How a Rubber Chicken is Spreading the Word about NASA, Space Missions and Science

Camilla Corona: rubber chicken, mission mascot extraordinaire. Credit: SDO

Here?s a headline you don?t see too often: “Rubber Chicken Turned NASA Mission Mascot Embarks on a Flight to Space.” Seriously, this is a true story. If you?ve not heard of Camilla Corona, or Camilla SDO as she is sometimes called, you probably haven?t been paying attention to one of the most exciting current space missions, the Solar Dynamics Observatory. Camilla is virtually everywhere in the world of social media, and she travels around the country ? and the planet ? spreading the word about what?s going on with our Sun and how SDO is helping us learn more about it. As mission mascot, she is leading the way ? and setting the bar pretty high for other NASA missions to follow ? about how to get the public interested in space and science.

?People ask, ‘what does a rubber chicken have to do with a science mission?’, but as long as we get people’s attention, we can then divert it to what SDO does,? said Romeo Durscher, Camilla?s PR assistant and ‘bodyguard.’ ?However, we didn?t know it would go this far when we started this.?
(...)
Read the rest of How a Rubber Chicken is Spreading the Word about NASA, Space Missions and Science (1,232 words)

---

© nancy for Universe Today, 2011. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Camilla, Education and Public Outreach

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Full story at http://www.universetoday.com/85464/how-a-rubber-chicken-is-spreading-the-word-about-nasa-space-missions-and-science/