Tweeting Spacecraft - Communicating Astronomy with the Public ...

details about one’s private life builds a perceivedsense of intimacy between two individuals,often as strongly felt on the revealer’sside as that of the confidant (Collins &Miller, 1994; Levinger & Huesmann, 1980).Such perceived intimacy may contribute tothe sense of success on behalf of NASAoutreach personnel. That a low-budget,short-term, and largely immobile missionsuch as Phoenix could be seen to touch thelives (and Twitter Timelines) of thousandspresented a public relations breakthrough.It also suggested that public outreach wasbeing successfully accomplished on anunprecedented scale.But because the press offices were controllingthe information that the public receiveddirectly, Twitter seemed to eliminate theneed for longstanding media practices. Inthe past, press offices had to rely on pressreleases sent to news media outlets, andcould not necessarily control which storieswere printed. As the press officer in chargeof the Twitter feeds explained, “Mainstreammedia are more likely to cover a bad newsstory than a good story. Twice we had baddays on Phoenix… and that would havebeen all [the information] they [i.e. thepublic] were getting. Being able to put outinformation daily changed the way peoplethought about the mission.” Increasingcontrol over the mission story as a whole,instead of being subject only to intermittentnegative reports, can be a tremendoussuccess for mission press offices, but thenew approach also changes the relationshipbetween these offices, the public andscience reporters.Web 2.0 and expertiseOver the course of Phoenix’s short life,microblogging became increasingly centralto the daily work of the mission. Twitterand other Web 2.0 technologies suchas Facebook and blogs have since thenbeen harnessed across NASA’s officesto release their spacecraft’s images innear-real time to the public. To date,@CassiniSaturn has 75 000 followers;@MarsRovers has 80 000. Their Tweetsoften include single-line descriptionsabout a discovery, and may include shortlinks to blog posts, images or publishedpapers. As Tweets are retweeted, URLsclicked and blog RSS feeds generated,word of a spacecraft’s activities spreadsquickly. But while this may seem like adream come true for press offices, it isimportant to note that Web 2.0 technologiessuch as wikis and blogs have in thepast exacerbated a tension between themission press office and the participatingscientists. In the drive to generate contextfor Twitter feeds, these tensions should beconsidered very carefully so that a strong• Tweeting Spacecraft:Communicating Space in the Age of Web 2.0working relationship can be establishedbetween those who operate the spacecraftand those who tweet on its behalf.Where does data come from?Taking a picture on Cassini, Phoenix or theMars Rovers takes considerable social andscientific work. First, a scientist must beselected to join the mission via a lengthyapplication and review process. Thenthey must come up with a hypothesis, andobservations that might prove or disprovethat hypothesis. Next, they must make acase for that observation such that theirteam members support it, which meansnegotiating with other instruments forspacecraft time, bytes and power to takethe observation. Finally, they may workwith technical assistants to craft and codethe observation request for upload to thespacecraft. The images, spectral readingsand other measurements that return fromthe spacecraft are embedded within thisdelicate process. But when the spacecraftspeaks with a single voice and appears tohave an agency all its own, the people whomake the spacecraft work seem to disappearand become invisible.This invisibility masks three related issueswith respect to spacecraft data. First, thedata that spacecraft collect are neitherneutral nor always inherently shared.Because scientists must compete againsteach other for the privilege of building aninstrument, the data that their instrumentreturns belongs to them and to their team,and often cannot be easily or intuitivelyunderstood by outsiders. Second, scientistsare cautious about stating anythingabout their data publicly until it has beensufficiently confirmed, calibrated and subjectto peer review. They therefore negotiatefor proprietary or validation periodswith their data so that they can be sureto fully understand it and stand behindit when their findings are released to thepublic and to their colleagues. Third, manyscientists on missions are anxious thatwhen their data is released, others willsee for themselves what the scientists hadhoped to see in the first place: that whichinspired them to convince their colleaguesthat it was worth dedicating spacecrafttime, bytes, and power to take the observation.Scientists who express reservationsabout releasing their data too earlyare usually not being obstinate or selfish,but acting in the best interest of their ownand their team’s scientific process.Who are the experts?With the coming of Web 2.0 technologieslike blogs, wikis and amateur webforums, a new expectation of visibility tothe public has inspired some changes inhow scientists plan and craft their scientificobservations, discoveries and announcements.Behind the scenes, I have oftenobserved planetary scientists exchangingconcerns about what the public will thinkof the Tweets and blog posts about theirdata. There is much anxiety that imagesfrom another planet will be misinterpreted,leading to public misunderstandings,or that amateur interpretations ofthese images will be misinterpreted asprofessional ones. Twitter also brings upcomplex questions about the process ofscience. Can significant science contentreally be conveyed in 140 characters orless? Does a Tweet count as a “publication”when it comes to a discovery prioritydispute? What is the role of the expert inthis new environment? How can scientistspreserve and support the public’s respectfor scientific expertise, work and the statusof peer-reviewed publications in the era ofTweeting and retweeting?These anxieties are not unfounded. In January2008, there were reports of an imageof a woman or a Sasquatch on Mars, whichmany people claimed to see in an imagetaken by the Mars Rover, Spirit. Althoughquickly discredited by scientists on themission, the story was already out of theircontrol. It gathered considerable speedon the internet as it was blogged andshared by users the world over, and waseven reported by traditional media outletssuch as national television networks andnewspapers (CNN.com, 2008). Similarly,in April 2010, a popular blogger in theplanetary science community used Photoshopto put together her own compositeof images taken by the Cassini spacecraft,and posted the result with a discussion onher blog. This image was picked up andposted as the Astronomy Image of the Dayon a website hosted on a NASA server,no doubt to the blogger’s excitement.But conspiracy theorists on the internetjumped on the image, claiming that it wasdoctored to the point of being unbelievable,proving that NASA was manipulatingthe public. Both the image site and theblogger were independent of NASA, butthe space agency was held accountablefor this interpretation. (see Lakdawalla,2010).Such examples do not come from Twitter,but do speak to some tensions thatWeb 2.0 technologies have generatedwith respect to scientific work. Releasesof data used to be reserved for scientificpublications and major press conferences,wherein a discovery would beappropriately announced — and credited.With Web 2.0, however, the expectation ofimmediacy and visibility means that more• CAPjournal, No. 10 December 2010 • Page 32• Tweeting Spacecraft:Communicating Space in the Age of Web 2.0space agencies are asking scientists torelease their data to the public sooner:sometimes even before their colleagueson the same mission have seen the data.To some scientists, such requests violatetheir scientific process, bypassing requirementssuch as peer review, analysis andeven calibration. To be fair, not all scientistswork this way: some missions believeit is important to release all their imagedata to the public as soon as it is acquired.However, in my research on the subject,missions launched before 2000 and themajority of European space projects aremore likely to include independent teamsthat shepherd their results. And while oneteam member on an interplanetary missionmay delight in the opportunity to have theirdata instantly streamed to thousands ofpeople over morning coffee, another mayexpress serious reservations about releasingsuch information to the public. Whetherone believes that open data is the wayforward or not, both perspectives need tobe treated with respect and understandingwhen generating content for Twitter feeds.Why, where and when totweet?There are clearly many benefits to startinga Twitter stream for one’s spacecraft orscientific experiment. With a few short keystrokes,a single message can be relayeddirectly to followers around the world, bypassing media relations, and allowing thepublic to build an intimate relationshipwith their spacecraft. For some, this is adream come true, ensuring their mission’ssuccess and continued public support; forothers, it suggests a public relations nightmare.But as for any new technology, reapinga cascade of benefits from Web 2.0mission communications requires careful,local consideration of how press officeswill work with scientists to release missioninformation responsibly and thoughtfully.This requires thinking about why, when,and where to tweet, and doing so in collaborationwith each unique mission to hearscientists’ concerns and excitement aboutthe new process. Science Press Officeswould be wise to meet with the scientiststhey represent to come up with internalpolicies for the use of Web 2.0 technologiesor “new media.” Such policies shouldaim to balance the enthusiasm of Tweetingspacecraft on the one hand, with arespect for local scientific and operationalprocesses on the other. Without such initialcommunication, a rush to embrace Twitterruns the risk of generating more badpress than positive public experiences.As with any technology, Twitter cannotchange the process of science, and wouldbe unwise to try to do so. Instead, to betruly valuable both to the scientists andto the public, we must bring it mindfullyinto existing relationships, restrictions andways of working within the scientific community.After all, these are crucial to gettingthe work of science done in the first place.AcknowledgementsThanks to Judy Chen, Irina Shklovski,Victoria McGregor and anonymous NASAmission scientists for comments on earlierdrafts. A version of this paper wasaccepted to the CHI 2010 workshop onMicroblogging, in Atlanta, Georgia. Thiswork was funded by the National ScienceFoundation’s Virtual Organizations asSociotechnical Systems Program: Officeof Cyberinfrastructure, Grant #0838499.Notes1Agency: Here, specifically referring to thereceived impression that the robots and spacecraftare able to act autonomously.References• CAPjournal, No. 10 December 2010 • Page 33• Böhringer, M. & Richter, A. 2009, AdoptingSocial Software to the Intranet: ACase Study on Enterprise Microblogging,Proceedings of the 9th Mensch & ComputerConference, Berlin, Germany, 293• Boyd, D., Golder, S. & Lotan G. 2010,Tweet Tweet Retweet: ConversationalAspects of Retweeting on Twitter, Proceedingsof 42nd Hawaii InternationalConference on System Sciences,HICSS-43, IEEE: Kauai, HI• Collins, N. & Miller, L. 1994, Self-disclosureand liking: A meta-analytic review,Psychology Bulletin, 116, 3, 457• CNN.com, 2008, The Shot: Man onMars?, http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2008/01/23/cooper.shot.tuesday.cnn (Retrieved on 24 November2010)• Gilpin, D. R. Forthcoming, Working theTwittersphere: How Public RelationsPractitioners Use Microblogging for ProfessionalIdentity Construction, In: TheNetworked Self: Identity, Community andCulture on Social Network Sites, ed. Z.Papacharissi, (Routledge, New York)• Honeycutt, C. & Herring, S. 2009,Beyond microblogging: Conversationand collaboration via Twitter, Proceedingsof 42nd Hawaii International Conferenceon System Sciences, IEEE Press,Los Alamitos, CA• Java, A, Song, X., Finin, T. & Tseng, B2007, Why we Twitter: UnderstandingMicroblogging Usage and Communities,Proceedings of the 9th Joint WEBKDDWorkshop, (ACM Press, New York), 56• Lakdawalla, E. 2010, I’m part of the conspiracy,apparently, http://planetary.org/blog/article/00002710 (Retrieved on 24November 2010)• Levinger, G. & Huesmann, L. 1980, An“incremental exchange” perspective onthe pair relationship. In: Social Exchange,Eds. Gergen, K et al., (Plenum Press,New York), 165• Madrigal, A. 2008, @MarsPhoenix’sTwitter Epitaphs, Wired Magazine, http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/11/marsphoenixs-tw/ (Retrieved on 24November 2010)• Starbird, K., Palen, L., Hughes, A. &Vieweg, S. 2010, Chatter on The Red:What Hazards Threat Reveals about theSocial Life of Microblogged Information,Proceedings of the 2010 ACM Conferenceon Computer Supported CooperativeWork, (ACM Press, New York), 241• Suchman, L. 2007, Human-MachineReconfigurations, (Cambridge UniversityPress, Cambridge)• Vertesi, J. 2009, Seeing Like a Rover:Embodied Experience on the Mars ExplorationRover Mission, Extended Abstractsof the 2008 ACM Conference on HumanFactors in Computing Systems, (ACMPress, New York), 2523• Zhao, D. & Rosson, M. B. 2009, Howand Why People Twitter: The Role thatMicroblogging Plays in Informal Communicationat Work, Proceedings of GROUP2009. (ACM Press, New York), 243BiographyJanet Vertesi is a PhD graduate fromCornell University in Science & TechnologyStudies. Currently she is a Cotsen Fellow atthe Society of Fellows in the Liberal Arts atPrinceton University, where she also holds aLecturer appointment in the Sociology Department.Her work focuses on the complexintersections between people, science andtechnology such as the social organisationof robotic spacecraft teams, and therole of images in scientific practice. Sheis currently conducting an ethnographicstudy of the Cassini mission to Saturn.More information: http://janet.vertesi.com/