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The Faceless Astronauts
jmott wrote to us with an article from USA Today that talks about the decline of popularity/fame of today's astronauts, compared to the days of Buzz, Shepard and others. It's not surprising that NASA is having fiscal problems when space travel has become not something of marvel, but of everyday import.
This is the problem with the ISS: it's not an exciting mission, and it only registers on the public radar screen as a waste of taxpayer money. Even if it produces plenty of valuable science, it has nowhere near the PR value of, say, live video from Titan or a Mars landing. It's common sense, really: it's much easier to convince people when you have pretty pictures (Hubble, Mars lander) and human interest (manned Moon missions as a risky race with the USSR with personality conflicts and the rest) on your side.
Planning missions based solely on scientific merit may sound like a good idea, but you need the eye candy and the soap operas to keep up public support and get public money. NASA can ignore this if they like, but they do so at their peril.
What have the astronauts done to earn fame comparable to their forerunners? Nothing.
How many people sail across the Atlantic every year? Should we give them all the same recognition that Columbus gets?
Of course not. They do routine work. Just like these astronauts. Why should NASA's scientists get any more recognition than other scientists. There is nothing intrinsically valuable about space.
How perfect of USA Today to think that we've forgotten the astronauts just because their writers aren't paying attention.
I guess $20M doesn't buy much more than the same 15 minutes anything else gets you - yeah, Dennis Tito counts as a famous astronaut.
But spend a little time poking around SpaceFacts. Scan any one of the comprehensive lists of space people and see just how few names have ever been well-known.
Fame is the exception, as usual. USA Today forgot that. As usual...
Okay, I've been a huge fan of space for years. I've got a plastic space shuttle that was one of my more cherished toys when I was 3 (22 years ago). I've read many books about the Apollo landings, seen several movies, and generally dug the whole experience. But the fact of the matter is, with a few notable exceptions (Mars Pathfinder) NASA has been totally boring.
We're not exploring, we're taking our space truck up into outer space and performing half-assed experiements. What's the current big project? Build a space station! How half-assed is that? Damnit, all we're doing is trucking and construction. Do you see people lining up to watch truckers and construction workers on earth? What makes you think it would be different in space?
If NASA wants to capture America's atention again then F'N *DO* something. Explore mars! Look for new life! Send people! Probes are neat, but they just don't have the same impact as "One small step for a man".
Check out The Mars Society for more information. Better yet, read A case for Mars by Robert Zubrin to see how it could be done for 1/10th of what those bean-counters told Bush.
It's not like they are taking any risks nowadays, at least not like in the days of old.
If you want to be an astronaut, do it because you want to go to space, not to appear on the cover of Time magazine, and milk it for the rest of your life on chat shows.
This is merely my superficial impression, but whenever I watch the NASA feed on TV, I don't get any sense that I'm watching The Right Stuff. Instead, what it looks like are a bunch of corporate middle managers on a packaged junket. Plus, there's too much pomp and circumstance and not enough real progress going on: at every mission launch, NASA has a new sound bite slogan describing the mission in 10 words or less; each "morning" the astronauts are awakened by some special song chosen for some dumb reason. That's the kind of crap that NASA makes available to the public, while at the same time it seems they've been less than forthcoming about difficulties with the ISS.
The other factor which has resulted in a decline in fame is that there are more of them. It's easy for 1 person of 7 to be famous. It's less easy when it's 1 person out of 200 or so.
Experiments on the effects of zero gravity on bacteria doesn't really capture the imagination of the public. Everything they are doing has been done before, even probes to other planets. Just look at the reaction to rumours about manned missions to Mars and you can see what will rekindle interest in space travel. It was trying to land people on the Moon that originally fired our collective imagination. When NASA starts sending people (not probes) to other planets, then they will regain their fame (and with it their budget...)
In the days of Apollo it meant something to achieve fame, the Beatles & the Stones were huge and there was no such thing as a C list. These days the "celebrity" list runs down to Z. Why show an astronaut when you can show some 17 year old "singer" in a short dress ?
Well come to mediocrity by TV.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
I think that NASA and the media has stoped promoting the space program. When we were flooded with info about the Mars lander we were all glued to our TV's but when was the last time you heard anything about the normal space program besides how much some satelite or piece of the ISS (aplha) cost? That is why dont know anyone by name. Americans have an attention span of about 2 minutes. If we are not reminded we will easily forget.
"If ignorance is bliss, why aren't there more happy people in the world?"
Columbia is the oldest shuttle in the fleet and recently underwent a major overhaul to make the cockpit more modern and reduce weight.
Oddly enough, it looks as though Japan is pushing pretty hard with the lower-cost systems. It appears things like the XPrize may get the industry moving again, but not necessarily in the hands of NASA.
In some ways, Voyager is doing more interesting things than ISS as it's nearing the edge of the Sun's influence. Then it really enters the galaxy as a whole and "sees" new things.
ISS is a great undertaking, and the multinational cooperation is truly outstanding, but it's more of a political project at this point. It's becoming evident that the US people via Congress aren't going to foot the bill for this stuff any more, and that other groups like the Planetary Society, and other countries will have to get more into the area of space exploration to recapture the pioneering spirit. NASA is between a rock and a hard place with money and overhead. A new approach is needed.
Heck, Buzz, Armstrong and the like were kind of daredevils. Apollo 1 killed 3. Challenger killed 7. But now, the safety record of NASA is improving to the point where people mistakenly believe it's safe. Familiarity breeds contempt.
I'm all for space exploration. But NASA can't be the only ones doing it.
From the 1950s through the early 1970s, money was no object to space. The US was in a cold war with the USSR, and space became a primary competion site. No price was too high, as long as results happened. Then the oil embargo happened and funds for more moon trips dried up.
NASA transfered its focus to spacestation building, starting with Skylab, to catch up to the Soviets again. It launched Skylab on the cheap, using some leftover Apollo hardware and started development on the shuttle for building space stations. The embargo was over and things were picking up speed for Reagan's Starwars program, complete with a REALLY BIG space station Freedom.
In the 1980s, the economy tripped up a bit. Congress had a harder time justifying the HUGE expenses that government agencies were eating up. Then the Challenger blew up and people started to wonder if it was worth it. Shuttle flights were put on hold for a few years, the iron curtain started to fall with the Berlin wall, the Soviets bankrupt their economy trying to copy the US space shuttle, and space station Freedom couldn't be launched while the shuttle was grounded.
NASA's budget was cut, since it didn't seem to be doing much any more, and it was no longer a sacred cow. Now NASA is stuck in a bit of a conundrum. It can't do anything exciting, because its budget keeps getting cut (while inflation keeps driving costs higher). If it doesn't do anything exciting, people don't pay as much attention (they were supposed to be vacationing on the moon by now! Why get excited by some specialist going in orbit, again?) If a congressperson's constituents aren't letting him know that they want space, they won't protect its budget. Since only a few congressmen have districts with significant numbers of space-jobs, (who only care about keeping those jobs), how can NASA's budget grow?
Every president since Bush I has cut NASA's budget. I think it was > $25 Billion under Bush I, ~$17 Billion under Clinton, and now it is $14 Billion under Bush II. (BTW, each has told NASA that they will get more money from the next president). How is NASA supposed to plan a realistic trip to _anywhere_ with that kind of budget?
Now, Bush is insisting the the economy is going down again and the government needs to give money back to taxpayers. (begin_sarcasm) Since it has been so long since NASA did anything memorable, why not cut some of their budget? They're not making good use of it. (end_sarcasm)
Now it actually looks like some hope, with Russion thinking about relaunching Buran and both Japan and China ramping up their space programs. Not that I'm not patriotic, but Japan did more to make the Allies win WWII by slapping the US in the face at Pearl harbor than could have been done almost any other way. A good slap in the face by other countries in this area could again wake the sleeping giant.
I'll get off my stump now.
science is a religion
Orville and Wilbur Right were the first men to get aloft via mechanically-powered flight, but do you remember the name of the captain of the last airplane you flew on?
Christopher Columbus and Amerigo Vespuci are remembered in the names of cities and even continents all over the western hemisphere, but do you know the name of any given modern ship captain?
There are other examples, but this points to the fact that space travel is not only become routine, but more easily accomplished. It's still expensive, but the risk factor has gone done exponentially, even from the days of 1986, when the Space Shuttle Challenger detonated over the ocean.
Hopefully, in the near future, we'll look back at Neil, Buzz, and Christa with a sense of wonder.
We'll know that they were the pioneers, but that they opened the way for millions of 'nameless' others.
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If you want astronauts to be famous ... send famous people into space. When John Glenn went up, the launch received its highest ratings in recent memory. Press coverage would increase, too.
Personally, I'd be perfectly happy to launch any number of irritating teen-band icons into solar orbit, never to return. Say ... this gives me an idea for a Slashdot poll ...
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
Who do we blame for this?
The news media thats who... space exploration is still a fascinating topic and the people who risk everything to further mankinds knowledge of the great beyond are still very much heroes...
But until they send a dude to Mars I dont think the news media will be interested, therefore only space nuts will get to know about what is going on.