I just got off the phone with Zachary Cohn, a member of the newly formed Satire team behind the parody video.
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Cohn has worked with humor video channel LaughPong, which has offered up humorous takes on politics, video games and tech policy. By day, Cohn works for the nonprofit Startup Weekend. The team at Satire is mostly comprised of friends, family and friends of friends. Production team roles are flexible, with members of the team learning new skills and applying them with each new video. Videos from the new channel will, says Cohn, arrive weekly.
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The team has yet to hear feedback from NASA, although a member of the cast and production team, Anne Ketola, is a former NASA employee. The badges the team wears on their shirts, says Cohn, are actual NASA mission badges.
Heh, posted that video on FB last night. It really is quite well done and damned funny…
8.
PurpleGirl
@Origuy: Apparently NASA really likes it and has it posted now on their own YouTube channel. (According to a tweet at the WaPo site.)
9.
Uncle Cosmo
Nothing like a space agency with a sense of humor. You gotta think there’s a bunch of geeks over at SpaceX furiously chewing pencils trying to figure out how to top that. And ESA–I’m lookin’ at you too!
10.
PurpleGirl
Years ago I was at a Tropicon (science fiction convention hosted by South Florida Science Fiction Society). I was in a party room talking to some other attendees who happened to work at NASA. We were talking about fun experiments with food — you know, stuff like what happens to a York peppermint patty when it’s microwaved. Anyway I told them about microwaving grapes and seeing them fly around the interior of the microwave like balloons. One guy said He’d never thought of trying grapes but it sounded like fun. (A little messy, though.)
11.
sb
@Origuy: Aw, that sucks. I mean, the vid was great but thinking it was made by NASA employees made my day. Now? Well, it made my hour.
That video is teh awesome. I’m hella biased: My S.O. works for JPL and was part of the team that developed the radar (aka TDS — terminal descent sensor– when you watch vids of the landing). Can you say nervous pre- and during landing? You betcha. He and his colleagues are very relieved that it worked. (I watched the landing at one of the two off-lab events put on by JPL for its employees and their families)
I attended NASA’s first evar tweetup (it was at JPL, natch), and a subsequent one last June, where we got to visit Curiosity while she was still a work in progress not long before she got shipped to the launch site.
JPL has been killin’ it on the social media. Veronica McGregor’s tweeting on behalf of the spacecraft Mars Phoenix was all kinds of awesome, and she and her social media team have continued to kill it big time. Setting that kinda tone helps make an atmosphere that begets social media wins like this video. (Yes, yes, wearing a mohawk helps, too)
I hope — sincerely hope — that both mission success and the reaction with videos like this results in an increase in funding for planetary science. Most recent budget: drastic cuts.
There’s traditionally been an intra-agency funding fight between manned missions and unmanned missions. The big rover wins on Mars this last decade? Unmanned missions. But the NASA administrator is an astronaut, and his statements re: JPL’s successes are couched in bias that unmanned/robotic space stuff is a step-sibling to manned space missions and always will be.
13.
RP
So Ryan says that we need to restore American greatness, but I see an America that
– Is doing a lot better than Europe economically
– Got rid of Bin Laden
– Kicked a** in the olympics
– Just took a big step towards universal health care
– Is still an incredible engine for innovation and creativity, and
– Landed a rover on Mars
I know I sound a little jingoistic, but FU Ryan.
14.
Comrade Mary
Sexy And I Know It is supposed to be one of those awful, kids-these-days-I’ll-tell-ya songs that, at best, gets to be called a guilty pleasure, but I love it to death in an absolutely unironic fashion. These non-NASA parodists did a very good thing.
But you guys did know that the JPL team did do an AMA (Ask Me Anything at Reddit, right? Mohawk Guy and Hippie NASA Guy were there, as well as many others. Pic.
15.
northquirk
That is pretty sweet. I’m just sad that I didn’t see them filming it (most of the shots are in downtown Seattle @ Westlake & Belltown very near my home).
PeakVT
Cue Repuke congresscritters grandstanding about tax dollars being used for rap videos, how it’s the biggest scandal since F&F, etc., in 3… 2…
Laertes
That made my day. Those people are awesome.
Emerald
Freakin’ awesome!
And they included Carl Sagan!
James E. Powell
But we all know, don’t we? Government never accomplishes anything worthwhile!
opie_jeanne
Best line: We’re better than Space-X!
Origuy
Wasn’t actually done by NASA, unfortunately.
Nethead Jay
Heh, posted that video on FB last night. It really is quite well done and damned funny…
PurpleGirl
@Origuy: Apparently NASA really likes it and has it posted now on their own YouTube channel. (According to a tweet at the WaPo site.)
Uncle Cosmo
Nothing like a space agency with a sense of humor. You gotta think there’s a bunch of geeks over at SpaceX furiously chewing pencils trying to figure out how to top that. And ESA–I’m lookin’ at you too!
PurpleGirl
Years ago I was at a Tropicon (science fiction convention hosted by South Florida Science Fiction Society). I was in a party room talking to some other attendees who happened to work at NASA. We were talking about fun experiments with food — you know, stuff like what happens to a York peppermint patty when it’s microwaved. Anyway I told them about microwaving grapes and seeing them fly around the interior of the microwave like balloons. One guy said He’d never thought of trying grapes but it sounded like fun. (A little messy, though.)
sb
@Origuy: Aw, that sucks. I mean, the vid was great but thinking it was made by NASA employees made my day. Now? Well, it made my hour.
Susan Kitchens
That video is teh awesome. I’m hella biased: My S.O. works for JPL and was part of the team that developed the radar (aka TDS — terminal descent sensor– when you watch vids of the landing). Can you say nervous pre- and during landing? You betcha. He and his colleagues are very relieved that it worked. (I watched the landing at one of the two off-lab events put on by JPL for its employees and their families)
I attended NASA’s first evar tweetup (it was at JPL, natch), and a subsequent one last June, where we got to visit Curiosity while she was still a work in progress not long before she got shipped to the launch site.
JPL has been killin’ it on the social media. Veronica McGregor’s tweeting on behalf of the spacecraft Mars Phoenix was all kinds of awesome, and she and her social media team have continued to kill it big time. Setting that kinda tone helps make an atmosphere that begets social media wins like this video. (Yes, yes, wearing a mohawk helps, too)
I hope — sincerely hope — that both mission success and the reaction with videos like this results in an increase in funding for planetary science. Most recent budget: drastic cuts.
There’s traditionally been an intra-agency funding fight between manned missions and unmanned missions. The big rover wins on Mars this last decade? Unmanned missions. But the NASA administrator is an astronaut, and his statements re: JPL’s successes are couched in bias that unmanned/robotic space stuff is a step-sibling to manned space missions and always will be.
RP
So Ryan says that we need to restore American greatness, but I see an America that
– Is doing a lot better than Europe economically
– Got rid of Bin Laden
– Kicked a** in the olympics
– Just took a big step towards universal health care
– Is still an incredible engine for innovation and creativity, and
– Landed a rover on Mars
I know I sound a little jingoistic, but FU Ryan.
Comrade Mary
Sexy And I Know It is supposed to be one of those awful, kids-these-days-I’ll-tell-ya songs that, at best, gets to be called a guilty pleasure, but I love it to death in an absolutely unironic fashion. These non-NASA parodists did a very good thing.
But you guys did know that the JPL team did do an AMA (Ask Me Anything at Reddit, right? Mohawk Guy and Hippie NASA Guy were there, as well as many others. Pic.
northquirk
That is pretty sweet. I’m just sad that I didn’t see them filming it (most of the shots are in downtown Seattle @ Westlake & Belltown very near my home).
Shane Taylor
Someone should help NOAA create a YouTube video for their song, “Forward with NOAA.”
http://www.noaacorps.noaa.gov/about/song.html
Yes, it exists. You’re welcome.
gravie
Love the video!