longhorns in longhorns in spacespace

What’s This Group About?

Promoting NASA’sMars Exploration Program

We are finalists in the

Here’s how we’re representing

The Competition:NASA Means Business

• Develop two television Public Service Announcements whose objectives are to articulate to the general public the value and anticipated contributions of the space missions that NASA plans to launch to Mars during the next 20 years.

• Help NASA reconnect with the public by using your knowledge of the business world and its tools of advertising, marketing, communication, and journalism.

The Challenge Facing NASA“The modern roots of America's great scientific

establishment go back no further than a half century. Science in this country really has no organized constituency except itself. In a curious way, it created itself; there were no huge lobbies, no street demonstrations, no sit-ins, no strikes, no political blackmail. No small part of the scientific establishment's growth has been in super-secret weapons and related research. In short, the public knows little about its size, operating methods or even its direct benefits, except in the case of a few highly visible aspects such as the space program, medical research and programs that capture the public's fancy - astronomy and dinosaur research, for instance. Big science has thrived in America largely through the enlightenment of a few policy-makers.”

“With a small natural constituency, no spare cash, feeble organization and little experience in the rough-and-tumble of Washington politics, science is justifiably worried that it is now playing a losing game. At the same time, it is beginning to understand that a big part of the problem is an inability to get its message across to the public.”

Reprinted from the Introduction in

Worlds Apart: How the Distance

BetweenScience and Journalism

Threatens America's Future (p. viii)

The Challenge Facing NASA

Public Service Announcements

(See them for yourself on the nearby monitor!)

• Red Rover: Red Rover! Send Earthlings right over!– What if we exhaust Earth’s resources or damage the

fragile balance of our ecosystem? What if we just want to explore past the confines of Earth? What if we discover evidence for life on Mars?

– Will we be the life on Mars?

• Building Your Future: Could this be your future?– Could this be your sister? Daughter? Granddaughter?– Build your future. And make it as mighty as your

dreams.

Who Are the Longhorns in Space?

• Rica French - Team Leader, Doctoral Candidate (Astronomy)

• Rizza Danico, Senior (Radio-Television-Film)

• Trisha Hanley, Sophomore (Radio-Television-Film)

• Ryan Hatfield, Senior (Computer Sciences & Astronomy)

• Marcie Longoria, Junior (Radio-Television-Film)

• Dan Knight - Team Supervisor, Lecturer (Radio-Television-Film)

Back: Dan Knight (Team Supervisor), Rica French (Team Leader), Ryan Hatfield, Rizza Danico. Front: Trisha Hanley, Marcie Longoria.

Marcie, Ryan, Rica, Trisha, and Rizza.

WE MEAN BUSINESS!

Special Thanks To• KVR-TV• UT College of

Communications• UT College of Natural

Sciences• Expanding Your

Horizons in Science and Mathematics

• Texas Space Grant Consortium

• NASA/Johnson Space Center

For More Information• mars.jpl.nasa.gov

– Mars Exploration

• www.tsgc.utexas.edu– Texas Space Grant

Consortium

• www.nasa.gov– NASA main

• zircon.as.utexas.edu/~lis– Longhorns In Space– lis@zircon.as.utexas.e

du

NASA's twin robot geologists, the

Mars Exploration Rovers, will launch

toward Mars in 2003 in search of

answers about the history of water on

Mars. The rovers will be targeted to

sites that appear to have been

affected by liquid water in the past. They will drive to various locations

to perform on-site scientific

investigations over the course of

their 90-day missions. This

mission is part of NASA's long-term

effort of robotic exploration of the

red planet.