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Spaceflight Now: Filling the void left by mainstream media
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As most of the mainstream media has turned away from covering space and science stories, one media outlet hasn’t. In fact, the staff of online media outlet Spaceflight Now covers all the “dull” stories that the other news outlets seem to have lost interest in. Stories about astronauts blazing a path to the new frontier, robotic explorers peering down on icy moons of faraway worlds and glittering laboratories, working on miracle cures floating high above the clouds – you know the dull stuff.
The first launch that the combined crew of Miles O’Brien, David Waters and former astronaut and International Space Station commander Leroy Chiao covered was the flight of STS-119. As with any new effort there were some technical hiccups, but overall even critics had to admit that they had witnessed the birth of a new way of communicating a story to the public. This first webcast had approximately 15,000 viewers. By the time of the launch of Ares 1-X which took place last week however, that number had exploded to about 100,000 viewers.
So how has Spaceflight Now managed to gain attention? Through a combination of social media, word-of-mouth and by using motivated volunteers and sponsors, the space media outlet has managed to keep its production costs low while at the same time slowly building a loyal fan base. These fans have been disenfranchised by how cable news has portrayed space issues.
Mainstream media outlets typically only show the first few moments of launch until a short while after liftoff – if at all. For people that want to follow all the ins and outs of launch day – this leaves them sorely disappointed. Until Spaceflight Now’s webcasts their only other option was to watch NASA Television, however this also had problems as explanations of most of what the viewer was watching was rarely explained in a voice over. With the advent of Spaceflight Now however, viewers could ask what a call they had just heard meant and have it answered as they watched – perhaps by Miles O’Brien himself.
Spaceflight Now’s first webcast was a watershed event. The public was encouraged to chat with the talent that was transmitting live from the Kennedy Space Center press site. Moreover, guests that are on the show, astronauts, mission managers and scientists all field questions from those watching.
The “big three” cable news outlets, FOX, CNN and MSNBC currently do not offer this ability in either their televised or online formats. Viewers can not pose any questions and the questions that were asked were limited by the knowledge base of the reporter conducting the interview. Given that many media outlets have either totally disbanded or severely cut back their space and science sections – Spaceflight Now offers a welcome reprieve from reporters with negligible knowledge on what they are covering. What Spaceflight Now allows viewers to do is to interact and participate with these history-making missions on their own terms. That is something the mainstream media is both unwilling and incapable of doing. For Spaceflight Now this new endeavor appears to be working, as David Waters put it:
"This is a joint venture, one which where even the sky isn't the limit!" Waters said.
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