Nike & NBA All-Stars Team Up to Support NASA

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NBA All-Stars LeBron James (@KingJames), Kevin Durant (@KDTrey5), and Kobe Bryant will be donning space themed Nike shoes for the Feb 26 2012 NBA All-Star Game in Orlando. The shoes are styled after NASA space suits and inspired by astronauts.

Foamposite One design with supernova styling (Credit: Nike)

Source: Collect Space

Nike is saying these shoes are galactic themed, which they said in a statement will "pay homage to the supernova — arguably the most powerful force in the universe."

The outsoles of each shoe glow in the dark and mission patches, similar to astronaut mission badges, adorn each shoe (right).

The new space themed shoes are the LeBron 9, Nike Zoom KD IV and Nike Zoom Kobe VII System shoes. The new style has been introduced to the Nike Dunk, Nike Flight One, and Nike Foamposite One models.


The new Space Exploration style will be released by Nike on February 23 2012 and the new basketball models will be released on February 25 2012, the day before the NBA All-Star Game.

If you're interested I recommend checking out the Space.com article on the space themed Nike shoes for more information.

We have added Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant, and LeBron James to the list of 

Source:
1- Space.com      2- CollectSpace
All images of the shoes link to the CollectSpace gallery of space themed Nikes.

Thank you to Dora Musielak for informing Mars Stars of this recent celebrity support of the space industry!

Celebrity Tweets Can Increase Space Industry Support

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During the White House Science Fair on Feb 7 2012 two celebrities, Neil deGrasse Tyson (@NeilTyson) and Bill Nye (@TheScienceGuy) answered science questions on Twitter. In doing so they demonstrated how great Twitter is at spreading a message. To best demonstrate this I will point to Dr. Tyson's answer to a question posed by me (below).

Please note the question specified "again" and that it is implied in the answer.

As we can see, 138 people retweeted what Dr. Tyson said, thus spreading his tweet to thousands of others that may not be following him. This does not include the numerous replies to this Tweet that are not shown above. 


Neil deGrasse Tyson and Bill Nye are science celebrities whose followers likely support science and space industries already, but all the people retweeting what they say expands their reach by thousands, if not millions of people. 


Now imagine if a celebrity with the reach of Lady Gaga (over 19 million followers)  supported the space industry with just one Tweet. How many people would see her message? In order to find out let's look at one her simplest messages:

A message that just said "See you there :)" was retweeted 4227 times! Imagine if someone with that influence in a demographic that doesn't actively support the space industry were to show their support through at least one tweet! That is tens of millions of people that would see what they had to say.


Tweeting support of the space industry would take mere seconds, but could be the catalyst that gets other people interested. If someone with millions of followers tweeted a fascinating image from Hubble, millions would be exposed to the glory of space that might not otherwise have been. How many of those millions would be inspired to support the space industry? At least a few.

Organizations like Change.org mobilize their followers for different causes and have been extremely successful getting big companies and the government to change their policies. Why can't we hope the same for the space industry? If we encourage celebrities to publicly support the space industry we could greatly increase public interest, engagement, and support. With enough public support we will start seeing changes beneficial to the space industry. 


This is not fantasy. Yes, it it going to a take a lot of work, but together we can inspire a nation, a world, and a species to take interest in what lies beyond our tiny blue planet. In short, Mars Stars and Mars Travel daring humanity to break our Earthly bonds.

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Stephen Colbert is a Mars Star!

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"Hello, I'm Stephen Colbert. I've always been a huge fan of space! I love looking up at the stars and wondering what distant planets are still out there to be discovered."

Stephen Colbert (@StephenAtHome) is a Mars Star! He is interested in space and not afraid to show it! In the NASA public service announcement below he outlines some of the amazing things being done on the International Space Station. He puts a comedic spin on it that can make space appeal to an audience other than the typical space enthusiast and he even references both Star Trek and Star Wars simultaneously! Check it out!

Source: NASA

Stephen Colbert has been an ardent supporter of the space industry. He even ran a campaign to get a treadmill on the ISS named after him, which succeeded. The Combined Operational Load-Bearing External Resistance Treadmill (COLBERT) treadmill was installed to ensure that all six of the astronauts aboard the ISS would receive the necessary amount of exercise per day. It is the second treadmill added to the ISS; each one can handle three astronauts a day.


COLBERT is stationed inside of Tranquility, the third node of the ISS. Curt Wiederhoeft, the project manager for the treadmill highlighted the importance of Stephen Colbert's support saying, “I think it’s great for NASA that Mr. Colbert got his audience interested in the space station. Comedy Central attracts a lot of younger viewers, and the space program’s going to need the next generation's support and interest.”

Stephen Colbert has continually shown an interest in supporting the space industry and will almost certainly continue to do so in the future. He is an example that all celebrities should follow when it comes to publicly supporting the space industry!

If you need some space filled comedy check out all videos of Stephen Colbert supporting NASA on The Colbert Report.

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Mars Stars - Engaging Celebrities that Support the Space Industry

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Actors, musicians, and other modern celebrities have fans spanning all demographics and now thanks to social media they can reach out to their followers in seconds and have their message broadcast to millions of people. Many of those fans will then repost the celebrities message to their own followers, so that even if they are not fans of the celebrity they will see the message.

For many fans, simply seeing that a celebrity likes something is enough to trigger their interest or at least make them take a look at something. If an A-List celebrity says something is cool, it becomes cool. When Stephen Colbert (@StephenAtHome) features something on The Colbert Report it instantly becomes popular.

What if celebrities used the influence they have to increase awareness and support for the space industry? Even something as quick and simple as a Tweet could make a difference and inspire someone to begin supporting the space industry.

That's why Mars Stars was created; in order to recognize those celebrities that are actively supporting the space industry and give them an avenue to do so.

Mars Stars will do this by

• Maintaining a crowd sourced list of celebrities that actively support the space industry.
• Showcasing efforts made by celebrities to support the space industry.
• Conducting interviews with celebrities actively supporting the space industry.
• Acting as an outlet for celebrities to publicize their commitment to the space industry.

Mars Stars is dedicated to "making space relevant to the common person again" (Marimikel Charrier) and intends to do so by leveraging celebrity support for the space industry. 

Please send tips and suggestions to me via any of the below channels. 

or email david.j.geaney[at]marstravel.org

Please note that Mars Stars is a subset of Mars Travel