First, read this article about how young adults aren't interested in the space program. How true does that seem to you? What do you think can be done to change it
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All of the money is spent here-almost all of it in the US, so it's a real pump-primer for the counties that have NASA centers, especially in the Deep South. Also, all of the inventions NASA develops are available to people who can turn them into commercial products (for instance, most medical imaging software is an offshoot of the software that was used to process Voyager images). For more on that, please look at this webpage that I wrote this spring.
(Bearing in mind that I'm at work and I didn't take the time to read the article)
The space program has become a laughing stock. A national embarassment. Everything they do is expensive, and either breaks or has problems. We have a better grasp as to how big the universe is, and how reletively impossible it is to get anywhere that isn't the moon. If you can't get there NOW, or at most, within 24 hours by plane, what's the point? Everything is becoming more and more instant gratification, less and less long-term thinking with long-term payoffs.
Remember too that today's 25-35 year old range grew up with the knowledge that space shuttles can explode, randomly and violently. Kinda turns you off to the idea of becoming an astronaut, knowing that you won't get to explore new worlds, and you may get blown up in the process of not-getting there.
In short, when you have access to the world on your desktop, who cares about other planets?
It's unfortunate, since the consumption rates for certain resources are threatening to outstrip our carrying capacity. While I think that large-scale settlements on other worlds are unlikely with what we've got, I think we could do something about the scarcity problem by putting some of the ideas advocated by the Space Studies Institute into practice.
I was born in 1960, and became conscious of the outside world during the Gemini Program, and spend childhood eagerly anticipating the moon landings.
After the very first moon landing, media interest waned, and public interest soon followed. By the late 1970's, I was an oddball for being into space exploration, and the view that "we're wasting billions of dollars on the space program when there are still millions of peopel here on Earth lacking the basic necessies for life" became prevalent. I would argue that the billions spent on space exploration pale in comparison to the hundreds of billions spent downright destructively, but that is neither here nor there.
I would argue that there has been no "manned" "piloted" or "human" space exploration since Apollo 17 left the moon in the early 1970's. The Space Shuttle and Space Station have gone nowhere new, and have not been directed toward creating anything new. The new initiative to return to the moon lacks a motivation of exploration, as well
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Part of it stems from the fact that NASA has had capability (a dedicated workforce, facilities, & hardware, when it's given the money to maintain any of it) without direction, which has to come from either Congress or the White House, preferably Congress, since it controls the budget. For the last thirty-plus years, neither branch of government has decided to put more than a minimal amount of money into NASA-it currently gets less than a percent of the budget, so it's no wonder that it can't accomplish the things it did when it got four percent, back in the mid-Sixties. The rule of thumb for attracting Congressional interest is "No Buck Rogers, no bucks", & plenty of other people (for instance, Louis Friedman over at the Planetary Society) would say that the thumb is getting rather thick. As to the Shuttle & the ISS being a waste, I would say that we need to know a lot about how the human body reacts to long trips in free fall, & the best way to do that is the ISS. For more immediate benefits, please look at this webpage or this other
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Just so that it's clear-I don't claim to speak for NASA. I think our unmanned programs have been bringing in a lot of returns, both in terms of the pure science & in terms of the nifty technical spinoffs. I was very unhappy that we almost lost Dawn, our mission to Ceres & Vesta. I more or less stand with Professor Hawking-a one-world species is always a breath away from getting creamed.
On the larger picture, I think what we're looking at is a feature of the poor state of scientific literacy & science teaching in America. I also have to admit that NASA could do a much better job of communicating with people outside of the aerospace industry than it currently does. While I am not NASA's press secretary, nor am I in that office, I will say right now that I currently work as a NASA contractor at the Glennan Memorial Library at NASA's headquarters in Washington, DC, so I do have a vested interest in NASA. On the other hand, you do too-you're my boss' boss'...boss. If you don't like how we're doing, I strongly encourage you to write to your senator and your representative, who can crack the whip over us a little more directly. Also, feel free to ask me. I don't make any major decisions at the office, but I can figure out why they're made, & maybe figure out where you could direct your questions.
I'd actually like some idea of who might be interested in what a couple of the people who have responded have said. Judging by the CNN article and the responses I've had here, several balls are being missed (probably by NASA's PR). I have always had a major draw to the space program. I'd love to know if there is anything I can do to help.
Actually, the head of the public affairs office here is resigning as of the New Year. I'd love it if the new boss at PAO were to zap some new life there. The HQ library's actually under Institutions & Management, so they're not in our chain of command.
NASA has a public outreach program, the "Solar System Ambassadors". Drop an email to ambassadors@jpl.nasa.gov for more on that.
On the "think globally, act locally" line of approach, I loved going to Chicago's Adler Planetarium, & I even joined it when I was in high school. What's the Abrams Planetarium like? They seem to have a "friends of the planetarium" link, so that's another angle. I'm all for supporting the local museums.
Personally I'm not overly interested in what NASA is up to. I didn't learn much about it pass elementary school though, so it might have something to do with it.
That's one of the problems we're facing. Something causes a lot of people to lose interest in nature & in science once they enter junior high. I didn't, perhaps because I couldn't stand the madness of the social scene at my junior high, & I figured that books were saner companions.
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The space program has become a laughing stock. A national embarassment. Everything they do is expensive, and either breaks or has problems. We have a better grasp as to how big the universe is, and how reletively impossible it is to get anywhere that isn't the moon. If you can't get there NOW, or at most, within 24 hours by plane, what's the point? Everything is becoming more and more instant gratification, less and less long-term thinking with long-term payoffs.
Remember too that today's 25-35 year old range grew up with the knowledge that space shuttles can explode, randomly and violently. Kinda turns you off to the idea of becoming an astronaut, knowing that you won't get to explore new worlds, and you may get blown up in the process of not-getting there.
In short, when you have access to the world on your desktop, who cares about other planets?
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After the very first moon landing, media interest waned, and public interest soon followed. By the late 1970's, I was an oddball for being into space exploration, and the view that "we're wasting billions of dollars on the space program when there are still millions of peopel here on Earth lacking the basic necessies for life" became prevalent. I would argue that the billions spent on space exploration pale in comparison to the hundreds of billions spent downright destructively, but that is neither here nor there.
I would argue that there has been no "manned" "piloted" or "human" space exploration since Apollo 17 left the moon in the early 1970's. The Space Shuttle and Space Station have gone nowhere new, and have not been directed toward creating anything new. The new initiative to return to the moon lacks a motivation of exploration, as well ( ... )
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I am not at all anti-space exploration. I am viscerally pro-space exploration. I just see it painfully going awry.
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NASA has a public outreach program, the "Solar System Ambassadors". Drop an email to ambassadors@jpl.nasa.gov for more on that.
On the "think globally, act locally" line of approach, I loved going to Chicago's Adler Planetarium, & I even joined it when I was in high school. What's the Abrams Planetarium like? They seem to have a "friends of the planetarium" link, so that's another angle. I'm all for supporting the local museums.
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