June meeting took flight with NASA Speaker

On June 8, Allard Beutel, the news chief in Media Services for External Relations at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, discussed how he is communicating the final months of the Public Shuttle Program.

With more guests attending launches (42,000,) more public relations department access to historical records, and so many contract workers affected by the change, Beutel has had to revise the typical ways his team communicates and functions.

• The majority of workers at Kennedy Space Center are contractors without computers.
• With the public frenzy to see final launches, NASA's communications team has to use Twitter, Facebook, e-mail lists, media contacts and even bullhorns just to communicate road traffic conditions.
• While the last "planned" public shuttle flight is scheduled for the Endeavor in November, a senator is pushing for another, which would probably be a summer launch of the Atlantis, if it happens.
• The Smithsonian museum has right of first refusal for all space artifacts (shuttles too.)