NASA Social

• By Maggie Masetti
• July 31, 2014
• Comments Off on NASA Social

In June we finally had the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) NASA Social, that we were supposed to have in January. It was such a lot of work planning it (in fact I often felt like I was a wedding planner!) but it was totally worth it. The event was really fun and went very smoothly.

A NASA Social is when social media users apply to attend a specialized event, generally in association with a NASA project or launch. They’re given a backstage pass and a special experience that they can then post about on via their social media channels. In our case, our NASA Social attendees were invited to learn more about the JWST, meet and talk with project members, and get a special tour of our facilities here at Goddard. Here’s more about their day.

We had a bunch of project folks, Amber, Ray, and Eric give an overview of the mission first thing in the morning:

Followed by a talk by John Mather.

Followed by a signing with John Mather, lunch, and a group photo!

Credit: NASA/Goddard/Bill HrybykJohn and I took a selfie. :)

We had a tour of our Integration & Test facility, followed by a Q&A by our cleanroom. Amber Straughn and Mike McClare were in the cleanroom with a video camera so we could get a good look inside.

Those are our flight mirrors on the balcony behind Amber and Mike:

One of our test mirrors:

This is another test mirror (not gold coated, but polished). It’s the flight spare for the C7 segment:

In the afternoon we had a Hyperwall show and a round robin where Social attendees got to talk to JWST project folks in small groups. Everyone really seemed to enjoy it!

We have lots more pictures of the event in this Flickr set and Flickr group.

All photos credit: Maggie Masetti, except where noted.

NASA has Socials all the time – so if it’s something you’re interested in applying to come to, check out the NASA Social page to see if there’s one near you!