The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has overcome a number of harrowing obstacles along the road toward accomplishing out-of-this-world feats—the Apollo missions, followed by the space shuttle, and now the development of Commercial Crew vehicles—but there remains one roadblock of sorts that it is still trying to navigate its way around: How do we get these darned kids to think we’re hip?

NASA administrator Charles F. Bolden Jr. is well aware that his current audience remains much the same as it was during the space race; a lot of older people follow NASA closely because of intense nostalgia for space-related memories like gathering around a black-and-white TV set with their entire extended family and watching something special like, say, the moon landing. Today’s youth, on the other hand, hasn’t grown up with these scientific breakthroughs occupying an abundance of airtime or attention, and these major events are pretty much known to them from what they’ve read in school textbooks or heard at family gatherings—when grandpa has had one too many bourbons.

But now, NASA is launching initiatives to bring the agency better remembered from monochrome boob tubes into the present, aligning itself with pop culture trends. Read More