Comment on Astronauts are funny
merc@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks agoI believe that they might have had more free time than a typical ISS mission, because there wasn’t a lot of science to be done on this trip around the moon. That left more time for spontaneous goofing off. But, they probably also knew there would be more eyes on them than the typical ISS mission, so they probably also planned more things that they hoped would go viral.
dustyData@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Virality cannot be planned for and, for the most part, none of these moments went viral. Most people in the world didn’t knew about the mission. These kinds of moments aren’t “allowed” to happen, they just happen because humans are humans. NASA, and scientists in general, are not at all a bunch of stiff book worms like the stereotypes dictate. People are people and will make jokes and try to keep work environments light. There’s enough stress on trying to fulfill the mission and come back alive already.
They were also super busy though, this mission was a test flight and, well, they spentost of their wake time doing science and testing the spacecraft. Not much time for PR stunts and goofing off, really.
Cattypat@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
virality can ABSOLUTELY be planned for, especially when this is one of the biggest scientific events to happen in the lifetime of younger generations (in their eyes). ive heard an unbelievable amount of fangirling from my friends (rightfully so, this is cool) and they DID plan for it. they knew they would be seen by a significant portion of the U.S., and I’m sure they modified their behavior somewhat on camera to accommodate that