ILM? I have a bad feeling about this.

Jason McClellan posted this interesting news today at Open Minds:

NASA issued a press release yesterday to announce a news briefing that will take place tomorrow, September 15, 2011, to reveal a new discovery by the Kepler mission.
NASA describes the Kepler mission as “the first NASA mission capable of finding Earth-size planets in or near the ‘habitable zone,’ the region in a planetary system where liquid water can exist on the surface of the orbiting planet.”
…
It is unclear what discovery will be announced at tomorrow’s news briefing. The findings have apparently been given to Science Journal, because according to NASA, Science Journal has embargoed details until the commencement of the news briefing. And perhaps more interesting is the fact that representatives from the SETI Institute (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) and from Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), a division of Lucasfilm Ltd., will be participating in the panel of scientists who will discuss the discovery.

– From openminds.tv

Recently, it was announced that of 50 newly-discovered planets, 16 are super-earths; one of which “could potentially support life.”

- Charlie Sobeck, Kepler deputy project manager, Ames Research Center
- Nick Gautier, Kepler project scientist, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
- Laurance Doyle, lead author, SETI Institute, Mountain View, Calif.
- John Knoll, visual effects supervisor, ILM, San Francisco.
- Greg Laughlin, professor for Astrophysics and Planetary Science, University of California, Santa Cruz, Calif.

The event will be broadcast live tomorrow at 11 a.m. PDT on NASA Television and streamed live on NASA’s website at http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

While I am going to actually check this out on-line tomorrow, I’m not expecting much.

NASA’s press conferences don’t always grab my interest these days. They do a lot of hand-waving to draw press attention, only to seemingly say “nothing to see here, move along” afterward.

The alien life announcement that turned out to be a presser on arsenic-based lifeforms is a recent example. The hoopla over the “galaxy rich in Earth-like planets” thing last year is another; because they were so quick to downplay it later. (Although to be fair, a big part of the reason for that was an effort to clear up confusion over the term “earth-like.”)

NASA seems to enjoy over-selling the promise of a huge announcement with the goal of getting the biggest possible media turnout, and then they act all dismissive later. And because ILM is going to be there tomorrow, I’m expecting even more of the same.

Maybe I’m too quick to poo-poo. I sure don’t expect NASA to unveil E.T. on stage, or announce that another Earth is a hop-skip-and-a-jump away. But I also wish they were not so damn gimmicky in trying to get the media’s attention. ILM? I have a bad feeling about this.

UPDATE HERE: “NASA announces newly found planet, and new deep-space program” It turned out to be a pretty awesome press conference.