NASA: How Would You Help the Messenger Improve the Message?

Frank
The public's perception of NASA is driven by what they see on TV and what they read in the paper or websites of major news organizations.

PAO does have a role to play in getting content out into the mainstream media.

If I was in charge of PAO for a month, I'd try to get some metric/handle on what level of impact PAO has on the general public perception. Depending on those results, my 'plan' would vary.

Until that is known, its hard to say what impact, and therefore what value, PAO brings to the table.

NASA seems to do well for a government organization. Do forestry guys or fire departments do better?

If you want better from NASA you need to support competition that can fail. The problem with government is not that it can't excel, rather that it can't fail when it doesn't excel, leaving no room for those who would excel in its place.

Also, space guys keep blaming NASA messaging for why people don't care about the same stuff space guys care about. Please. Get over yourselves. Think oceanographers can make people care about reefs just by convincing them better? There is nothing you can do to make people care about space except get them up there living in it, working on it, mining from it, chatting with their friends who are in it, etc.

Space guys are a riot. Think oil platforms aren't important, dangerous work too? Think anybody gives a damn? Nobody cares until one explodes. Remind you of anything? Still think the messaging is the problem?

If I were in charge of NASA Public Affairs for one month I would re-direct NASA's attention to tax-paying adults. A lot of the programming on the NASA channel and content on NASA web sites is directed to kids or is just too superficial to hold anyone's interest.

This one is easy. I've had the privilege for many years to go and talk to elementary school children about the Shuttle Program and NASA in general. Although NASA says it wants to 'inspire' the next generation, it does very little to do so. The situation is slowly getting better but shouldn't take this long.

1) Target elementary school children. Even kids this young know what they like. Rockets. Fire. Color. Something they can take home with them really grabs their interest.
2) NASA is most effective with the visual. Increase the PAO budget to procure massive amounts of color photos, posters, stickers and patches (oh, yeah...we do get some 8x10 photos...that haven't been updated in 10 years). Flood elementary and middle schools with this material. Young kids recognize this stuff and like it. They feel like part of a mission simply by wearing a patch on a white t-shirt.
3) For older middle school/high school kids, dump the current white/black pamphlets of mostly text. Don't even think about distributing bookmarks describing 'protein crystal growth'. Take scrapped hardware (something which the Shuttle Program produced 30-years worth) and build inventories that can be taken to high schools. 'Hands-on' is the key here. How much of Shuttle hardware was thrown away when it could have been used in schools?

These are only three that just came off the top of my head...from experience. For years, I fought with my local PAO office for enough 'goodies' for a class but was told that I could have only one poster for each class, instead of one for each student. A package of NASA meatball stickers was worth its weight in gold and forget about distributing any Apollo/Shuttle mission patches. Never happened. So, like teachers, I went out and bought this stuff on my own. Each kid had his/her own package of goodies and was proud of it. For years, I received thank you letters from the kids, and notes from the teachers and parents who couldn't believe that I would go to so much trouble. And they loved it.

I used to work in a NASA program that used a conference display. After seeing a magnificent JPL display at one particular conference, we updated ours with a new look of color, graphics and a 3-D truss system. It 'stunned' the conference participants - we received tons of positive feedback with one guy telling us that this is what he expected a NASA display to look like. Within a year, NASA HQ came out with new display rqmts and forced us to modify to their template. Dull, boring standard display (no 3-D truss) with...wait for it...light grey as the main color with white trim. It couldn't have been more fuddy duddy and less inspiring. And pathetic.

Finally (this is getting quite long...), in Huntsville, we have a high-end shopping mall that at one time actually located a NASA PAO office in it. It was either meant to be temporary or went 'out of business' because it is no longer there. I stopped by one day just to see what was in it. It had small sections of SSME hardware...without any explanation of what it was or where it was located on the vehicle. It had models of the Ares I-X vehicle, but nothing there to explain it. The pictures on the wall above these items had nothing to do with the models or hardware below them. No pictures of Shuttle launches. Nothing concerning the moon. Saturn vehicles never mentioned. No pictures from Hubble. However, on the counter, were stacks of the aforementioned black/white pamphlets of mostly text. It's no wonder nobody knows - or cares - of what we do.

The new nasa.gov website is much improved but even for a NASA veteran, I don't find it very intuitive. Takes way too long to find something for which I'm looking. We may be making progress but it's at a glacial pace.

You can't make the public care with press releases, NASA TV programming (which to the general public...not the space geeks...is a joke), Flash web pages, or astronauts Twittering.

You have to do something.

You have to do something that is so obviously the right thing and do it the right way that public see its intrinsic value.

And you need to realize that you only need their approval. Not their attention. No one thing EVER gets the American peoples attention for more than a moment.

If you base a program on keeping their attention...you're screwed.

One final comment:

Years ago, NASA produced a brilliant Shuttle launch poster. It was a close-up, side view of a launch of Space Shuttle Challenger. The trim of the picture was that of a postage stamp. At the bottom, were three simple words: "First Class Delivery".

People still talk about this poster and many still have it hanging in their office (I still have mine). NASA has never repeated the magnificence of this poster and seems to have never tried.

An interesting topic Frank, but the setup of your questions don't work. A couple of the major problems with NASA PAO are:
a) it is woefully underfunded/undermanned compared with organizations of similar size/budget to NASA, and
b) it is bound by laws normal organizations aren't bound by (e.g. can't advertise, can't promote itself, etc.).
So the setup of the puzzle is flawed right away. By definition, the PAO Director can't be given "free reign" by the Administrator (or anyone... short of new legislation by Congress). And there isn't much budget available to do anything very wiz-bang anyway...
Hence the reasons we are stuck with what we have. (and, no, I'm not a PAO person).

The timeline is short, but:
Day 1- Hire Jennifer Scheer. She is responsible for more successful NASA outreach then anyone. Since she's an established commodity, she will bring along so many.....again. Give her what she asks for. PERIOD

Day 2- Program NASA-TV! It doesn't have to be the Science Channel, but it should not be the NBC News Backhaul Feed either. I have a whole list of ideas for this topic alone, but then again, this one is not rocket science.

Day 3 - Push changes to NASA.gov. It is much much better then it once was. Continue tat forward momentum at an increased rate. Unclutter homepage. Remove "Leadership" section, an obvious "please the boss" section.

Day 4 - Every center...EVERY CENTER hold at "NASA Day" on the same day. A national event (better press coverage). An open house where employees get to show off what they do for the country. Think "take your daughter to work day". Explain to the tax payers what they are getting. Drag out the artifacts and the astronauts new and old, the research aircraft (the A in NASA). This becomes a yearly event.

Day 5 - Get "Spinoff" on Facebook. Communicate to people what it's all about. Have it staffed by people who will find out the answers to peoples questions. "Crystal growth in micro-g". We all heard about that for 10 years. So? What happened?

Day 6 - Get NASA employees to relax and not worry they will get fired for saying something wrong (If you can get the contractors involved, fine). Then, encourage them to talk.

Day 7 - Get astronauts to lighten up and talk about the fun stuff in space. What goes on between "goodnight Houston" and the wake up call?

Day 8 - Open Centers up to the public. Make them less like a military base.

By Day 8, Jennifer will have it all laid out at which point I'll just go concentrate on NASA-TV.

SpaceTruckin', you're absolutely correct on all points. But maybe that's the answer. Instead of accepting the status quo and only what we've been given, perhaps Mr./Ms. PAO should be making the case to the Congress/President that what we've been allocated is not enough, given what they want us to do. There's nothing that's been said here that could not be fixed by Congress.

And before anyone tells me that there's no money to do any of this, may I just remind everyone that the President has just proposed yet another $50B in spending.

Anything significant, anything worthwhile needs a plan.

From what I can tell NASA public affairs and its products is inconsistent, constantly changing, changes every time a new head comes in, changes every time a new program or project manager comes in, changes from one center to the next and Headquarters is inconsistent with the field centers, no two of which seem to have similar plans, products or functions.

Is there a plan for what NASA wants to say and the image it wants to portray?

One month? I don't think that is enough.

I don't think PAO is the fundamental issue. I've got a web site by which I distribute an aerodynamics code for free. It's been up for 2 1/2 yrs. I've seen VERY few NASA URLs visit it.

I think it would be more appropriate to ask the NASA people if they are excited by what they are doing.

1. Inform the public that the NASA budget is not 24% of total annual Federal expenditures as generally perceived by the American public-- its less than 0.6%.

2.Inform the public that NASA expenditures actually create more wealth for the American economy than it consumes and how the government's investment in space technology has totally revolutionized American society.

3. Stop with all of the mission to Earth nonsense and tell the public that NASA really wants to set up permanent bases on the Moon and Mars and that they can fund such ventures for less than 1% of the Federal budget.

4.Inform the public that NASA is helping to financially support private American companies developing their own manned and unmanned space programs.

5. NASA should announce that they support average Americans traveling in space aboard NASA certified private commercial American space vehicles by starting a Space Lotto system where people can buy $1 lotto tickets for a chance to fly into space. It would capture the imagination of the American people if they knew that they finally had a chance to fly into space! And it would help to support the space tourism market for the emerging private manned spaceflight companies.

Marcel F. Williams

I second Skarka's post.

I personally enjoy going to NASA.gov regularly and I do so.

I used to really enjoy reading Wayne Hale's blog. NASA edge feels pretentious and contrived to me. Hale felt like a real person who could just say whatever he wanted. They should be able to say whatever without worrying about getting fired or straying from the party line. It makes it more interesting, like you can actually learn something new or get a new angle on what's going on and why.

Though there will be cases like Sasselov where someone uses the wrong jargon and... Maybe there should be some training associated with such freedoms. Or something. I don't wanna say "speak more" and "speak less" on different days of the week. You know?

I like the Picture of the Day. Everyone loves cool space pictures.

I like the news stories they have. Today they modified it to support 7 stories. The design's a little experimental - I wonder if it's less obvious that there actually are multiple stories - but they are good stories.

There's one about two near-Earth asteroids. Gives you the feeling that NASA has a handle on these things. That's something that probably everyone agrees NASA ought to be doing, if you ask them.

There's one about NASA's relevance to search & rescue technology.

For the light space geek, there's one about a Solar entry probe, and for the hardcore geeks there's one about how the Phoenix mission puts a new perspective on the Viking results.

Still, it can be improved. People going to NASA.gov don't need to see who the leadership is. They either already know or don't care.

I sent a note about it through the site feedback gizmo.

I think the site is an excellent piece of work and they should be proud.

I wonder how many people they have working on PR, including the site and "web 2.0" gizmos?

Start with a meaningful and well-articulated goal.

Sure signs of an amateurish operation is when they have no plan. In manned space little is produced aside from daily news releases; no doubt here that its strictly an amateur operation.

There is no easy answer. You won't change culture (inside NASA or with the public) in a month.

Some random thoughts-

-Make a deal with a communications company to start a "NASA History Channel."
-Hire some kids to re-organize the website Facebook style, make it "NASABook." There is a lot on the site, but it's scattered and you have to dig.
-Make some better stickers! Sheesh. Where are the NASA stickers and posters at post offices? Why can't I get NASA stickers on the NASA site?
-The NASA iPad App came out, but it is dull. I passed around my iPad with "Star Walk" (uses the GPS capability to plot out locations of stars and planets live) on it at a NASA meeting and NASA people were all- "wow this is cool!" So, hire them to make something for NASA.
-People like to say NASA spinoffs pay the public back many times over, but when have you ever seen a product package with "powered by NASA" on it somewhere? NASA likes to share technology, but it's shy about promoting itself. (Think about all the computer boxes with "Intel inside" on them...)

For all the above, you will find people that say "We can't do that."

Stop saying "can't."

It's kind of sad when a major problem for a federal agency is perceived as being marketing. It goes way beyond production smarts. In a word, what NASA needs to do is to figure out why human space flight is important to the nation, and how it offers value to the taxpayer. Until that happens, asking PAO to make glitzy stickers, posters, and TV shows is a bit lame.

I agree that NASA TV is boring. But I have to wonder if that's less a production problem and more a content problem. There's only so much to work with, when you get past big flames and bad hair.

It was said before, and I'll say it again. Start with a meaningful and well articulated goal. No, going to the Moon or Mars is not a goal. Those are trips, not goals.

NASA PAO is one of the arms of the Agency that support the development of messages; their audiences are the media (news operations) and general public (outreach). I am sure that most of you are aware that there are several other organizations (at HQ and at each center) that develop parallel messages to their audiences: Leg Affairs to the Hill, State & Local government reps and the CFO back to the WH/OMB.
So while the majority of bloggers posting here maintain a primary focus on how the PAO organization is performing (and to answer Frank's question), it is important to recognize that PAO is but one cog in a big wheel. And the (political appointee) head of PAO has the same stature within NASA as the political appointee heads of Leg Affairs and the CFO. The three leaders/organizations all work together to develop themes, messages, and then promote the effective distribution of those messages to their respective audiences.
That being said, there have been a number of pertinent points that have been made here by previous posters:
NASA TV is boring, and a solution would be to provide more funding to develop content based upon current Agency activities. Of course, given the dynamics of a very tight budget situation, what would you cut to increase the NASA TV funding? In a zero-sum environment, define your priorities carefully, because NASA TV content is pretty low on the Agency's list, and the money would have to come from some other funding source.
Since NASA is precluded from marketing, the closest that it does is 1) engaging in public appearances by astronauts and senior officials, appearances that have some hook to them that engages with the media; 2) supporting a wide range of events, both nationally and internationally, that proved opportunities for less-senior NASA officials and contractors to interact with the general public (not eduction, we are focused on PAO's suite of responsibilities here).
There are a number of well intentioned and very professional PAO reps across the Agency, but there are damn few that have stuck it out -against all the garbage that flows down on them - and maintain a high level of output.
We can attack and dissect the Education office another day.

There is actual a doctoral dissertation that has looked at a portion of the NASA public affairs effort, specifically in the area of education. If you have access to a library database you can probably pull it up:

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) education 1993--2009, by Ivie, Christine M., Ed.D., George Fox University, 2009; AAT 3394583
http://ezproxy.lib.uh.edu/login?url=http://proquest.umi.com.ezproxy.lib.uh.edu/pqdweb?did=1966235181&sid=2&Fmt=2&clientId=86&RQT=309&VName=PQD

Basically what it says: constant changes in leadership result in changes in direction;

significant trends:

- the approach in education and public outreach is disjointed and seems to reflect individual managers' preferences in approaches;

- approaches are designed to reach small populations that are of interest to the individuals in decision-making positions;

- a systematic approach designed to meet identified goals and outcomes is lacking;

- this disjointed and individually-driven approach led to a lack of consistent evaluation data and criteria for review or planning purposes;

- there was an ongoing assumption that NASA efforts were tied to larger National or Administration concerns, needs or initiatives such as in Science Technology Engineering and Math (STEM) studies of the past twenty years; what this dissertation found was that there is no evidence that the NASA programs or projects were a response to National needs or initiatives. Contributions to National initiatives occurred as a byproduct of the effort and not because of specific goals aligned to those initiatives.

Three simple words, "Hire Miles O'Brien". Should have been done years ago.

SCAPE, where is this poster?? I did a quick look around the internet and couldn't find any images, let me know if its online somewhere

This, to my mind, is a really tough question. If there were simple, straight-forward answers, then the PAO people and their associates would have thought of them by now and had them in place. But I think, given the constraints that they face, and given the nature of the public and the media, the problem would require two parts magic and three parts money to solve.

As much as I applaud the suggestions made by others, I think they unfortunately are not sufficient. Take the "cool pictures" approach. I agree that many, maybe even most, people will respond to a cool space picture, but it's a big jump from "Wow, cool picture" to "I believe we should be spending more money on NASA and/or other space pursuits." One does not lead automatically to the other. I do think this gets reaction with those who are already pro-space, but that doesn't gain us anything. I do think this gets reaction with school-aged children, but it's a long time to wait until they're voters, assuming you can somehow keep them on board through the intervening years (a very tough proposition).

The NASA spin-off aspect is put forward again and again. The problem here is that the spin-offs presented are not items that relate to the public's day-to-day lives. In truth, the most valuable NASA spin-offs over the years have not been "products," but rather industrial processes. These have contributed to new products, or cheaper production costs, but the processes themselves are meaningless to the average person.

I think we all agree that NASA's web site is a nightmare to navigate. Finding things is not at all intuitive and the search function is useless (like almost every search function on the planet!). Even if you search with a carefully constructed keyword string, you get back a zillion links, almost all of which are unrelated to what you're looking for. But even if you could magically "fix" the NASA site(s), and make them better than great, what is going to make people go to the site in the first place. Only the already-converted go to the NASA sites; the rest of the public doesn't. So, how can you get them interested to go to nasa.gov?

Every aspect of this issue that I look at ends up with the same question, which is the question that we started with -- how do you get "whatever solution" in front of people's faces and catch their attention?

I believe that those people who proposed trying to get the legislation changed so that NASA can "market" itself have identified the necessary first step. Until you can put NASA/space stuff in front of people on a regular basis, in a casual, non-invasive way, we're not going to change a thing. Only the choir will care, and the majority will remain ignorant of the facts.

Then again, even if we accomplished this, as many have pointed out, there is still the money problem. The armed forces managed to advertise on TV, but NASA can't, either legally or financially; and that's a serious limitation on spreading the message.

Steve

1. Change name to America Aeronautics and Space Administration

2. Ground up reengineering of the Space shuttle (Americas work horse)
A. to costly? I don’t think it is from the price of fuel and materials. I think we all know were waste is at.
B. foam? Come on no band ads or duck tape fixes here.
C. aging fleet ? New shuttles.
D. new space goals? I think the new space shuttle will have an important role in getting us there.
E. I think that most all Americans like the concept of the space shuttle. Stick with it.

3. Moving forward
A. first come up with a plan an stick to it. Second guessers need to quite and apply at space X
B. get flying ASAP.

4. Public relation
A. a yearly contest were all 8th graders submit a question for the astronauts. Question are then
Graded and voted on by the 6th 7th graders so one question wins per school. Local media will be informed
When there question will be read and answered from space.
B. same like program for collage students.
C. send some celebrity to space like Bill Nile the science guy or Allen Alda.

that’s just me
The key is we need direction.

Here is a cool physics based site. In was founded by Dave Baszucki (also a founder of Knowledge Revolution and the creator of Working Model (a motion simulation software))

http://www.roblox.com/

In short people/kids interact and create things with lego like building blocks. The relevant part is that it has a sophisticated physics based kinematic and contact modeling methodology.

Maybe NASA could add something to worlds like this. Wouldn't it be awesome if kids could create airplanes and rockets and fly them using real physics?

Or course, that falls under ITAR...

Effective storytelling technique is the key regardless of medium, combined with a loosening of the reins on allowable content:

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/802/1

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/807/1

It's also (as suggested above) a major help when the objective(s)are clear and concise. Inform the public as to what the goal is, and then allow them to participate through emotional engagement with the characters/players (and directly where practical!) as those players strive to achieve that goal.

"One thing is sure: if this doesn't change for the better and soon, NASA may have missed an historic opportunity to galvanize public support at a critical time in its history."

I cannot believe how the NASA leadership has failed at this over the last several years, and failed to redouble their efforts in the face of the Constellation situation, the Shuttle termination, and the economic (jobs) crisis of the last 2 years.

All NASA needed to do was make a believable sales pitch for maintenance of its facilities and development of new capabilities (an infrastructure for space travel) and even new educational initiatives, and a significant portion of the $900 billion economic stimulus could have gone into NASA's and the commercial space industry's economic stimulus. Constellation in some form would have been saved.

Instead NASA took no action at all.

Really amazing.

"SCAPE, where is this poster?? I did a quick look around the internet and couldn't find any images, let me know if its online somewhere"
---------------------------------------------------

Actually, I found one available on ebay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/NASA-FIRST-CLASS-DELIVERY-Shuttle-Launch-original-/200514633493?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2eaf9a7f15

Nice poster but not from NASA. This was a US Postal Service poster.

NASA's work is important to Americans, and many of them don't know it. It takes work for them to understand how and why. Next to compulsory education, marketing is the most effective tool for motivating the public to wrap their brains around new ideas. SpaceTruckin is right about the advocacy straitjacket. We need a NASA Marketing Division.

And Congress will never go for it. What, they should allocate tax dollars to a federal agency so it can lobby for its own expansion? That's every agency's dream!

My suggestion, if its legal, is to make NASA PAO a free speech zone. Interview people from inside and outside NASA and air the negative along with the positive. Cultivate a debate on our space goals-- it's a strategic activity, not self-promotion.

A wilder suggestion-- take NASA PAO negative. Air the dirty laundry, expose the failures, put NASA Center rivalry on reality TV. When it really gets under the legislature's skin, make the case that only an ad campaign could instill a clear picture of what NASA's doing.

No, it's not. Actually, it's from NASA's Manned Flight Awareness division of PAO.

Excuse me, I meant to say that this was from the Manned Flight Awareness division of what I believe is now known as the Safety and Mission Assurance Office (S&MA).

The original printing, occurring approximately 1989 or so, carries the Manned Flight Awareness logo along with the old NASA worm.

Maybe I stand corrected.

It would be interesting to know the origin; was this an SFA product that the USPS adopted, or a USPS product that SFA adopted? USPS did a series of space posters and sold them in post offices in the mid to late 80s. NASA did a series of "Going to Work in Space' posters in the early 80s highlighting Shuttle. The colors were dark and not nearly the breathtaking image of this poster. SFA products usually are meant for the internal community and most of the public rarely sees their products.

Posters are great in the classroom. In the 1960s a new NASA Facts poster was produced frequently and widely distributed. There were a large series. NASA's manned space program seems to have gotten away from them in the last decade because of expense. But because of the difficulties in accessing imagery and content that other bloggers have identified, I don't think that internet access makes up for other visual content, which can be the most motivational material.

The most useful thing NASA can do is to have a mission. It is certain that hardly anyone outside the agency has any idea what NASA is up to and most think "The manned space program was canceled by Obama." More than half of NASA employees believe that as well. It's really difficult to inspire people with no discernible plan and no describable mission while begging rides from the Russians.

Finally, it would be helpful to have gas money available for NASA speakers. Last time a colleague tried, there were no funds available to drive 50 miles up the road and give a speech to a student engineering group who asked for a NASA speaker. They were turned down because NASA shamefully ran out of speaker's bureau funds early in the year.

After all is said and done, the Agency's priorities is always reflected in funding what it really wants to do while the 'lip-service line item' always remains at zero.

On this we can agree. Regardless of where it came from originally, these types of posters were something that NASA once did magnificently. I also remember in the early to mid 80's, a set of Voyager II posters that highlighted Voyager II's 'grand tour' to the outer planets. These were thick, high gloss, large-sized and most of all BEAUTIFUL posters from Jupiter to Neptune. Each outer planet had its own poster and showed some remarkable imagery not usually seen by the public. At the time, I actually found them in a high-end print store in my home town. Now that I think about it...these may have been produced by one of the universities that were a part of the mission. Even still...maybe PAO could contract it out again. I don't remember any big posters of the Mars rovers from Sojourner to Spirit/Opportunity. Think of what could be done with New Horizons at Pluto.

"most think The manned space program was canceled by Obama. More than half of NASA employees believe that as well"

I agree. Obama actually increased the NASA budget and gave NASA free reign to propose a new direction. He only pointed out the obvious in that Constellation had no useful mission. Most people at the agency refuse to believe that and want to force him out of office so they can get back to reliving Apollo. They know nothing of the agency's history or its real original mission, which was to perform research and development in support of the civil aircraft industry.

It's painful to see NASA trying to make money by entertaining the public like a dancing bear. Do you see DOE, NSF, NIH, or NOAA doing that? They provide practical benefits for America and NASA should justify its budget by doing the same. It appears NASA can only claim practical benefits if they are "spinoff", i.e. accidental "free" byproducts of its human spaceflight mission that are nevertheless used to justify the money spent on it.

A lot of aeronautics research has actually been picked up by FAA because of lack of NASA leadership in this area. The complete abandonment of the RLV program in the first Bush administration killed any hope of practical human spaceflight for a generation.

During the first 40 years of NACA the high point in publicity was winning the Collier Trophy in 1929 for an improved radial engine cowling that demonstrated how aeronautical engineering could be applied to a practical problem for the industry. Hardly an attempt to excite the public but it saved a lot of gas.

As for the public, I think the main exhibit area at the KSC visitor center should be made free again. Originally its purpose was to show the public what their tax dollars were doing, not to make money as a theme park.

"Change name to America Aeronautics and Space Administration"

How do you guess people would pronounce NASA without the N?

Good catch that was not my intention but it does fit my mind set so I will stick with it.

They actually are doing some good, active work on that web site of theirs.

I've started reading their home page news stories.

Glancing over the stories up now, I see what they can track beetle infestations via sat (I had no idea!), saw that they're tracking another solar flare, and some science articles and updates about their activities.

I think their website team is trying to do exactly what they ought to be; showing what NASA is up to, with a good mix of both things of practical value and "oh that's neat" type articles about things they're exploring and doing.

Maybe there's a need for some private advocacy.

It's publicly funded so the only way for more to happen is for them to spend more of our money or for us to spend more of our time, and time is money, so, if Congress doesn't want to assign more cash, maybe some volunteer work is in order...

A group or website or something to get a very specific message out: just what is NASA up to anyway?

"They provide practical benefits for America and NASA should justify its budget by doing the same"

Well I think the discussion here is that people don't really understand what NASA does.

Nobody questions the value of the DOE; it's blatantly obvious, even if you were to find many misconceptions if you probed a bit.

NASA, on the other hand, is like the F-22; blatantly obviously useless, even if not ACTUALLY useless.

Not that I object to any other part of your post. To say that "the message about their useful things isn't getting out" isn't to say "everything they're doing is secretly useful".

I can't imagine the MESSENGER mission offering any real tangible - nor any details about Mercury being valuable for the next...few centuries?

I'm still a fan and many of us are, but any close reassessment with an eye on practical value (or subjective value of the information) will involve tough cuts or at least ruffle a lot of feathers.