During the Cold War, government-funded acronyms such as the CIA and KGB became so associated with the distasteful political characteristics of conflict that their names are still tainted to this very day. Every event or group was so politicized to the point of consequence that two men sitting down in 1972 to play chess in Reykjavik represented the very essence of sociopolitical conflict. Yet, of all of the organizations employed as political ammunition during the period, the NASA name emerged unscathed and beyond reproach.

In terms of brand recognition, NASA is undoubtedly at the top of its field. It is difficult to reflect on space exploration without bringing to mind the NASA logo: its red whoosh against the blue and white cosmic ring and stars. In fact, NASA's position in the realm of outer space is so titanic that no other space program brand even comes to mind. Can you name Russia's space program? Are there any others that even have a branded program? Ultimately, NASA's perceived brand value is a case study in how, given dazzling image management, an inferior product can dominate the competition.

Let's look at the presently maligned shuttle program; the one area in which NASA's shuttle program was successful in its charter was that it made space travel routine. A global public became accustomed to launches and immune to the spectacular concept of humans in orbit. Previously, during the Apollo program, it was not difficult to convince the public that NASA was accomplishing the heroic. First, it was clear to anyone that the rocket-jockeys who strapped their mortal selves to largely untested missiles were heroes. Second, regardless of scientific specifics, the not-so-subtle objective of every mission was to beat Communism. Again, in the minds of many (well, Americans anyway), a heroic endeavor in and of itself.

The age of the shuttle, and Communism's subsequent collapse, changed all of this. Missions became routine and their purpose scientifically obscure. Without Communism to defeat or new planets to land on, NASA's purpose became clouded. Yet, astronauts are still seen as heroic merely because their mystifying work periodically results in death. The result of years of the new image meshing with the old is that astronauts are now viewed as heroic, while NASA is seen as bungling. This situation creates the repulsive paradox of NASA existing as a hero factory requiring disaster and/or crisis to maintain. This current situation begets a larger, long-term image problem.

NASA's brand image has been handed down by baby boomers -- the generation that watched the moon landings in 1969. The only demonstration that consecutive generations have had of NASA as a brand is the occasional unending video replays of fireballs streaking across blue skies followed by obligatory national mourning. However, if risking lives and skirting catastrophe are the criterion by which we measure NASA, then why isn't Russia's space program a household name?

The Russian space agency, RKA (Raketno Kosmicheskoe Agentstvo), was formed following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Despite possible perceptions, RKA is responsible for only one of the three ever space-related fatal catastrophes. In terms of sheer accomplishment, the Russian program has arguably outpaced NASA. Despite its existence as a punch line in the West, the Mir space station was a whopping success, resulting in the collection of research over a long period of time. RKA also sent a shuttle up but after one successful mission decided it was a worthless project and grounded it. Got heroism? RKA has prevented heaps of potential disasters. The key word here is prevented.

On the other hand NASA, which has coasted for years on fading celebrity, now faces a relevancy crisis. Like any formerly famous child actor desperate to stay in the spotlight, NASA has resorted to PR stunts. In what most closely resembled a Hollywood sequel, NASA sent former astronaut John Glenn back into orbit in 1998, ostensibly to study aging. Such bald capitalization on nostalgia suggests that, while the well of fresh, enchanting ideas has dried up, the budget shouldn't.

Despite a much needed re-evaluation of the brand, the greatest challenge for NASA now is how to engage a new generation that is only vaguely aware of what the program actually does; a generation that associates NASA with fallibility and providing historical based-on-a-true-story Hollywood plots. One day after Columbia crashed in February, a 17-year-old high-school student in Detroit, Michigan, flawlessly summed up NASA's image crisis in a post on his online diary:

During the last space tragedy I was less than a year old. I've always heard of space things crashing, losing probes on Mars…so what was the shuttle crash?

We didn't watch astronauts land on the moon, we don't have many notable space achievements, its all been done for us. My generation has always had astronauts, they aren't heroes to us, we haven't discovered anything new through them. We take astronauts for granted. …please forgive us as we learn just how much these events mean to you. David Russell

Abram D. Sauer, former columnist for The China Daily and co-founder of Chopstickfactory.com, lives in New York and welcomes freelance opportunities.