"It's a huge challenge for government because people get entrenched in a model of working that can be difficult to change. For decades, our folks have been churning out news releases. Now we can get information out not through a media filter, but it's a slow process," Jacobs said. It's not just the form of the communication, but the content as well that NASA is aiming to tweak. "We want to put things in a way that doesn't suck all the fun out of what we do," Jacobs said. Skytland, who advises his over-50-year-old parents to follow him on Twitter if they want to know what he's doing, is incorporating social and professional networking into two life science projects he manages for NASA at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Working collaboratively, he says, not only should help NASA solve some of its technical problems quickly and for less cost, but also expand the space community by drawing in people who previously have had no direct connection to NASA. "The key to public support is to get people engaged," Skytland said. "It's not clear what NASA does and what the value of NASA is. The younger generation is not that interested in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) which is a huge problem. NASA can give them a goal to apply that knowledge in a really useful way." Related Links: Discovery Space Slide Show: NASA's Next 50 Years Discovery Space Blog: Free Space |
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