I think NASA needs to realize it’s primarily their fault they lost so much of their funding. At least partially, they did it to themselves, by not keeping their importance and successes front and center.
There are only 2 ways any enterprise will go.
Either you keep getting better…
Or you keep your head down working and just assume people know how important it is…
If you’re in charge of something, don’t ever forget this!
It’s not enough to just do the job. You have to keep yourself in the public eye. What ever it takes. You can’t allow yourself to get pushed to the back pages. It doesn’t matter how good a job you are doing if you don’t do equally as good of a job letting people know what you’re doing. You’ve got to keep people excited and interested in what you are doing, your products, your company or your project if you are going to have their support.
Whoever was in charge dropped the ball.
NASA has to look in the mirror. It’s easy to blame others but the truth is if they could have done a much better job of keeping the public informed and excited about their mission. They could have generated more publicity about their people and successes. They could have made people more aware of the incredibletechnological breakthroughs they created, and excited about upcoming adventures. They could have made people want them to survive. As it was…made themselves an easy target. They can blame the president, blame Congress all they want, but the blame primarily goes to them.
A great example is Apple Computer.
They have great products, but their marketing campaign never ends. They make sure everyone knows how great their products are, how many new places are using them, how many new uses people are finding for them. They’re constantly finding new ways to make them available and new markets to break into…for example, China. They make sure everyone stays interested in the possibility of what the newest, latest, and greatest product is that they may be getting ready to come out with. Always a great anticipation about when it will come, combined with what will it be?
Think about how Steve Jobs would take the introduction of a new product and turn it into a major event, an auditorium with huge crowds, and all of the media in attendance. They didn’t just put an ad in the paper or on TV. They made it an event. They created a huge firestorm of interest and curiosity, generating thousands of articles and reviews…all providing free publicity. Did NASA do anything like this? No. They should have.
