SpaceTweetup - a new format for spaceflight communication

The SpaceTweetup was part of the 2011 German Aerospace Day, which attracted 80,000 visitors from all over Germany. However, the tweetup itself was conceived as an international event to be conducted only in English. Two months before the big day, we sent invitations for the event to our Twitter followers. We were overwhelmed by the interest; 418 people from 29 countries registered for the 60 places available. Some were even prepared to travel from the USA and Canada. Ultimately we distributed the 60 places among participants from the following 13 countries: Belgium, Germany, France, Greece, Great Britain, Italy, Canada, Macedonia, the Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland, Spain and the USA. The group made a colourful mixture: one third were women; many were still students; some were what you might call official space geeks – and others we turned into geeks.

On 18 September 2011, we gave the participants exclusive access to our research facilities and provided them with a VIP programme of talks, tours and face-to-face contact with researchers and astronauts. Even before the doors had actually opened, we took the participants to the Zulu Stand, on which DLR research aircraft and a number of other special aircraft were parked on German Aerospace Day. The SpaceTweeps were able to take an exclusive look at the Airbus A380 and the SOFIA airborne observatory. SOFIA had been brought to Europe for the first time on the occasion of German Aerospace Day. On this unusual transfer flight, I accompanied a number of journalists who were able to follow the work of the scientists. The SOFIA project leader at DLR, Alois Himmes, gave a presentation on SOFIA and answered questions asked by the tweetup participants.

However, my personal favourite moment of the SpaceTweetup came shortly after this. The astronauts had just 30 minutes or so for the SpaceTweetup on their 'post mission tour'. While preparing for this, I had the idea of abandoning the standard question-and-answer session between the stage and the audience in this part of the programme, since a maximum of one participant and one astronaut could take part at a time. Instead, we used a format that was better suited to the eye-to-eye communication of social media. We spread the astronauts around the tables so that the SpaceTweeps could talk to the astronauts in person, with a ratio of about 1:6. The atmosphere in the marquee at the time was quite special.

The SpaceTweetup is documented in numerous photos, for example on @Unkreativnet, @SimSullen, @DanielScuka and in the Flickr SpaceTweetup Pool. There are also many many (Blog) reports in German: ZDF Hyperland, Rhein-Zeitung, by Andreas Schepers, @Unkreativnet, Daniel Fischer and Karl Urban, and in English by @akanel auf Space Tweetup Society, @mfrissen, Beth Beck, @unkreativnet, @olidax im OEWF-Blog, Camilla SDO and Marco Trovatello. There's also a 4 hour video available on the ESA blog.

We consider the first European SpaceTweetup to have been a complete success. The tweetup is a great new format for science communication; an enormous reach can be achieved through the multiplying effect of the followers. Marco Trovatello will be blogging a few details about this shortly. Our experience leads us to believe that we would do almost everything in exactly the same way next time. However, at the start of the event we would include a round of introductions for all the participants and collaborators. We would also cut out one or two subjects to make more room for interaction between the participants. In addition, an even higher proportion of participants would prefer that there was not so much focus on the subject of spaceflight. Therefore, in the next round of invitations we hope to meet an even wider circle of interested parties – because a next SpaceTweetup is a certainty! The lesson I personally learnt was to always have Gaffer tape handy. Furthermore, I would ask all interested parties for feedback following my appeal for ideas and suggestions on new formats of online / social media communication for science and spaceflight, since this is something we are very interested in.