Recent surveys show young Americans have high levels of apathy about NASA's
new vision of sending astronauts back to the moon by 2017 and eventually on
to Mars.

"If you're going to do a space exploration program that lasts 40 years, if
you just do the math, those are the guys that are going to carry the tax
burden," said Mary Lynne Dittmar, president of a Houston company that
surveyed young people about the space program.

Greetings,

I'd fail the survey too. I don't know any o the
(living) shuttle astronauts (other than a few old
timers) nor there mission. I think it was to fix or
replace a huge solar array that didn't unroll
properly. But I don't know if they were successful or
not. It may be called apathy, but I for one love
space. I dream about it all the time. It has pointed
me in my career and education decisions all my life.
And I thing the younger generation is also interested
in space. After all, there are no more Dinosaurs
left.

Still I remember when the first Star Wars movie came
out. I watched it 6 times. So did everyone else I
know. Space was a very important topic for the next 6
months, maybe longer.

I think to acquire and keep the younger generation's
interest in space, NASA should not show the real life
boring space stuff, but instead make a film of the
high lights, perhaps at a faster speed, sort of like
the high lights of an important football game. And
invest in high quality imagery and P.R. They do a
great job at what they do. but not too many people
know what they do, or where to find out more about
what they do. NASA needs to get this info out so the
average Joe, when he writes his congressman about some
local problem that bugs him, can say, Oh Yeah, NASA
did a great job with the Pluto Express, keep them
going.

Regards,

Dave Handwerk

--- cygonaut wrote:

Gasp! Shocking news! Young cavelry officers today know nothing about horses!
The nation is incapable of defending itself!

> From: Dave Handwerk
> I'd fail the survey too. I don't know any o the
> (living) shuttle astronauts (other than a few old
> timers) nor there mission.

Why would you need to though? Why would you want to? A mars landing
shouldn't be about making one person famous any more than it should be about
planting a flag upon the surface.

> It may be called apathy, but I for one love
> space.

Personally I'd call it good taste. NASA has spent almost half a trillion
dollars on the manned space programme since the shuttle launched, and so
there's been precious little in terms of return aside from duplicating what
everyone else knew before. The shuttle is badly designed. The space station
is badly designed (and not even complete yet). And human health doesn't
function well in zero G. Who would want to know exact specific detaisl about
a programme that (apart from a few isolated events) has been a complete and
dismal waste of funds?

There's a difference betwen caring about space and caring about the NASA
manned space programme. It's just that NASA likes to pretend there isn't, as
doing so discourages people considering alternatives.

> I think to acquire and keep the younger generation's
> interest in space, NASA should not show the real life

NASA should be kept completely out of it. It's in that agency's best
interests to not admit to what it has miserably failed to do over the past
thirty five years. Much as I dislike Mr Zubrin's politics, his idea for
making fuel on Mars made almost every single NASA study of the problem
instantly redundant, and showed why the agency's inward focus ends up
producing sub-optimal design.

For manned missions at least. NASA does extremely good work in the unmanned
probes department. Personally I wish they'd stick to what they're good at,
and leave the manned systems to those more capable.

John