Here's an idea: what if after the State of the Union and the minority party's response, we have Neil deGrasse Tyson speak to the country for an hour?
In this speech to the 28th National Space Symposium, NDT explains how the space race changed American culture for the better and took the economy in new directions. The issue couldn't be more important given the need to expand STEM funding, and even moreso, inspire a generation to take advantage of it.
He recounts how a single image, Earthrise Over the Moon, changed how humanity thought of itself.
We finally saw Earth, he says, "not as the mapmaker would have you identify it...but as nature intended it to be viewed." He traces the path of the borderless earth meme through the launch of the "Whole Earth Catalog" (1968), creation of Earth Day (1970) and a raft of environmental regulations. On the founding of "Doctors Without Borders" in 1971, he challenges, "Where do you even get that phrase from? No one thought of that phrase before that photo was published. Because every globe in your classroom has countries painted on it."
If you're a PR pro, you'll especially enjoy his thoughts on:
- Reframing NASA as an "investment"
- How the space community can prove its relevance to the public by speaking to the issue they care about: jobs and the economy
- The precise publicity path that led from the publication of his new book to an excerpt in Foreign Affairs magazine to testifying before Congress to interviews with business outlets.
