Wake up Rosetta!

Started by Trapezium Artist, December 10, 2013, 10:20:47 PM

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JakeWorrell

Quote from: catherine on June 17, 2015, 09:00:33 PMI get the feeling that whatever genders had been assigned to Rosetta and Philae, that woman would have picked a fight.

Yes, I agree Catherine, it was the lady in the interview that was assigning the gender stereotypes.
"The longer the note, the more dread."

gr8gonzo

If Philae's full name was Philae Cyrus, then she might have gotten it right.
...and I can feel the world is turning...turn around

Trapezium Artist

Quote from: JakeWorrell on June 17, 2015, 06:32:50 PM
Haha I just watched that News Night thing... was it an interview? What a load of nonsense. I'm angry on your behalf TA.

Thanks, Owen  8)

I wasn't happy at the end of the interview, but got a couple of apologetic messages from the Newsnight producers, as well as positive comments from several of my friends at the BBC who thought it was stupid, and that I handled it well.

As for the gender stereotyping thing and as Catherine has pointed out, anyone who has really followed the mission and our anthropomorphised cartoons (as the other guest clearly had not) will know that Rosetta is the much bigger explorer here, with the plucky and klutzy Philae just along for the ride most of the time. Sure, "he" has had his moments of glory and the public are fairly fixated on him alone, but for us, Rosetta is the real hero.

Plus, hey, Rosetta is rather obviously a female name, so for gender balance / equality reasons, it seemed right to make Philae a boy.

We also attracted a small amount of gender bias criticism for our sci-fi film, "Ambition", by making Aidan "Littlefinger" Gillen the "master", and Aisling Franciosi the "apprentice". But in that case, it was a matter of going down the casting list one-by-one to fill the "master" role first, depending on availability / interest, and rest assured that there were several high profile actresses on that list, before Aidan said "yes". (Of course, we were thrilled that he did, but there were many in the mix).

And once we had the "master" cast, we obviously wanted to cast the "apprentice" the opposite gender for balance again.

But keep in mind that Aisling "graduated" in "Ambition", and so could yet make a return in the future as a kick-ass master herself ...  ;)

Mikey

I'd like to see that woman park a baking tray on a pebble a gazillion miles away powered only by a couple of Duracell batteries
I used to have a signature

DueyC

Also to be found running the website and merch sales at www.lifesignsmusic.co.uk

rogerg


Trapezium Artist

Quote from: DueyC on July 17, 2015, 04:16:53 PM
Ooh looky, MT's won an award for being a, er, media tart  :P

http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2015/07/17/rosettaphilae-outreach-team-win-sir-arthur-clarke-award/

Well, if you're gonna do it, do it to the max  8)

Actually, it's a really great recognition for my team here, as well as everyone else doing outreach and education for Rosetta and Philae. The mission itself has very deservedly received quite a few awards in the last 12 months, but this is the first one that has specifically identified the work done by the communications team.

And while, of course, we couldn't have done anything at all without the mission itself (although if you believe the conspiracy theorists, we made the whole thing up, so maybe you don't need an actual mission at all), I do semi-privately like to think that the work done on communications helped make it all that little bit bigger in the public eye  ;)

Plus, of course, if anyone remembers one of the first Rosetta press briefings, back in December 2013, I used a couple of the brilliant Frost*ie collaborative limericks in my pitch, so in a sense, you're all winners too! 

How did they go now? Ah yes ...

Old ISON has fizzled away,
To many astronomers' dismay.
But fret not, my friends,
Fresh starts follow ends,
Rosetta will soon be at play.

She'll be waking in January, you see,
To drop off her lander, Philae,
Down onto the ice,
Info in a trice,
All about comet 67P.


Lovely stuff ...

johninblack

Very well deserved I say :) Good on ya Sir, and your team.
"F#?K OFF, GRANDAD!!!!"

Mikey

Top man ;D ;D

We couldn't have done it without you
I used to have a signature

D S

Come on, you\'re a lion!

Trapezium Artist

Quote from: D S on July 20, 2015, 10:36:25 PM
Uh oh. Looks as if things have gone silent again...  :-\
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-33596274

Naah, don't worry too much ... that's a very negative reading of our original blog post on the topic:

http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2015/07/20/rosetta-and-philae-status-update/

It would appear as though someone at Reuters over-interpreted that and then both the BBC and the Guardian re-ran their agency release with minimal editing. I happen to know that of the reasons is that Jonathan Amos, the BBC's main space journalist, is having a few days leave after spending all week at the New Horizons event in the US last week  ;)

The fact is that we've only had sporadic / intermittent contact with Philae since we first heard from it again in mid-June: there's nothing new in that, and indeed, we experienced a two week break in contact earlier, while the current gap is less.

Our blog post was intended to give some additional technical background to the current status and efforts being made by all involved to try to get a more stable connection, including the sending of commands "in the blind" to reset some of the on-board parameters.

In an ideal world, we'd have Rosetta closer to the comet and lander to try and get a stronger signal, but given the increasing cometary activity, we're having to stand back at about 170-190 km, to avoid the star trackers getting confused by dust particles. But we don't actually think that the distance is the main issue, so this is a bit of a red herring.

Ultimately though, even if Philae doesn't do more science, it already did a lot back in November and those results will be published in the next couple of weeks. And of course, the main part of the mission, Rosetta itself, is continuing to do amazing science ...  8)


D S

Phew - good!  I should know better than to believe everything I read online.
Come on, you\'re a lion!

Mikey

Quote from: D S on July 21, 2015, 01:03:09 PM
Phew - good!  I should know better than to believe everything I read online.
You should know what those Forum jobbies are like  ;)
I used to have a signature

rogerg

Good news, TA!  And nice to get it from the source!

D S

Quote from: Mikey on July 21, 2015, 01:12:07 PM
Quote from: D S on July 21, 2015, 01:03:09 PM
Phew - good!  I should know better than to believe everything I read online.
You should know what those Forum jobbies are like  ;)
"I never believe anything I read on the internet." Abraham Lincoln
Come on, you\'re a lion!