We Must Go

I saw this video, “Support Exploration: We Must Go”, posted to the “I Fucking Love Science” Facebook page, and I thought it was interesting. The Facebook post said about it:

NASA is a government agency and thus not allowed to advertise, so others decided to do it for them. The Aerospace Industries Association partnered with the Challenger Center for Space Science Education to rekindle public support for space exploration. Over 1,700 people donated to make it possible to run the ad in 50 cities across the United States before the latest installment of Star Trek.

However, the commercial isn’t completely selfless, done to promote space exploration for its own sake; the Aerospace Industries Association is a trade group for companies that make the equipment used in the aerospace industry. So, it’s obviously in the AIA’s self interest for there to be more space exploration. Even so, it’s also true that they’re the only ones who can fund such a commercial. It seems to me that this is one of those times when industry and science have a common goal.

The video is narrated by actor Peter Cullen, who is the voice of Optimus Prime in the Transformers movies. I’m not sure if that helps or not, but it’s interesting.

Space exploration is one area of science that needs help selling itself to the public. This ad is a start toward doing that.