Welcome to the community.....

[Julie Arnold]

Hello,
Welcome to our new online space community. Please feel free to look around and blog any ideas to help us continue to develop this site. Have fun looking around! Please join the discussion with ideas or comments.

[Kristin Kleven]

Is this a part of Facebook? Or is this another entity altogether?

[Julie Arnold]

Hey,
NO this is a completely separate social networking site for the Coalition. We are experimenting with it as a way to bring audiences together in one place---even if it ends up primarily being the Coalition members and supporters it will offer us another place to offer discussions etc....
Julie

[Damien Nelson]

It seems alot like Facebook though, doesn't it. I added some photos and videos to it today, and I"m trying to get some more people to sign up. I sent out an email to 750 friends, family and business associates to try and get it jump started. We'll see!
Damien

[Dave Able]

Hey Guys! Love the layout! There are loads of social networking sites that aren't as clear and concise as this one seems to be. I'd say it's on par with the big wigs! Nice work!!!

[Mike S]

Is there any kind of strategy for how to draw more people into this site? Is there any plans to make this something people want to come to like nasawatch or nasaspaceflight? I've got a few ideas if people are interested.

Mike

[Damien Nelson]

I would love to hear your ideas. This tool is just a portion of what we have been working on for the past month, but its important to us. There are quite a few fun plug-ins under the gadget section, and I have started loading my page with some videos and photos, but we need to do more community stuff to get folks involved. I did an email blast to about 700 people and that generated the members that we now have, but I would also like to encourage all the members to do something similar. There are a few members who are extremely interested in the space program, and I think they will be our best bet for growing the community. Anyway, what are your ideas?

[Mike S]

Well, who runs this site and is affiliated with any aerospace companies?

[Julie Arnold]

Hello Mike.
This site is created by the Coalition for Space Exploration. The Coalition is a group of space industry professionals (check out the website--member companies at www.spacecoaltion.com for which companies belong)-- joined together to support the Space Exploration Plan. We have both Government Affairs and Public Affairs efforts.

The Public Affairs Team is comprised of the leading public communications professionals from each of the Coalition member organizations. It directs and develops public outreach activities, such as advertising, the web site, editorial placement efforts, research, reports and public appearances.

The Government Affairs team is comprised of the Coalition member companies’ Washington, D.C. representatives. It tracks the progress of space exploration policy, and assists the Public Affairs team on messages and audiences for the public outreach effort.

We have a full fledged plan to roll out the revised website-which this social networking arm is a part of---we chose to do a soft launch first to ensure everything is working properly before officially launching the site.

We welcome any ideas you have. The whole purpose behind this portion of the site is to dialogue with people, such as yourself, who also support the space exploration policy.
Hope that helps!

[Damien Nelson]

Most of the major aerospace companies are member companies of the Coalition. The Coalition for Space Exploration owns spacecoalition.com. This tool is owned by ning.com, much like a MySpace scenario, and the Coalition has developed these pages on ning.com. I am the web consultant and developer for both spacecoalition.com and this ning.com community site. Hope that helps.

[Mike S]

Thanks as well to you too Damien. Sorry for being so cryptic.....

[Mike S]

I've also tried to send some messages on here but when I send them, nothing appears to happen and there is no record of it in my message box. Am I missing the obvious?

[Damien Nelson]

I definitely see all your messages posted from my side...at least I think I see 'em all. When I click on "Send Message", enter some copy and hit send, I see a small green box that says "Message Sent" near the top of the page, but that's all that comes up. I sent you a message "Test", so let me know if you don't get it.