Ever since @Astro_TJ sent the first live tweet from space we have witnessed an effect that I will coin “The ISS Effect” in social media. As soon as an astronaut starts tweeting from space, the number of followers skyrockets (pun intended). This effect does not happen before a mission and certainly not after, but immediately after launch. I am sure that the agencies know this effect very well. It must be the jewel in the crown for every space agency social media manager. And this is good news. It means that the general public is interested in what happens in space! Especially pictures of our home town and country from the station are extremely popular, as are everyday live scenes on board the station: playing instruments, eating and drinking together, doing weird weightlessness tricks… Anything not too scientific will do.

And the astronauts are getting better and better at this, probably after some informal social media ‘training’ and help from the ground. Current champion is the latest tweep-in-space @Cmdr_Hadfield, who has attracted a massive 585,000 followers on Twitter. I am sure that his employers at @CSA_ASC are more than thrilled with all this free (?) publicity!

In order to prove that the effect is real, I would like to conduct a space science experiment here in the Spacetweep Society blog. It is very simple. I will publish a short table of past, current and future tweeps in space and their popularity on Twitter, expressed as their follower count. We will then put this blog away for 6 to 24 months (space experiments have a long lead time) and see what has happened. Please follow along with me!

• Past: TJ Creamer (NASA) @Astro_TJ – 42,033 followers (last in space 2010)
• Past: Paolo Nespoli (ESA) @Astro_Paolo – 82,749 followers (last in space 2011)
• Past: Ron Garan (NASA) @Astro_Ron – 95,057 followers (last in space 2011)
• Past: Andre Kuipers (ESA) @Astro_Andre – 274,674 followers (last in space 2012)

• Present: Thomas Marshburn (NASA) @AstroMarshnurn – 29,891 followers
• Present: Chris Hadfield (CSA) @Cmdr_Hadfield – 585,647 followers

• Future: Karen Nyberg (NASA) @AstroKarenN – 2,013 followers (launch May 2013)
• Future: Terry Virts (NASA) @Astro_Terry – 2,288 followers (launch Dec 2014)
• Future: Alexander Gerst (ESA) @Astro_Alex – 3,278 followers (launch May 2014)
• Future: Reid Wiseman (NASA) @Astro_Reid – 4,056 followers (launch May 2014)
• Future: Luca Parmitano (ESA) @Astro_Luca – 8,983 followers (launch May 2013)
• Future: Sam Cristoforetti (ESA) @AstroSamantha – 21,260 followers (launch Dec 2014)

Now obviously there are other effects here too, like activity (measured by frequency of tweets), history (number of tweets and date of first tweet), gender (women astro’s are more popular than men) and post-astro career path (@Astro_Mike went into showbizz and now has 1,260,476 followers, while other astro’s stop tweeting altogether after their return). Anyway, let’s see what this little list will look like next year and in 2015.

Immediately after this announcement several discussions about the future of space outreach arose on blogs, Twitter and Facebook. Most focused on whether or not this could be true, but all soon realized it is. Some then started to focus on the implications and possible solutions. How can the space enthusiast community jump in? How will this shift the focus to other countries? And what should the outreach message be anyway? Listen in to a rather philosophical conversation I had with my UK space outreach friend Amjad Zaidi on Facebook:

Remco: I read it. Speechless. I am glad we live in Europe now. At least we are used to very low budgets for space outreach. But if this is all as bad as it looks now, this will be the moment for the space community to jump in and take over. Budget or not!

Amjad: Beancounters with no vision over there. Ive seen this before cutting through muscle tissue and bone. Damages the capability to recover and grow the space sector. You’re right that we’re used to doing more with far less in Europe, but it puts us on red alert. Totally agree, we need to jump in regardless of budget. We do this outreach because we believe in it.  What you, me and everyone in our community does is for the future of our species!

Remco: Absolutely agree! Pity that a majority still thinks that cutting costs will save the species… Let’s wait until the dust settles on this, to see the real damage done in a few days/weeks.

Amjad: Exactly. Once they begin to see lack of ability to generate new funding and even further budget cuts as a result, they may wake up. The US administration only has itself to blame. Europe and China will lead the way.

Remco: China will, for sure. Did you see that their upcoming Shenzhou-10 mission to the Tiangong-1 station will have a large element of public and youth outreach? How well timed. (Source: Zarya.info)

Amjad: Yes I did. Anything the West does, they can do better. It may stir the competitive juices of other space faring nations. Still think we need a more globally unified long term space policy to build a space infrastructure together. The “Frontier” approach to survive and thrive if you like! Much as I love Apollo and everything it did, we need to be smarter with long term goals that build our capabilities and habitats in space and other planetary bodies.

Remco: That next frontier will hopefully drive countries together. For now I enjoy watching the Chinese space sector catch up with the rest. Together we’ll then be able to take further steps. In my opinion this whole ‘human expansion’ thing has not even started.

Amjad: I agree that we’ll have to work together to push forward into the next frontier. The ISS proved international cooperation is possible. We’re already working with the Russians, so Chinese partnerships are logical too. Who knows one day we’ll go watch a launch there. I prefer celebrating and working towards a better future rather than constantly looking back.

Remco: I already talked to a Chinese Space Agency official, asking her whether it would be possible to attend a Chinese launch. She wasn’t sure, but thought it should be possible. So who knows: #ShenzhouTweetup in the future?

Amjad: I like that idea lots. Publicising Chinese success may rub salt in the US administration’s face but they only have themselves to blame. Poor NASA, yet again it’s a political football. At the end of the day we look at global space programs with better eyes and are not nationalists about any one country’s efforts. We all came from the same place, bleed red and have the same destiny in space. I’m sure the Chinese would welcome our experience and efforts.

Remco: Totally agree. Yet, the Chinese have an even longer way to go. The fact that Twitter and Facebook are still banned is not a good sign. Catching up with the rest of the world means more than technology. In fact, technology is probably the easy part. It will take much longer for China to become an open society more like ours (assuming that is still the best model, which I increasingly doubt). If the West can cut back on hard capitalism, while China cuts back on their hard planned economy, we are getting towards a truly cooperating (space) society. This will take a lot of time though…

Amjad: Spot on. We need to move towards a more cooperative society model and especially for globally unified space activities. Extremes of either ideology and economic model are ultimately self defeating. China despite its runaway growth and wealth is hampered by their communist hardliners. The US and Europe are hamstrung by excessive capitalism and are suffering now, despite past success. Perhaps there is another economic and societal model? Oh to live in a world where the acquisition of wealth and power is not our prime motive, but advancing our knowledge is!

NB: During this conversation @NASA tweeted a brief statement about the message: “Heard that NASA communications & outreach is shutting down? We’re not going anywhere. Given the budget climate, we’re reviewing outreach to ensure we’re communicating smartly – priority on mission critical activities.” Let’s just wait and see what this means…

We tried to cover all the bases, so you may have already read it on Twitter, Facebook, G+, LinkedIn or the global SpaceUp website…  SpaceUp Paris will take place on 25^th and 26^th May at the European Space Agency (ESA) Headquarters in central Paris. I’m sure you’re all familiar with the SpaceUp concept whereby participants are invited to actively contribute in presentations and talks on a variety of space themes.

« Room A », ESA Headquarters in central Paris (Credit : SpaceUp Paris / B. Bailleul)

The point is… We’d love to meet you there.

ESA Headquarters in Paris, France (credit: ESA)

But why were we invited to hold the SpaceUp at ESA heaquarters?

Fernando Doblas, Head of ESA’s  Communication Department, replies to the question : “Because we can relate to the basic concept of the SpaceUp. ESA, as a space agency depends on cooperation between European states who understood a long time ago the importance of uniting to undertake together space projects far beyond the scope of what could be achieved by any single European country. Cooperation implies a willingness to listen, to be open to others, and to be ready to learn from each other. This is the spirit of ESA, its ADN, and this is also the spirit of SpaceUp. We are pleased to welcome this event, the first of its kind in Paris and at ESA headquarters, where decisions on space for Europe are taken! ”

Equally convinced by this innovative initiative, CNES, the French space agency, invites the SpaceUp attendees to learn more about the future ESA launcher, Ariane 6. On Friday 24^th May, engineers from the CNES Launchers Directorate and ESA’s Launchers Directorate will present their work, take part in interactive workshops and submit challenges to the participants.

Apart from those official events, we look forward to evenings of fun between spacetweeps. Sadly, there will be no Endless BBQ… but I’m sure we’ll nevertheless manage to enjoy each other’s company!

Everything you want to know is on the spaceup.fr website (or so we hope!), but if you have questions, do not hesitate to hail us on any social network!

Mistake 1 – Social media without strategy

Many organizations that adopted social media in the early days started by experimenting. “Let’s see what this social media thing really is.” These organizations went through a lot of trial and error and many became true industry leaders in the social media field. In 2013 social media have grown into a mature communication channel. Trial and error will no longer lead to success. Instead, the social media channel should be part of a multi-channel communication policy, in line with a well-defined corporate communication strategy. Social media will work only if it adds measurable value to this strategy.

Mistake 2 – Let the intern handle social media

Obvious? Maybe. Common? Absolutely! Social media is often regarded a channel for the young. So hiring a fresh (cheap) Facebook-savvy college intern may seem the best way to handle these trendy new media. The ‘real’ communication department can then continue to focus on ‘real’ corporate communication. Until pictures of department parties involving alcohol and funny hats (or worse), colleague’s pets and office coffee criticism become trending on Twitter and Facebook. Corporate social media are as serious communication messages as your carefully worded press releases. And they support the same corporate strategy and brand image as all other marketing. Treat it seriously!

Mistake 3 – Not being present on social media

Having the intern do social media for you is one thing, not being present at all is not the right thing either. Waiting for social media to become more mature? Too late! Social media are already a very mature channel. If you are not present now, chances are that your customers have already gone elsewhere to find their information or – worse – products. Is it too late to jump in now then? Absolutely not, but make sure you get in the right way (so see the other pitfalls in this article).

Mistake 4 – Being present – but not really – on social media

Perhaps even worse than being invisible on social media is being visible without content. You have a Twitter account, but stopped posting after a few weeks, leaving your last tweet (in the worst case saying ‘just testing Twitter’) two years in the past. Forgotten by you, but still very visible to the whole world. Or having a Facebook page that has only outdated Wikipedia data and your old company logo in it. If you say ‘A’ in social media, there is no way back and you will have to say ‘B’ to ‘Z’ too. You can no longer decide to ignore this social media ‘hype’. It isn’t.

Mistake 5 – Use only the ‘send’ function of social media

This is a hard social media nut to crack, even for many reputable companies that have been able to avoid the mistakes mentioned above. Social media is not ‘just another broadcast channel’. It is not a simple tool to spread your press releases and newsletters to your audience. Social media is very different in nature than traditional broadcast channels. It is much better than that! It offers you an unprecendented easy way to actually communicate with your supplier, client and peer base. If you want social media to help improve your brand image, if you want social media to actually make money for you, in other words, if you want to benefit from this exciting communication channel, you have to start communicating with your audience. No other corporate communication channel is as effective for actual communication than social media!

P.S. You can check out my submitted designs here -> http://lego.cuusoo.com/profile/johnmknight#projects

Click here to view the map – feel free to tag where you live/work, and any other space-related organizations you think are important

Hope you’re all having an awesome day!

Reuben

View Space tweeps – Tag your location! in a larger map

Just before the first tweetup in 2009 NASA became active on several social media platforms. It is by far the industry leading space organization on Twitter and Facebook and has set the standard on many other platforms as well. NASA TV is probably the best known online TV channel in the world.

Since the first experimental #NASATweetup events in 2009 the concept proved very successful for NASA. And despite some initial internal doubts it quickly evolved into a key new communication channel to the general public. Opening doors of facilities and events to its Twitter followers created an increasingly large worldwide community of NASA ambassadors. In April 2012 the audience was enlarged to include followers on other platforms, and the event name changed into #NASASocial.

Less than three years after the first #NASATweetup and six months after switching to the #NASASocial model, NASA is now introducing the ‘Social Media Credentials’ model. This third ‘evolution’ brings the social media community in line with traditional media. There are a few changes though. Selection of social media users is no longer random. In order to be eligible, an applicant has to meet certain criteria. Active participation on multiple channels is now a clear prerequisite. In NASA’s own words:

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

The first time this new credentials principle was introduced was for the @SpaceX Dragon launch in October 2012. The NASA social media team explained the background of the new social media credentials as follows:

“Social media users selected to attend the SpaceX launch will be given the same access as journalists in an effort to align the access and experience of social media representatives with those of traditional media. “We look at this as a natural extension and an evolution of the NASA Social concept,” said Bob Jacobs [@BNJacobs], deputy associate administrator for the agency’s Office of Communications. “Just as radio, television, and other media expanded the definition of ‘the press,’ we’re going to open our doors to influential and interested people who engage in social media activities and invite them to work alongside traditional media.” (source)

This new concept is proof that for NASA – as for society in general – social media are becoming a mainstream communication channel, and no longer something subordinate to traditional media. This means that savvy social media users and bloggers are considered as important as traditional journalists. It will be interesting to see how NASA will manage and ensure the quality of the public outreach message through these ‘citizen reporters‘. Accreditation for these social media space ambassadors is great step in the right direction. A development that deserves our support and will keep NASA in the forefront of social media integration in public outreach. Hopefully others will follow suit…

I think it was at the ESA/DLR #SpaceTweetup, where the idea of #AuroraTweetup was born. Wouldn’t it be great to bring a large group of spacetweeps to the Arctic, to witness Aurora Borealis during the solar maximum in 2013? I soon found that many people on Twitter agreed. So I contacted a hotel-owner I know in a remote Finnish town and booked a bunch of rooms, organized some typical meals and added some great Arctic activities. The first #AuroraTweetup sold out within two days!

Based on our passion to share this awesome experience with even more people, we quickly decided to organize a second event, directly after the first. Because our original location had no availability, we looked at another town, not too far from the first hotel. The town of Saariselkä hosts the world’s northernmost spa. The idea of relaxing in a natural spa pool, looking outside into the Arctic, was appealing enough to make a booking. #AuroraTweetup II will be even more luxurious, a day longer than the first edition and including the best Valentine Day you will ever have in Finnish Lapland.

Since we named it #AuroraTweetup, we hope to attract a lot of people following both events online. Beautiful photographs of spacetweeps in a fairytale Arctic landscape guaranteed. And although not 100% guaranteed, I am almost certain you will see green with envy of the many pictures of these same spacetweeps under the Northern Lights!

A little advertising now: The first event is sold out, but the second event from 10-14 February 2013 still has a few seats left. This Northern Lights trip is open to all, whether on or off social media. It is organized on a volunteer non-commercial basis, making it the cheapest offer you will find, under the motto “by spacetweeps for spacetweeps”. Join us now or you’ll have to wait until the next solar maximum, in 2024. Definitely a once-in-a-lifetime experience!

See the special #AuroraTweetup website for more info, or contact @timmermansr or @martincco on Twitter to see how you can join.

So, what if we had a technology that could produce arbitrary mechanical and electrical components and assemblies on scales ranging from nanometers to kilometers?  My own thoughts on the subject are described at Ultralight Spaceflight Fabrication.  Primary power is solar, secondary power is wind and perhaps geothermal.  Land a fabricator on Mars, and execute a program linked from Earth.  Land many fabricators on Mars and execute a more complex fabrication program.

From a picometer toolkit of mechanical, electronic, photonic and spintronic combinations of the elements found in the surface and atmosphere — a self sustaining village could be built in a few months.

This future technology builds a cubic meter of a rough mechanical regions in a couple seconds, or a cubic nanometer of logic, emitters or collectors.

• The space industry in Saudi Arabia is underdeveloped, but growing at high speed
• There are lots of Saudi investors looking at the (commercial) space industry as an interesting growth market
• The SpaceUp Unconference series is independent, organized by passionate space volunteers
• SpaceUp is an unconference, offering a platform for all space stakeholders, including the general public and students
• SpaceUp Saudi Arabia is organized by a female space team, unique in this part of the world!
• Space is one of the few themes that is bringing people together on a common human goal, away from religion and politics
• This event deserves to be put into the global spotlights as an example of global human cooperation!

As you can see, this event is very close to my heart. I will follow it very closely and report on it through my usual livetweeting on Twitter, postings on Facebook, and writing blogs and space magazine articles. I will do this remotely, but would much rather do this at the actual event in person…

Special request: In order to report on SpaceUp Saudi Arabia live, I am looking for a little support from the space community. In exchange for a guaranteed high reach and lots of impressions on social and traditional media, I would love to find a sponsor for my travel expenses for this short trip from Europe to the Middle East. So if you know someone or a company that would like to be in the spotlights on social media through this event, please contact me.

Whatever the result, this event is one to put on your space calendar to follow! Make sure you follow @SpaceUpSaudi on Twitter and check www.spaceup.org for details on exact dates, times and venue.