They need the right type of public engagement. That hypothetical person who sees the picture of sulphur crystals then leaves 5 seconds later is unlikely to support NASA. If they have enough negative interactions, I would suggest that it would achieve the opposite.

There is also a difference between a clickbait headline and a headline that genuinely engages someone. Something like "Unexpected discovery of sulphur crystals provides hints about Martian past" provides vastly more useful information and will probably be more appealing to people who have at least some interest in science. (Or at least rock collecting!)

At least in my case, I decided to read the comments here before even considering a look at the article. Not only did the idea of a "surprise" leave me thoroughly disinterested, but I have been bitten by NASA's hyperbole often enough to be hesitant about pursuing a clickbait link. Which is sad, because planetary science is interesting and the article itself wasn't that bad for something directed towards a general audience.

Do most people consider click-bait headlines to be a negative interaction? Arguably they should, but I don't think it's the case.

I don't know about most people, but the number of news sources that use information rich headlines suggest that there is a significant number of people who react negatively to clickbait headlines. And I suspect that many of these news sources float clickbait headlines from time to time to test the response of their audience. (Such headlines certainly pop up periodically on most news sources. It is the motive that I am uncertain of.)

Personally, I find clickbait titles lends an air of tabloidness to a publication. I wouldn't be surprised if that is a common feeling. I will also actively avoid, clickbait titles even from trusted sources, simply because it would be detrimental in the long term. Granted, I suspect the active avoidance part is an unusual behaviour.

Headlines (at least in mass media) have always been a hook to get the reader interested. Back when you had competing newspapers for sale on a stand, people would glance at the headlines and maybe buy a paper if it looked interesting enough.

There is no doubt that the headline is an important hook. Yet there is a difference between a deliberately vague or misleading hook (which I would consider clickbait), and one that conveys what the article is about.

I don't like watering down the defition of clickbait to mean any headline that gets the reader to click on it. That sort of definition is mostly an excuse for bad behaviour (e.g. misleading the reader).

Gosh, I really hope our premier scientific entities don't have to rely on page visits (ignoring bounce rate) to measure their impact or get funding :/

They're a scientific organization that lives or dies on the whims of people who have to win elections. Outreach is survival, and reach is essential to that.

They live and die on the whims of the CIA and military industrial complex. They are a platform for delivering spy satellites that's allowed to do a bit of science as a treat.

The public, for the most part, stopped caring about NASA after the US stopped going to the moon. Most of the rest believe NASA is hiding aliens or controlling the weather or some such nonsense.

From The Planetary Society: "None of NASA's budget is used for national defense or intelligence gathering programs; it is a civilian agency responsible for the peaceful exploration of space"

Do you have evidence to the contrary you could share?

https://www.planetary.org/space-policy/nasa-budget#:~:text=N....

GP is hyperbolic but essentially correct. Generally, states will move as much as science and technology research that is not militarily sensitive to the public sphere - such as NASA. This is because many scientists won't work for the military directly [1], but will work on stuff that has both military and non-military applications.

Many people have also written quite a lot about how the race to the moon was primarily funded because it was a military domination competition. Once the USSR decisively lost, the US stopped doing that expensive science. A good overview of the geopolitics of space exploration and research is the book Dark Skies by Daniel Deudney [2].

[1] Combination of ethical reasons and having to do security checks and your freedoms somewhat restricted.

[2] https://global.oup.com/academic/product/dark-skies-978019090...

I thought SpaceX took over that role.

Not entirely, I don't think.

Thats exactly why clickbait makes no sense. Who is it targeting? The lay person? They have no say in NASA's budget. If NASA wants funding they have to look at who holds the reigns in congress and give them pork. Thats it. That's their mechanism. When they were extremely well funded around apollo it was because they had pork a la advancing ICBM and surveillance satellite technology. Not because they got billy to tune in between episodes of will rogers.

I'm not saying it's a good thing, just that it's a reality NASA has to deal with. so yea... :/

I mean, number of citations is only a slightly better way to measure impact than number of page visits.

I just visited the Johnson Space Center, and boy, was there a lot of PR for SLS and Mars on exhibit. I shouldn't have felt weird about it given the artists' depictions of planetary probes and spacecraft concepts I grew up with, but I've read too much about the reality of the program to get into a Mars expedition in a decade.

Meanwhile the miracle that was the asteroid hunter probe got an easily-overlooked station with an actual sample it brought back from Bennu in an inadequate magnifying display case.

SLS and Mars are the charismatic megafauna of NASA programs.

Even more likely, the user won't click to the article.

But two days later she'll mention to either me or another space nut like me "Hey, what was that surprise that NASA found on Mars?". And the conversation that sparks will be engaging and interesting for her.