<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">Dear all:<div>You might find this of interest and are welcome to attend.</div><div><br></div><div>Best,</div><div>Bill<br><div><br><html>Begin forwarded message:</html><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><br></div> </div> <div> <!-- Converted from text/rtf format --><p align="CENTER"><font size="2" face="Arial">The Space, Policy, and Society research group presents:</font></p><p align="CENTER"><b><font face="Arial">From “Godspeed John Glenn” to Rovers on Mars: </font></b></p><p align="CENTER"><b><font face="Arial">Space, Media, and Public Perceptions</font></b></p><p align="CENTER"><font size="2" face="Arial">A forum with:</font></p><p align="CENTER"><b><font size="2" face="Arial">John Schwartz, The New York Times</font></b></p><p align="CENTER"><b><font size="2" face="Arial">Mike Cabbage, NASA Office of Public Affairs</font></b></p><p align="CENTER"><b><font size="2" face="Arial">Phil Hilts, incoming director of the Knight Science Journalism Fellows</font></b></p><p align="CENTER"><font size="2" face="Arial">Moderated by:</font><b></b></p><p align="CENTER"><b><font size="2" face="Arial">Prof. David Mindell, MIT Science, Technology, and Society Program</font></b></p><p align="CENTER"><b><font face="Arial">Wednesday, April 30, 2008 </font></b></p><p align="CENTER"><b><font face="Arial">5:00pm</font><font face="Tahoma">–</font><font face="Arial">7:00pm</font></b></p><p align="CENTER"><b><font face="Arial">32-155, MIT Stata Center</font></b></p><p><font size="2" face="Arial">While the space community focuses on the completion of the space station and a possible return to the moon, it is unclear how successfully they are communicating the goals of these projects with the public. Three panelists will discuss public attitudes toward spaceflight, how scientific endeavors are presented in the media, and the communication challenges between the science/engineering communities and the public. </font></p><p><b><font size="2" face="Arial">Biographies</font></b><font size="2" face="Arial">:</font> </p><p><b><font size="2" face="Arial">John Schwartz</font></b><font size="2" face="Arial"> is a science writer for the<i> New York Times</i>. He writes primarily about space travel, and his work has taken him from the Mojave Desert to Moscow. He has written on a wide range of topics, including physician-assisted suicide, computer security, online pornography, robots, and why pregnant women don't tip over. (It has something to do with an extra curve in their spines.) Before coming to the Times, he worked for the<i> Washington Post</i>, and before that,<i> Newsweek Magazine</i>.</font></p><p><b><font size="2" face="Arial">Michael Cabbage</font></b> <font size="2" face="Arial">is the director of NASA's News Services Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. Since taking that job 11 months ago, he has overseen the agency's news operations, television network, Internet services, photo office and multimedia programs. Cabbage came to NASA after a two-decade career in journalism, spending the last 13 years as a reporter covering the space agency and its programs for the Tribune and Gannett newspaper chains. He also has served as a space consultant for ABC News. Cabbage is co-author of the book "</font><i><font size="2" face="Arial">Comm Check: The final flight of shuttle Columbia</font></i><font size="2" face="Arial">" and earned a graduate degree in journalism from Stanford University.</font></p><p><b><font size="2" face="Arial">Philip J. Hilts</font></b><font size="2" face="Arial">, the author of six books, has been a prize-winning health and science reporter for both the</font><i> <font size="2" face="Arial">New York Times</font></i> <font size="2" face="Arial">and the</font><i> <font size="2" face="Arial">Washington Post</font></i><font size="2" face="Arial">. Over 20 years, he placed more than 300 stories on the front pages of those papers. His stories have included a report back from one mile below the Pacific Ocean surface in an active volcano, the confessions of a healer in Zambia who was "curing" AIDS, and articles on hypnosis-induced court testimony that resulted in four men being freed from jail. His most recent book is</font><i> <font size="2" face="Arial">RX for Survival: Why We Must Rise to the Global Health Challenge</font></i> <font size="2" face="Arial">(Penguin, 2005). Hilts teaches science journalism to graduate students at Boston University and has taught journalism to undergraduates at the University of Botswana.</font></p> </div> _______________________________________________<br><br></blockquote></div><br></div></body></html>