GRAA NEWSLETTER
P.O. Box 1184, Greenbelt, MD 20768-1184

IMPORTANT DATES

April 12	Our April speaker is Dr. Paul Mahaffy, recently retired Director of Goddard’s Solar System Exploration Division (Code 690), whose talk is entitled “Goddard's Contributions to the Exploration of Planets, Moons, and Primitive Bodies in the Solar System” Don’ t miss Paul’s accounting of these historical missions!
May 10	Our May speaker is Dr. Michelle Thaller, Goddard Astronomer and Science Communicator.

COMMENTS FROM TONY COMBERIATE AND ARLIN KRUEGER:

Our March luncheon speaker was Matt Radcliff, Senior Video and Multimedia Producer in the Goddard Office of Communications. His talk, titled “Bringing NASA’s Story Back Down to Earth,” described the many avenues that Goddard uses to engage the public and scientific community in our missions. The old Public Affairs Office and its press conferences and press kits have been transformed into the 21st Century Office of Communications, the world’s largest science communications group, with millions of virtual followers.

The Goddard home page, https://www.nasa.gov/goddard, contains current news and videos and is the launch point for social media posts about Goddard missions. Matt and his colleagues produce educational and entertaining videos of our missions and scientific findings in collaboration with the Science and Engineering Divisions. On YouTube, the Goddard channel (https://www.youtube.com/user/NASAexplorer) also contains many of these videos; in Twitter many threads contain short visuals; Facebook has pictures and videos of NASA expeditions and launches (https://www.facebook.com/NASAGoddard); and scores of pictures are available in Instagram. Live broadcasts, streaming and press briefings are also handled by the Office of Communications. Typical products include documents of flight projects, conceptual animations, which describe a process or concept, and data visualizations (e.g. Earth Observing Missions) which show actual science data, like looking into a hurricane to see the bands of rain. Matt developed a colorful animation of global temperature changes from 1880 to the present, clearly showing the recent accelerating warming (https://t.co/hmJU9kVgL0).

The Office of Communications produces promos for upcoming launches to emphasize the mission’s engineering and technology advancements. These typically include live shots and interviews of scientists and engineers, emphasizing the benefits of their mission to society. Matt illustrated this with the Landsat-9 mission, starting from L-12 months, and continuing through data release to the public. They also produced a special tribute on the 50th anniversary of Landsat missions which included a custom interactive ‘Landing’ page for both the press and the public. This Landsat “Road Trip” showed how its technology has evolved over the years and included special segments on how farms have used NASA data over that time. They even included a cooking show. The Office of Communications also coordinates Press Briefings for each launch. These include an L-30 day overview of the mission, an L-3 day science and engineering segment, an L-2 day Pre-launch details presentation, and live launch coverage, including VIP tours, and virtual social tours. When science data become available, the Office of Communications produces special features on social media to reach the largest possible audience. The Goddard Office of Communications contains the largest collection of NASA science videos anywhere. They are generally available to the public on the Goddard home page.

Another major goal of the Office of Communications is to make space science data available to the classroom, as evidenced by the wide use of NASA data in schools around the country and the world. Both the Goddard and Wallops Visitor Centers are run by the Office of Communications and during the recent shutdown they began sponsoring virtual field trips, which have attracted users from almost all 50 states.

REMEMBERING OUR FORMER COLLEAGUES:

Genevieve Link, 98, long time resident of Cocoa Beach, FL and most recently of Buffalo Crossings ALF in The Villages, passed away January 21, 2022. She was born in Washington, D.C. in 1923. She married her Mount Rainier High School sweetheart, George O. Link, and they were married for 70 years until his passing. She lettered in basketball and track in high school and remained active later in life becoming a top 10 Duckpin bowler in the Maryland/DC area. She also enjoyed boating, becoming a member of the United States Power Squadron and Cocoa Beach Sail & Power Squadron, and golfed with the Sunshine League in Cocoa Beach. She also made quilts which she gave to family members and charities. She began her NASA career at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland and ended that career with her retirement in 1973 from the Kennedy Space Center with the completion of the Apollo Program.

Spencer Leigh Meade Sr., 84, of Riva, MD passed away peacefully on January 23, 2022, surrounded by his family. He was born March 12, 1937 in Brooklyn, NY. He served in the U.S. Navy and worked for many years in spacecraft ground control at the Goddard Space Flight Center. He is survived by his wife of 56 years, Carolyn, and his children.

Ray Hartenstein, 87, of Laneville TX, passed away March 4, 2022. He was born March 11, 1934 in Belleville, Illinois. He served in the United States Navy and obtained a Bachelor's Degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Maryland. He started his career at the Goddard Space Flight Center as a lab technician and was an Aerospace Engineer in the Spacecraft Management Branch and subsequently the Flight Data Systems Branch Head. During his career at Goddard, he worked on what would become the NSSC-1, or Nasa Standard Spacecraft Computer, which later supported the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). Ray performed in many musicals and dramas while in Maryland with Goddard’s Music & Drama (MAD) Club. After working 30 years for NASA, he retired and went to work for Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC). He was a member of the Kiwanis club of Henderson, TX, helped build houses for Habitat for Humanity, and delivered books to children in several counties in Texas through the Little One’s Literacy (LOL) Program.

FROM THE GODDARD ARCHIVES — IT HAPPENED IN APRIL:

On April 23, 1997, Atlas II launched GOES-K which became GOES 10 after being successfully placed on orbit. After completing operations as part of GOES main system, it was kept as a backup until 2009 providing coverage of South America as GOES South.

TREASURER’S REPORT: Treasurer Jackie Gasch received tax-deductible donations from: Ralph Welsh, Tony Comberiate, Raymond Mazur, Dr. James C. Shiue in memory of Harry Montgomery, Eileen Mowle in memory of Alberta Moran, Barbara Sweeney in memory of Alberta Moran and Joe Rothenberg in memory of Alberta Moran and Dave Moulton.