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Keith's note: The USAF claims "its not science fiction". So, of course I believe them. Wow, who knew! The USAF has mega comsat battlestars in orbit, their ops personnel wear sleek imperial empire costumes, and they even use the metric system too! Yet when NASA tries to do some harmless education and public outreach, Congress cuts their PAO budget and prohibits them from "lobbying". Sheesh.
But wait - there's more (below)
There are going to be some people who join the military after watching these videos that are going to be seriously disappointed...
Leaving aside the space station that looks more like a transformer than anything else, these ads (and mostly the first one) are fairly reminiscent of the book "The next 100 years" by G. Friedman, and its mystique of battlestars command centers in space, missile launchers in GEO, and starship-trooper** style soldiers powered with SPS beamed in theater.
I'm afraid it's still science fiction, albeit not a particularly imaginative nor positive one...
A.
** The book, of course, not the rubbish film.
It's not public outreach. It's not lobbying. It's a recruiting video.
Go to the jobs section of the websites of hi-tech companies like IBM, Google, Microsoft, etc, and you see the same kind of thing - "Be part of and you'll be doing the coolest, most exciting, most advanced stuff around."
I don't see any problem here. It's advertising.
Actually, I thought they were kind of cool. :)
Many years ago, as a journalist I covered then Air Force Secretary Shelia Widnall. She caused an uproar in 1995 when she predicted that the Air Force "will become an air and space force, then a space force". Looks like there are still some spacers in the USAF!
I agree total rubbish.. If some nice CGI and a few costumed actors will make someone join thinking they will be doing that instead of being stuck in a sand dune in Afghanistan or Iraq they are in for a rude awakening.
6 Comments
At least they used real military folks - a few of those in the commercial actually work at the Joint Space Operations Center at Vandenberg (at least at the time the commercial was filmed).