Chapter 16: NASA and Media Relations

Well, it seems to me that Liz did a nice job of summarizing Chapter 16, so I will use an of example instead. So....

How would you like to be NASA’s media relations expert right now? After the unfortunate and shocking incident of Lisa Nowak and her attempted kidnapping and murder, NASA had to engage in quite a bit of media relations. (http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/space/2007-02-07-nasa_x.htm) F.irst of all for the crisis of having one of their top astronauts engage in behavior that begs the media and everyone else on the planet to know exactly what is going on. NASA immediately released a statement expressing their regret about the situation, and that they were looking into the incidents further. (For the full transcript, click here: http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/169028main_dale_nowak.pdf).

NASA is an organization used to crisis, but who would have thought of this problem? Because of the Nowak situation, a whole different can of worms has been opened in addition to the actual crisis, now the issue of all astronauts’ psychological well being and mental health will become more of a forefront issue. NASA did a good job in addressing this question in one of their first statements (this can also be found in the link above). They reiterated their normal psychological testing with this statement:

“One question relates to psychological testing of astronauts, clearing them for
flight, and assessing their mental health following their flights. All
astronauts are subjected to extensive medical and psychological testing in order
to be admitted to the astronaut corps. In addition to regular health checkups
throughout their time of service to NASA, astronauts receive extensive medical
examinations prior to each flight.”

After this statement, they followed it up by saying that they were in the process of revaluating the system, and seeing how it is related to the current situation.

What did NASA do correctly in this situation? In my opinion, it was that they answered the obvious questions that they could answer, and also addressed the inevitable question of the psychological risks to astronauts. Even though they really did not give any new information, they still gave answers to satisfy the media and got to the risk issue before the media could directly ask.

Even though this issue is not going to go away for NASA anytime soon, and the media relations because of it is not either, they have been able to push it aside enough to continue with regularly scheduled shuttle launches. This will help them continue to stay on their “regularly scheduled” message points about the launches. It will be interesting to see how they address this risk that has been called to the forefront again.

This incident is an example of how the chapter talks about the media being “event focused.” The stories on the news are reactive to certain events, and reporting what happened and how much is known (L&M). Without this event, would reporters or anything else be asking NASA about their psychological testing or debriefing procedures? Would anyone be asking whether or the strenuous job of being an astronaut causes mental collapses or other problems? Probably not.
On the other hand, the chapter also addresses the fact that the media is more concerned with risks that are likely to happen rather than ones that unlikely. Although this is a story that gets a lot of attention, the attention that the risk gets may only remain for the time that the story is still in the forefront of the public eye. Because most of do not go into space and have to undergo testing by NASA. However, the risk of mental illness and stress related illness effects many Americans, so this may raise the media’s interest in stories or communication related to this topic.