Date: October 19, 2011
Title: An interview with George Diller, the Voice of NASA
Podcaster: Tony Rice
Link: Tony’s blog: http://utprosim.com
Description: George Diller is NASA’s spokesman at the Kennedy Space Center. He has worked in the Public Affairs Office for over 30 years following a career in journalism covering the space program in the 70’s. He is best known for his launch commentary leading up to space shuttle as well as unmanned missions. Tony Rice interviews Diller to learn more about his view of the space program from his seat in launch control.
Bio: I’m an amateur astronomer from Cary, North Carolina and a volunteer in the NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador Program. I get to go into schools, visit with scout programs and talk about space.
Sponsor:This episode of “365 Days of Astronomy” has been sponsored anonymously.
Transcript:
George Diller is NASA’s spokesman at the Kennedy Space Center. He has worked in the Public Affairs Office for over 30 years following a career in journalism covering the space program in the 70’s. He is best known for his launch commentary leading up to space shuttle as well as unmanned missions. I sat down with him last week to learn more about his view of the space program from his seat in launch control.
365DaysOfAstronomy Podcast: What is the Public Affairs Office and what do they do for NASA?
George Diller: Public affairs is really divided into a lot of different categories and sections and different offices because we have a whole range of responsibilities that go all the way from the news media to education to the invited guests that come to launches to Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. All of these things fall under compartments within NASA Public Affairs and each has their own division or section. The area that I work in deals mostly with the news media. We are supposed to be a conduit between NASA Operations and the Media for whats going on here at Kennedy. Now there are other NASA Centers that are also involved in things, particularly the Johnson Space Center for example where Mission Control is located and where the astronauts are based. They have their own responsibilities related to that particular niche. Our responsibility here at Kennedy is launch operations whether its shuttle or rockets like our Atlas or Delta or anything to do with launch, that’s Kennedy.
365DoAP:Sounds like there is some specialization going on within the office.
Diller: Thats right, even here at Kennedy we have different areas of specialization as well. We have someone in our office who is an expert on space station, shuttle, I’m supposed to the be the expert on the range of rockets and the payloads and missions that they fly. It kind of gradually breaks down like a newspaper that has different sections and reports with beats.
365DoAP: how has the end of the shuttle program changed your job or KSC as a whole?
Diller: There are a lot of changes coming now that the shuttle program is over and also the Constillation program which was the follow-on program was cancelled by the administration. What we have been doing is to regroup and devope an alternative approach to going into space that meets the priorities of the administration and congress. The way is shaping up, NASA will be completely out of the launch business as far as anything going to low Earth orbit or the space station. That’s all being outsourced to our commercial launch providers that will provide the ride into space which is much like we do our launches now for our spacecraft that are doing planetary flights or orbiting the Earth for research or weather satellites, all of those are launched commercially but with a direct NASA role in the process and oversight. We led a competitive contract for the rocket that is going to carry these things to space. That’s the way its going to work for launching astronauts to the space station in the future with the single exception of another area that’s changing for us. We have recently adopted a new heavy lift rocket called the Space Launch System which has been directed by congress that NASA should develop to take astronauts beyond low Earth orbit to different planetary and heavenly bodies. So that’s what we’ve been working on in the back room. We just recently annouced the design for that.
End of podcast:
365 Days of Astronomy
=====================
The 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast is produced by the Astrosphere New Media Association. Audio post-production by Preston Gibson. Bandwidth donated by libsyn.com and wizzard media. Web design by Clockwork Active Media Systems. You may reproduce and distribute this audio for non-commercial purposes. Please consider supporting the podcast with a few dollars (or Euros!). Visit us on the web at 365DaysOfAstronomy.org or email us at info@365DaysOfAstronomy.org. Until tomorrow…goodbye.
Trackbacks/Pingbacks