Conference 7.286::space

        The following is from the flyer in THE BOSTON GLOBE, as
    transcribed to me from a friend:

        Richard Gordon is the astronaut who will be at the Pheasant Lane 
    Mall in Nashua, New Hampshire, on October 27 at 11:45 and 2:30 pm.

        It is called the NASA Space Station Exhibit - October 22-27 - at
    center court in the mall.

        See space suits that were actually worn on APOLLO and the Space
    Shuttle DISCOVERY.  Find out what astronauts eat at the space food
    display.  Handle some "Moon rocks". Learn the history of the space
    program through 12 colored panels.  Check out the 8-foot model of the
    SATURN V Moon rocket and lunar landing module.  There is a complete
    model of a space station and many other interesting objects to explore. 

        The astronaut:  Come over to the space station exhibit and meet 
    a real astronaut, Richard Gordon.  Get his autograph and ask questions 
    about his missions and experiences in space. 

    	Coincidently, I just got off the phone with a friend of mine who
    manages one of the stores in the Phesant Lane Mall. According to him
    the exhibit "is nothing special". According to his wife (a teacher in
    Litchfield, NH) this exhibit has been traveling around some of the
    schools in the area. I'll be going over to the Mall this evening anyway
    so I'll check it out and, unless someone beats me to it, I'll give my
    two cents worth.
    
    				Drew
    

    Thanks for the info.  Doesn't sound like much.  Richard Gordon isn't
    on the active roster, is he?  If I remember, didn't he fly on GT11 
    and Apollo 12?  Twenty one years ago, geeze.  

Richard Gordon was Command Module Pilot on the Appolo 12 lunar landing mission.

I was at the Mall yesterday and checked the exhibit out.  I was disappointed.
The models are pretty poor; amateur paint jobs and such.  The Lunar Module
model was improperly assembled (the ascent stage was not properly aligned on
the descent stage).

The "moon rock" is a cast of a moon rock.  There is a space suit labeled "worn
on a Gemini mission."  But to me it somehow looks like a mock-up suit; it's
too clean and too flimsy/low-tech looking.  There is a tray of space food; I
didn't really look at it.  There is a Shuttle-era flight suit and jacket; they
were not labeled as to whether they have been flown or not.  And there are some
posters.
						-- TOm

    	I got to see the exhibit myself and it was pretty... well pretty
    banal. Nothing special at all. Most of the informational posters are
    commercially available ones that I have seen a dozen times over. The
    "Gemini" spacesuit IS a real spacesuit but it is mislabeled: It is a
    Space Shuttle spacesuit. The "model" of the moon rock is nothing
    spectacular (especially when I have seen and even touched the REAL
    thing). The Freedom space station model is interesting but the Space
    Shuttle is attached to it the wrong way. All in all, it's not worth
    making a special trip to see it but if you happen to be in the Mall...
    well it's worth a couple of minutes of your time.
    
    				Drew
    

  So what did Richard Gordon have to say?

  Any clue as to why he didn't straighten these things out? If you guys
know the lunar module was wrong, he should have known. He was there. As
Command Module piolet (wasn't that his job) it was probably his job
to visualy inspect the Apollo 12 lander before it decended to the lunar
surface.

  George

    Actually, I thought Gordon was only supposed to be there on
    Saturday; maybe I read the blurb at the mall last week wrong.
    
    I'm pretty sure he was only going to be there a few hours out
    of the total time of the "show".

    Re:.7
    
    	You're correct: The exhibit will be at the Mall for a week ending
    Saturday. Gordon will be at the Mall only on the 27th.
    
    				Drew
    

    
    

I think the biggest disappointment in the NASA Roadshow at Pheasent Lane
was not the so so models  -  but the lack of Junior / High-School Age Students.

When I look around there were a mixture of young children and mid age
adults, and a few teachers. I did not see many junior or high-school age
spectator.  Is it because space is not an exciting carrier path
or that young adults are not interested in carries yet.

I think it is partly NASA fault.  They did not have career information
packages available.  I would think one of the goals of the NASA Road Show
should be on carries in NASA and Space related fields.

I did enjoy the presentation and the question and answear session.
    
    
    john
    

    Post Apollo withdrawl. My son is a freshman in high school and there
    really hasn't been space stuff going on (in the public eye) for most of
    his life. Kids today get all their information from the TV and before
    81, there was a big lull and the schools haven't been pushing it since the 
    Challenger disaster. They aren't exposed to it like we were through the
    late fifties to the early seventies. They also have great special
    efeects that can do things far more amazing than grainy B&W pictures from 
    the moon.
    
    I wish it weren't so and I'm trying to improve it in the confines of my 
    own home.

And when there is space stuff going on it's delay after delay after 
delay...

This does not generate the highest degree of desire to be a part of "the 
adventure" in our high school students.

Rich

  Another problem is that there is not a lot of opportunity working for
NASA. And what few jobs there are go to people who are, for the most part,
post grad. For highschool students the best thing to tell them is that if
they are interested in NASA, go to College, get a B.S. degree, and if you
are still interested, you probably will have figured out what graduate
program will head you toward NASA.

  George

Delay after delay:

I don't think this is new.  If the Apollo I fire wasn't a delay, I don't know
what was.  Also Al Sheppard's first Mercury flight, John Glenn's orbital flight
(remember the damn inverters always going south?).

The difference is in the presentation and reception of the message.  Mercury,
Gemini, and Apollo were billed as and accepted as great adventures.  The
astronauts were heros.  People seemed not to be disgusted by failures and
delays, but rather to understand that these things should be expected on
something to complex.  Look how often the TV breaks down, after all!  The
Skylab solar panel problem was not a fiasco, but one of those things that
happens and, btw, an opportunity to do some damn heroic work to save the
mission.

It's different now.  We have TVs and microwave ovens and comsats that are
incredibly reliable.  When people in general, not to mention the media, see
a shuttle delay, it is a screwup.

Maybe we need to have more appliances that are as unreliable as my toaster.

Sigh.

Burns

  Another big difference was that in the '60s, NASA had a goals that captured
the nations imagination. Early on, just flying into space was remarkable.
Now it's just a repeat of something that we seemed to do with ease 25 years
ago. Then of course, there was the flight to the Moon.

  If they could swing the funding (bigest "if" of the decade) to go to Mars,
the excitement would return. Just flying gene splicers and ant farms in low
earth orbit is not going to ignite a whole lot of excitement.

  George

Ummm, yeah, I think.

I think there was a perception back then (at least it was with me, kid as I 
was back then) that delays could be expected because it was all so brand 
new and we were learning as we were going.  The great adventure inured 
people to the delays too and we didn't have the marketing hype that started 
the programs off stating how reliable things were going to be.

But when we got to the shuttle, there *was* this big expectation, partly 
brought about by hype from NASA, partly as a result of some expectation of 
applying the technology that we learned in the 50's and 60's.  And then 
came the letdowns.  Things started to become boring, the news started to 
cover it less, now they cut in 10 or 15 seconds before liftoff if they cut 
in at all.

Now, it's just another burocracy, another government agency that seems tied 
by it's own weight.  Common people aren't stupid, they sense this kind of 
stuff, and react to it.

Anyway...

Rich

    Maybe we can't rely on NASA to excite the kids but there are things
    that can be done at a local level.  I got my start in computers as a
    sideshoot to model rocketry back in high school. I saw the machine, (a
    pdp8l with an ASR-33 tty as the sole peripheral and FOCAL as the sole
    programing tool) as a means to eliminate the drudgery of crunching
    through the numbers for altitude and static stability calculations. So
    what if I had to teach myself to program first? That was easy compared
    to scrounging up cash for rocket engines.
    
    I think the fascination with flight is still there in kids today, (at
    least if I can judge by my nephews), and can be supported with
    activities like model planes and rockets using clubs, scouts, explorers
    etc. for teaching.
    
    Just a thought,
    
    Mike H 

>  Another big difference was that in the '60s, NASA had a goals that captured
>the nations imagination. Early on, just flying into space was remarkable.
>Now it's just a repeat of something that we seemed to do with ease 25 years
>ago. Then of course, there was the flight to the Moon.

  The tendency to 'hype' the space program is a fundamental flaw in marketing.
Space exploration is a long-term thing, and a basic enthusiasm in the public is
needed, not a false glitz-and-glamour, tough-and-tumble image.  If people's
enthusiasm is built on the realities of the space program, then we won't lose
the public interest when the focus of the glitz-and-glamour goes away or becomes
pass�.

John

	Re: .17

	I agree that substance (ie. the public truly wanting something) wouldn't
need hype.  Wouldn't it then be reasonable to say that the public isn't behind
space exploration if the road-show kinds of hype are still needed after all
these years?

	Just playing devils's advocate...

								-craig

  Is there anyone out there old enough to have watched the Apollo flights live
from space who feels that it's as exciting to watch Shuttle flights? Not just
the launces mind you, but the flights themselves. The Apollo flights held me
glued to the screen for most of their 10 days in space, not just the launch
and landing.

  Sure, if they come on I'll watch them grow crystels for a few minutes, but
I doubt there's anything that they do today that would keep me up all night
for 16 consecutive hours in front of my TV the way a lunar landing did.

  George

    I'll agree with you. We've become too "matter of fact" about the launches.
    No major firsts on every mission. I watched/recorded the Solar Max
    capture but even LDEF wasn't covered very well by the media. The
    Challenger disaster was well covered and traumatic.
    
    I remember the first time I took my parents' car out alone but I don't 
    remember the 10th (let alone the 200th)

I have to agree, too.   I am not only old enough to remember watching - I was 
there and worked on the support of every manned mission up to but not including
Armstrong's moon walk.  The natural adrenalin building aspects that fired
public interest are no longer there.  Now we only get a few "snippets" in the
media and not the full coverage we did in those days.

A couple of asides that might be of interest:

On the morning the last unmanned test shot of the Mercury Redstone was to go
I was on the roof deck of Central Control to watch the launch. Alan Shepard was
standing about ten feet away.  Countdown reached 0, the Redstone fired and rose
about a foot when the main engine got a shutoff signal.  The missile fell back
to the pad, bent slightly but remained standing, the escape rocket fired and it
and its tower went off into the brush, a few seconds later the top of the 
capsule blew off and the parachute was thrown out to fall down the side of 
the missile.  All in all a rather scary few minutes of activity, but through it
all - knowing he was scheduled to be on it the next launch - Shephard's facial
showed no change at all!

I was also in Central Control listening to the Capcom radio circuit when John
Glenn calmly told Capcom that he had a red light indicating that the heat shield
had become detached from the capsule and he and Capcom had a very calm 
discussion about what could happen if it was for real and not a faulty sensor.
They finally decided that if they did not blow away the retrorocket assembly and
the straps that held it centered on the heat shield that the straps might not
burn up until the capsule was in air dense enough to hold the shield in place 
and thats the way they played it - but I will never ever forget how calm and 
collected Glenn sounded throughout the whole conversation in spite of what he 
was facing had it not worked!

	Re: .19

	George,

	I have to agree with you totally.  Either it was my youthful exuberance
or else the Gemini/Apollo days were much more captivating than today.  (I was
too young to remember Mercury at all...)  I used to be glued to the TV during
an entire mission -- watching Walter Cronkite explain the mission for the
5000th time that day -- and loving every second of it.  Today?  Sheeze, unless
a Shuttle launch or landing (forget everything in the middle) happens to occur
when the TV is on and the media decides to cover it, I miss them.  I'm lucky
if I even catch the reruns on the 11pm news.  (The one exception to this was
the planned night-time launch around a month or so ago.  Since we were up
late at night anyway to feed our newborn, I *was* looking forward to that
launch.  Night launches are really spectacular.  Oh well, yet another delay.)
I hate to admit it, but if I didn't follow this conference and NASA cancelled
the Shuttle quietly, ie. it didn't make the headlines of the news (unlikely,
but its an example), I'd probably not even realize the shuttle was gone for a
year or so.  Its just not an integral part of my thought-life.

	The budget deficit is, however, which undoubtedly adjusts my hoped-for
federal priorities.

								-craig

    re .21
    
    FYI, both those Mercury event are covered in the PBS series
    'Spaceflight', but without the benefit of personal observations such as
    yours. I sometimes wonder how I'd react in a situation like those.
    
    There is film of the Mercury Redstone shutdown/escape tower launch in
    that series.
    
    re earlier
    
    I didn't sit glued to the set for all of the Apollo missions (partly a
    result of poor coverage on Oz TV) and I certainly didn't for all of the
    Skylab missions. But there have been recent events that I've found as
    captivating as Apollo 11. The repair of Solar Max and the Palapa/Westar
    rescue come to mind. NASA could have done a lot better job of
    publicizing things like this.
    
    gary

>	I agree that substance (ie. the public truly wanting something) wouldn't
>need hype.  Wouldn't it then be reasonable to say that the public isn't behind
>space exploration if the road-show kinds of hype are still needed after all
>these years?

  Hype merely degrades the program.  It's like an addiction.  The more you
hype, the more you need to have.  Hype is lying to the public (distortion, etc).
Perhaps if they hyped less, they'd have less pressure on them and they'd be
more productive.

  As far as hype being 'needed', it's hard to say when it's all you've ever
used.  It's like drugs - you need them because it's all you've ever known.

John

RE:<<< Note 660.23 by STAR::HUGHES "You knew the job was dangerous when you took it Fred." >>>

>    The repair of Solar Max and the Palapa/Westar
>    rescue come to mind. NASA could have done a lot better job of
>    publicizing things like this.

Back in the "good old days," the US commercial TV networks (ABC, CBS, NBC)
devoted many hours of prime time to space coverage.  But today, do you
(anybody) think that NASA could generate sufficient interest to get a network
or cable or PBS to devote multi-hour prime time blocks to real-time space
coverage?  PBS had a number of hours of real-time Voyager Neptune coverage, but
that was late/in the middle of the night (depending on time zone).

I bet that human-related emergencies would get covered (e.g., if a shuttle
had a serious on-orbit problem that threatened a safe return).  But what else
might?  Construction/deployment of space station components?
						-- Tom

    I no longer sit glued to the set during the whole mission, but I still
    enjoy watching almost as much as I did.  I was fascinated when the
    Russians launched their first satellite in October of 1959, and I read
    all about Laika in their second.  Von Braun was one of my heros.
    
    Today I avoid the media problem by having my own satellite receiver,
    which I tune to NASA Select when there is a mission in progress.
        John Sauter

I don't think much has changed over the years.   Face the facts, we're
a minority.

The early Mecury missions captured the hearts and minds of America for two
reasons: it was *new and dangerous*, and there was a strong Cold War sense
of competition with the Russians.  [I'm gleaning this from historical accounts
I have read - I was 3 years old when Mercury was flying.]

Interest in the Gemini and the early Apollo missions (up through 11) was
sustained by the frequency of flights and a martyred president who had earlier
set the goal to land a man on the moon primarily for political reasons.
America transformed this into a cause that would be achieved at any cost, and
it had a relatively short deadline.  Russia helped here and there to keep the
fire burning.  The ghost of JFK keep the flame alive for a large part of the
general public, and the ghosts of White, Grissom, and Chaffee drove the folks
at NASA.

After Apollo 11, interest fell off sharply.  Apollo 13 created a spike in
interest because 3 men were nearly killed - high drama in outer space.
Congressional funding for Apollo started dropping in 1969.  The public
support at the wallet level was starting to teeter even before we landed
on the Moon.

Apollo's 14-17 received very little public attention.  [I was glued to the
TV too since I was about 5 years old with space missions, but information
was hard to come by in 1972-73.]   The public in general isn't interested
in science - and starting with Apollo 14, science became a higher priority
component of the Apollo missions - and television is very sensitive to
the public desires (apparently listening to astronauts describe regoliths
and striations just couldn't compete with the game shows, etc.).

Unmanned missions (like Voyager and Viking) are like fireworks.  People hear
about them a short time before they send back their initial pictures ...
oooo   ahhhhh  ooohhhh ....  then back to the grind.   You didn't see
many people clamoring for the IR spectroscopy reports or the radio science
results -- fascinating they are if you care to look (and learn a little).

My personal opinion is that the early space shuttle missions earned the
public attention because it looked wierd.  This was not your typical
spacecraft and we "just gotta see if this thing can fly".  Couple this
with the drama of the "tiles" and other unknowns.   After it flew a few
times the public became complacent (along with a few people at NASA too).
There have been a *lot* of shuttle flights -- and as far as the general
media reports them, they all look the same.   I'm in that extreme minority
that has taken the time to learn about the craft, the people, etc. to get
some appreciation of the details.   This allows me to watch NASA Select
launch replays 3 or 4 times with no loss of interest.   It takes dedication
to become a space-"nerd"  :-)

Another aspect of of public interest has to do with heroes.  To a lot of
people who don't get into the hardware, the early space program had heroes
(NASA P.R. at its, um, best).  You can't have too many heroes.  [You
can't put too much water into a nuclear reactor..]   I believe that the
clean-cut all-American flyboys helped drive the early space program.  These
were truly remarkable men and they deserved their status.  Heroes get old,
and eventually the position of astronaut has changed from an instant hero
to a really unique job.

So while the early forays into space managed to pick up a little more "air
time", from a variety of drivers, but I don't really believe that things have
degraded - when it comes to NASA blowing its own horn.   There are positive
things: like SpaceCamp and educational programs (e.g., SpaceLink) in existance
which match the long-haul pace that NASA is now in.

Fortunately, I haven't lost the spirit and I've passed it along to my son -
who shows the same curiosity about these machines as I had.   I try to
let my Congresspersons know how I feel - so the money has a chance to keep
flowing.  And someday I'll get me one of those dishes like John has...


Sorry for being so long-winded - it's a lot of history to cover - please
excuse any wild generalizations.

- dave

    I basically agree with the last few postings, but I do think NASA could
    do a much better job of selling the space program to the public. Not by
    promoting the gee whiz aspects, but by promoting a "we're in space
    for the long haul" approach. Maybe not to the 'man in the street', but
    at least to fairly large number of people who keep things like Pop
    Science/Mechanics, Discover, etc alive.
    
    OOf course, that is opposed to the short term mentality common in
    business and politics here, and presumably in the minds of the public.
    
    BTW, the two examples of exciting space activity I mentioned were ones
    that I watched live on a network, albeit CNN.
    
    gary

    I'm enjoying this thoughtful discussion.  I was struck with the
    following ideas:
    
    1) Does the media create OR reflect current trends (values)?  A lot of
        discussion is taking place concerning this in light of the recent
        elections.  
    
       A reason why space exploration is given minimal coverage is that the
        public does not consider it newsworthy (or high priority in the
        news hierarchy). 
    
        Broadcast revenues as they are, 2 minutes of launch coverage
         through SRB sep = BIG $s.  In this era of sound bites, etc.
         most news (broadcasts), 2 minutes is usually devoted to the top
         newstory of the day.
    
    2) One of the problems with the shuttle program is its lack of predict-
        ability.  The networks cannot reliability book a block of time and
        reorder their program schedule when the shuttle has as many launch
        holds and scrubs as it has.  If you recall, coverage of the Apollo
        and Gemini flights were all sponsered (just like the World Series).
        The networks did not donate the television time.  Because of the
        predictability of the flights (and the large amounts of broadcast
        time that were booked), sponsers and networks knew how much time
        was going to be used and when.  I'm not saying that this is right,
        unfortunately "that's show biz).
     
    3) Unfortunately, the shuttle program's objectives further de-emphasize
        space exploration.  "Routine" access to space breeds familiarity
        and non-newsworthy events.  (Can you imagine if the shuttle program
        ever met it's original target launch rate?  You would probably not
        be able to see footage of the launch at all, unless there was a 
        problem.)
    
    We live in changing times......

  We keep talking about how NASA's current work doesn't attract interest the
way it use to but we may be looking at it backwards. It probably would be more
accurate to say that the Lunar missions were the exception in that they
attracted public attention unlike any aero-space program before or since. 

  It might make more sense to try to understand why the lunar mission stepped
outside the bounds of normal exploration to go from documentary coverage to
live coverage rather than trying to understand why people don't sit in front of
their TV's watching astronauts grow crystals and deploy solar cells. 

  I think that the temporary interest in science and exploration in the 60 had
to do with the fact that we were going to a new world (the moon) and that the
mission allowed coverage that by chance was well suited for live TV due to time
span, logistics, danger, well chosen heros, and technology.

  What happened was that the odd concurrence of events just reverted to the
norm and like all other science and exploration the faithful (us) follow space
exploration in mags and notes files while most people just catch it on PBS. 

  George

    re .29
    
    IMO, the media does not 'reflect' current trends. It probably does not
    create them, but it certainly modifies them. A major part of this is
    the tendency to oversimplify any story (the news bite effect) to the
    point where everything is presented in terms of yes/no, a/b, good/bad,
    work/fail, etc. It is difficult to convey anything meaningful about,
    say, exploring the solar polar region in these terms.
    
    This is one of the reasons why I think NASA should target their
    marketing efforts in promoting space exploration rather trying for
    broad appeal.
    
    gary

    re .30
    
    Yeah, in some ways everything lined up just right for TV to tag along
    on the first manned Apollo flight and a major part of the 'newness' was
    that it was new for TV to be present at a significant point in
    exploration. Now that they've done it once, its old hat.
    
    gary

  The best thing NASA could do to retrieve some of the old interest would be to
go to Mars but even then the timing would not be as good as a Lunar mission in
terms of creating interest. An Apollo mission had a dramatic "blast off" that
grabbed everyone's attention. Then we would learn enough about what was going
on waiting for the launch to hold interest through the rest of the days events.
Two days later, just when interest was about to drop off, there was the
dramatic lunar landing, the walk, lunar "blast off" and then two days later the
"splash down". 

  With a Mars mission, the pieces would most likely be assembled in orbit over
several months. The launch into trans-mars orbit would not be that dramatic and
then there would be a year to wait while they coasted to Mars. Sure we'd eat it
all up here in the notes file reading about the days events with correction
burns, recycled z-band reflops and replaced gyzmo filters but most people would
tune out. 

  The landing would bring back some interest but somehow it wouldn't be the
same, especially if it took place a few things at a time over a couple months.

  I think we have to accept the fact that the Apollo days are over and that
it was a one time thing. From here on out, space exploration will be of
interest to the scientific community and us die hard space fans but I doubt
it will ever hold a decade of common interest the way it did during the 60's.

  George

    Though this discussion is wandering from the Mall show, it is usefull
    to once again step back and revisit the "old hat" theme.  (VOL AND
    FLAME ON)
    
    There is nothing more upsetting to me than OLD HAT.  Gee wiz! 
    Commercal TV is LOADED with OLD HAT "sit-coms".  WHY?  
    
    	CUZ of the sponser perceived viewership of the bits of repetitive 
    	trash.
    
    (FLAME OFF, Blood Pressure lowering)...
    
    Commercial TV gets its viewer cows by repetition and 
    schedule delivery to a market segment.  These cows are the
    non-technical, barely litterate, masses in which the only thing of
    value to them is mindless eentertainment.  There is no mental challenge
    intended or implied in these programs.  "Real world" news is sanitized
    down to this market.  
    
    BUT is this the way it has to be...Of course not...The challange to the
    popular televised real time view of NASA activities, is to make a
    non-news low tec commercially acceptable TV program.  This program
    whould have to compete with the sit-com.  If the "new News magazine"
    and "cop/rescue magazine" format programs and compete, why cannot
    NASA work toward the same or similar format.  Certainly the Congress
    is still quasi-supporting the development of Freedom.  Why is NASA
    leaving the reporting of its slow progress to the "News media".  There
    has to be a market for a space magazine?
    
    Les
    

	Re: .34

>                                                       Why is NASA
>leaving the reporting of its slow progress to the "News media".  There
>has to be a market for a space magazine?

$ set mode/cynical

	Perhaps a weekly half-hour show?  Given the "slow progress" as you
aptly cited, how about these as guesses for its segments...

                       "As the Launch clock waits"

              "Another week in intersteller space cruise mode"

                       "Yup, Mars is still there"

               "More famous space quotations by Dan Quayle"


	Things just don't happen quick enough in space to justify periodic
TV shows with a period of more than, say, once a month.  Of course, a once a
month show wouldn't gather the "oh, its Tuesday night so the Space show is
on..." kind of following networks (including cable) rely on.  Periodic specials,
perhaps, not not a weekly show.

	Besides, take this notesfile as a good repository of what is happening
in NASA.  Take any random weekly snapshot of all the notes in here and see if
the public would be interested in it.  I doubt it.  Then again, that's the
problem you're trying to overcome, but its a catch-22 situation unless someone
wants to pay big bucks to put on this show.  Guess what the first thing that
NASA would cut if it got trimmed?  No, not the space station...

								-craig

p.s.  However, if this show did have a weekly segment featuring space quotations
by Dan Quayle, this show just might make it as a comedy hit!  ;-)

    It's interesting to read people's impressions of what the "average
    viewer/listener/reader" might find interesting.
    
    Over here in the UK, shuttle flights rarely get even as much coverage
    as has been indicated by the US news media. The reason usually put
    forward by the various news sources is "lack of public interest".
    
    Yet, on the one occasion when the shuttle Enterprise visited this
    country on the back of the 747, these same supposedly uninterested
    members of the public flocked to see it.
    
    Given the way in which many people seem to pick their TV viewing (ie.
    What's on now - oh, this looks interesting enough to fall asleep in
    front of), I doubt that interest figures most of the time. All people
    want is something less boring than sitting doing nothing. After all,
    isn't that the point of all the game shows which get shown?
    
    I think the reason the media doesn't present space (or high-tech in
    general) very widely is that it requires a level of basic knowledge
    about science which many of their reporters do not possess. They don't
    want to appear not to know what they are talking about.
    
    Dave Hazel

    Mr. Moderator, step in if this is getting out of line, 
    
    BUT,
    
    If a show like Unsolved Misteries and A Current Affair can find an 
    audience, why couldn't NASA prepare a weekly or daily spot of 5 to 15
    min. to air on one of these programs.  Show the highlights of launches
    coupled with what the launched object is supposed to do for the cost or
    some such thing geared toward the general intrest of the public.  NASA
    shows its current level of support by the respect it has generated
    toward the general public.  NONE.  It has only worked in the general
    closed circles of government, but not outside this circle.  The
    military does a better job with the public at the basic levels.
    
    Going public in some form has to be better than "It worked or it did
    not" coverage given by the news media, if there has been coverage at
    all.  NASA has a rich archive of people related material, three major
    programs with missions underway, historical completed missions, and a
    full plate of future programs and visions.  From all of this material
    there have to be THOUSANDS of people relevent stories, of:
    
    	How X happened
    	How X changed our lives
    	How X fits into history
    	What has been achieved with X
    	Personal perspectives of those involved with X
    	What X means
    	The future of X.
    
    Where X is just one single NASA program like Viking.  If JQpublic had a
    reasonable familuarity with the term "Viking", the issue of maintenance
    cost to keep the data flowing from this probe may have never araised.  
    
    If there happens to be a potential for a live shot that day, GREAT, but
    the programming I was envisioning would be more akin to after the
    launch with stories told in people terms.  After-all, Thats what the
    sit-coms, docu-dramas, and quasi-news magazines are about.  These are
    packaged and presented for the commercial market of the sponsors.  
    
    
    It would be nice to see the better coverage for launches, but the only
    way this can happen is some mechanism for change in viewer interest.. 
    This interest is cultured through the people side of the event.
    
    Les
     

    re .37
    
    Actually they do. They fairly regularly (seems like every 4-6 weeks)
    distribute 30 or more minutes of small 'nasa in the news' (I forget
    what the official name is, but you get the idea) items. Each item is a
    few minutes long. If you watch things like CNN's Science & Technology
    week you will have seen these. All they do is add about 30 seconds of
    intro and then run the NASA item.
    
    Perhaps the problem is that they aim these at news organisations and
    there is no regular science/technology news magasine program that I know
    of (except CNN above).
    
    gary