Welcome to the future, where every space robot has its own Twitter account. Likewise, you'd be hard pressed to find an astronaut without an Instagram, a discovery without a hashtag, or a NASA mission without a multi-platform-spanning social media strategy. For example, look at how the agency's media nerds carpet bombed Twitter during the New Horizons fly by, and debuted the now-famous Pluto heart picture on Instagram.
In all, NASA has over 500 social media accounts. Now, some people might scoff at the agency's unabashed #branding. But truth is, public outreach has been in the agency's mandate since its founding in 1958. And if this means more people get stoked on space—and therefore vote to give space research more funding—then we're all for NASA's relentless self-promoting. OK, sometimes they get a little bit out of hand. I mean, check out this email I got from them earlier this week:
