Through this lens, it’s possible to explain the phenomenon through what we’ll call the “Miranda Preistly effect.” Remember that scene in 2006’s “The Devil Wears Prada” in which Priestly, Meryl Streep’s character, verbally dresses down her young, fashion-inept intern? She explains that the blue sweater she’s wearing is actually “cerulean,” and it’s as much a product of fashion-obsessed industry tycoons as anything on the runway. There was also Adidas, Swatch, Vans and countless others within the past decade. Pop singer Ariana Grande had a song and an entire merchandising line about NASA. If a company misuses the logo, NASA’s legal office will often send a cease and desist letter, Ulrich said.Īfter Coach released its line of NASA apparel, high-end designers including Heron Preston and, more recently, Balenciaga, released their own lines. And, of course, NASA wants to make sure its brand isn’t used for any untoward purposes, such as in a way that suggests that NASA endorses a company or product. Ulrich’s job is just to ensure that the logo is used in a way that’s consistent with the space agency’s approved aesthetic guidelines. ![]() If a company wants to print NASA logos on t-shirts or coffee mugs, it just has to send an email to NASA’s merchandising department, per the legal requirements. It’s not typically how licensing deals work, but, because NASA is a government agency, much of its assets - including photos, logos and even technology designs - are in the public domain. It’s all free of charge, and NASA doesn’t make a dime off it. But the reason there’s so much interest in slapping NASA logos on everything from Vans sneakers to trucker hats may have something to do with the fact that these companies don’t have to license the logo. ![]() Not all of those requests get approved, Ulrich added. Last year, there were “over 11,000 requests,” he said - an all-time high. It’s now come to the point that we get out on average 225 a week,” Ulrich said. This latter approach is being taken by the ExoMars rover under development where drilled samples taken from a depth of up to 2 meters will be analyzed.“Before 2017, we did five or 10 a week. Future missions must either find surface regions where erosion from wind-blown sand has recently exposed very ancient material, or alternately samples must be obtained from a shielded region beneath the surface. However, over hundreds of millions of years these molecular fossils on Mars are subject to being destroyed or transformed to the point where they may no longer be recognized as biosignatures. We can search for evidence of cells preserved in rocks, or at a much smaller scale: compounds called biosignatures are molecular fossils, specific compounds that give some indication of the organisms that created them. MEP developed the Mars 2020 Rover Mission to determine whether life may have left telltale signatures in the rocks on Mars’s surface, a further shift to the current science theme “Seek the Signs of Life”.įinding fossils preserved from early Mars might tell us that life once flourished on this planet. After establishing that Mars once had significant amount of water on its surface, the Mars Science Laboratory (which includes the Curiosity rover) was sent to Mars to determine whether Mars had the right ingredients in the rocks to host life, signaling a shift to the next theme of “Explore Habitability”. The Pathfinder Mission and Mars Exploration Rovers (Spirit and Opportunity) were sent to Mars to “Follow the Water,” recognizing that liquid water is necessary for life to exist on Earth. The field of Astrobiology saw a resurgence due to the controversy surrounding the possible fossil life in the ALH84001 meteorite, and from the outsized public response to this announcement, and subsequent interest from Congress and the White House, NASA’s Astrobiology Program was formed.Īlso at this time, NASA’s Mars Exploration Program began to investigate Mars with an increasing focus on missions to the Red Planet. The twin Viking landers of 1976 were NASA’s first life detection mission, and although the results from the experiments failed to detect life in the Martian regolith, and resulted in a long period with fewer Mars missions, it was not the end of the fascination that the Astrobiology science community had for the red planet. ![]() However, the exploration of Mars has been intertwined with NASA’s search for life from the beginning. Astrobiology is a relatively new field of study, where scientists from a variety of disciplines (astronomy, biology, geology, physics, etc.) work together to understand the potential for life to exist beyond Earth.
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