure, on behalf of the NASA marketing dept. hyping the shuttle program to the entertainment-starved masses (rhetoric). :).
And Arnold would become the gov. of California, and Jesse "The Body" Ventura of Minnesota.
It's interesting what life starts to look like from a country that is inundated with entertainment.
... What's next on this list?
Does Nasa *really* need the support of the masses who sit in front of their weekly TV shows? or do they already have it? Should the NASA crew members not be making the cameo apperances since they are the *real* "heroes"? Scott Bakula is an actor who will never step into space. If it comes down to entertainment factor, might as well use Mickey Mouse as a spokesman (cool factor ruled out
...I prefer there older sites which have been more content driven and highly functional rather than "flashy".
:)
The majority of people require "flashy" websites to capture their short attention spans. I once maintained the website of a research lab and was fired because I didn't put in fancy flash, shockwave, java, animated gif animations, popups, and annoying... ahem, "exciting" sounds and music.
My web design style is minimalistic-- people should be able to obtain the same (quick loading, simple to navigate) content if they're using IE7 or Lynx. Good thing I don't do web sites anymore
PR is absolutely mission critical work for NASA.
If they lose public support, they lose funding, it's as simple as that.
If this web package was purchased for even as much as 1 million dollars, it was money well spent, possibly one of the most important line items in their budget.
Using Scott Bakula, while of debatable wisdom to those of us who hated Enterprise, shows astounding good sense on the part of someone at NASA. We can debate about whether Shatner or Stewart would have been better, but at least they're in the right ballpark.
But the site looks sharp, it's informative to a lay-person, and tries to make the shuttle program seem real in viewer's minds.
The only gripe I have is the CPU hit for playing the video. What codec is that?
disclaimer: I think the shuttle should be scrapped and we then return to capsule based launches which were cheaper and safer even with 60's technology.
I'd bet that astronaut blogs would be very popular ~and~ cheap.
Agile Artisans
There's actually something of this around already.
Some of the stations crew logs are available for public viewing on the web.
These are pretty interesting accounts of the daily life of an on-orbit station crew.
Here's a link to Expedition 1's (the first crew of ISS) page, with a link there for the Ship's Logs. Not all the Expeditions have one, but some do.
Some are rather interesting.
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/station/crew/exp1/
Meanwhile, the life of an astronaut prior to flight is training, training, training, and more training. Post flight is debrief, debrief, debrief, and more debriefs.
/sig