Google+ Mars Travel: December 2014

Space Flier - Looking for a New Home?



Mars Travel's first flier seeking to get people talking more about space. Please print off and post around your local area.


Please spread this and other space material far and wide so we can help raise public awareness and excitement of space exploration and discovery. A good starting point would to use this image as a flier and post it within your local community, or on your social media. The more space advocates we create, the louder our voice will be!








Increasing Support for the Space Industry

As promised in my last post, Mars Travel is beginning to create material that can be used to market the space industry. One of the ways this will be done is by creating fliers that can be posted anywhere and everywhere. They will likely all be fairly simple, but the goal is just to get people thinking and talking about space. 

If we have any hope of increasing support for the space industry, we have to boost awareness, which will in turn increase interest. Mainstream media is not the answer and I'd venture to say that most readers of space-related websites are already space industry supporters. So how do we get the attention of the rest of the world? Right now, space is out of sight, out of mind for most people. We must make it so that space cannot be ignored.

Imagine walking through a city and seeing a space related flier every couple blocks. Imagine seeing a space flier in the doorway of your favorite local restaurant, or in the waiting room of your local hospital. What if you ordered take-out and there was a cool space fact on the menu? How about if you were driving to work and you heard something fascinating about space on the radio?

People would start talking about space again. People would start getting excited about discovery. That's what we need if we want to increase support for the space industry–interest.
You and I can make that happen. We can print off fliers and post them in our surrounding area. Many people already supportive of the space industry work in industries and positions that they can leverage to increase visibility of the space industry. Own a restaurant? Consider adding a space fact on the back of your menu. Work in an office? Why not hang a space photo or poster up? Are you a teacher? Why not share one cool space fact with your class everyday? As the famed Japanese writer Ryƫnosuke Akutagawa so eloquently put it, "Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean." Every individual effort, no matter how seemingly insignificant will compound and together those efforts can bring about a monumental surge in humanity's support for our continued expansion into space.

This blog will post fliers that you can print off and post around town, as well as other marketing material for the space industry. In short, I will do everything I can to help you increase support for the space industry.

Those of us that want to see more space research and exploration in the future can crowdmarket the space industry. And Mars Travel will make it easy by providing the materials and suggestions for use. Please see the Mars Travel Facebook Album for all fliers produced to date.


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DAVID J GEANEY
"Mind Over Matter"

Crowdmarketing the Space Industry

I've been away from this blog for over a year, though it hasn't been for lack of interest in Mars and the space industry. And while I have had a busy year – my son was born, we just moved to Korea, and I’ve been working on my Master’s Degree – that isn’t what has kept me from continuing to blog about Mars.

I lost my motivation for writing about Mars because I felt it wasn’t accomplishing what I wanted it to. Let me explain:

No matter how many fascinating photos of Mars or the rest of the solar system were sent back to Earth, most people don’t see them. It doesn’t matter if I write about them on my blog or even if the big space websites showcase them; only a small fraction of people are going to go out of their way to find them. Occasionally there will be a big news item that gets some high visibility like when Rosetta landed, or Orion launched, but then the coverage drops off. Space exploration is something out of sight, out of mind for most of the public. They don’t see or hear about how fascinating it is every day.

You see it. If you are reading this you are probably astounded by the vast beauty of space. You understand how much we learn by exploring and studying space. You want more! I want more. Millions of people want more. Unfortunately, we are a minority. Most of the world won’t find all those fascinating images, or read about how space research is beneficial to everyone. A blog or website about space is going to attract people that are already enthralled with space, but the people we should and must be targeting are those that are not already passionate about space. 


That realization stopped me and my blog in its tracks. Every time I would sit down to write a post I wondered if it would make a difference—would this post encourage someone to start believing that space development was important? Probably not. So for the past 16 months I have racked my brain trying to figure out how to increase awareness of the space industry.

The public doesn’t see how much further exploration and research of space would advance our technology and enhance our lives. Space is out of sight, out of mind for the majority of the public. But what if people heard something about space every day? What if we could make it impossible for people to go even a single day without encountering something about a mission, discovery, or fascinating aspect of space? People would start talking about space and what they saw or heard. With more awareness people would start to become more interested and more excited about missions to come, thus support for the space industry will increase. More support leads to more crowdfunded space initiatives, more crowdsourced research, and more pressure on politicians to make space development a greater priority.




That is why I’ve decided to use this blog and the marketing experience I have to help market space exploration and development. I will create items that you can use to promote the space agency in your local area. I will develop and post fliers, design banners, develop newpaper ads, memes etc. That way all you have to do to promote the space industry is put up some of the fliers or submit a pre-designed space promotion ad. In short, Mars Travel will produce relevant marketing material for space advocates everywhere. By crowdmarketing the space industry we will increase awareness, spark interest, and boost support for further exploration of space. Together we can propel humanity to the stars and break these earthly bonds.