Stakeholder #2

The second main stakeholder in the arsenic bacterium controversy is NASA. Their involvement began in December 2010 when they held an astrobiology conference claiming they had found a bacterium that confirms the possibility of life outside of Earth.

NASA is a government agency that focuses on all things space. In general, they are extremely reliable and their studies appeal to nearly everyone, because space is interesting. People interact with NASA every time they hear about a new discovery made by the United States regarding the universe. For example, the entire world interacted with NASA when they announced that Pluto was no longer recognized as a planet.

Their website is relatively interactive, and utilizes links to other pages, photos of their most interesting studies, and news on the front page.

Bissartig. "Nasa, Kennedy Space Center". 2/7/2016 via Pixabay. Creative Commons CC0.

Claim 1

In this YouTube video, and similarly to Felisa-Wolfe Simon, NASA claims to have found a microbe that can survive with arsenic in the place of phosphorus. Again, the claim was backed by the study conducted by Wolfe-Simon and her team. The appeal of the claim stemmed from the credibility of NASA as an organization, and from the data that was the most updated at the time that the claim was made. The claim was initially received as credible due to NASA's weight in the science community.

Claim 2

In this article directly from the NASA website, a claim that is now considered outlandish and utterly incorrect was made. "NASA-funded astrobiology research has changed the fundamental knowledge about what comprises all known life on Earth," begins the article.

The fact that this claim was taken seriously in the first place says little about NASA's influence in the astrobiology world and much about the lack of convincing it takes for people to believe things that they read on the internet. While NASA provides the audience with broad details about the studies conducted and the results that followed, there is little statistical or factual data presented.

This claim was not made by any other stakeholders (for the most part), as NASA is centrally concerned with the universe as a whole, and life on other planets is a gargantuan part of their research.

Claim 3

Found in the same article is a similarly weighted claim in terms of improbability. Associate administrator Ed Weiler states, "The definition of life has just expanded." In saying this, he is considering the long term effects of the study. Again, there is use of the appealing to the emotions of the audience and taking advantage of the excitement that was present resulting from the initial study.

In general, no other stakeholder made a claim as broad or essential to the study of biology as NASA's Ed Weiler. On the other hand, the claim that this study could have a direct effect on the study of life outside of Earth has been made over and over again by Felisa Wolfe-Simon and Science Magazine.