“Launching hundreds or thousands of people into space isn’t feasible in the next two or three years”.

I, for one, am not talking about even hundreds of people. You gotta start somewhere. Aviation did not fly hundreds of people initially, nor did the cruiseship industry. BUT you can get people to fly parabolic flights, high speed jets and suborbital flights as a first step. See Space Adventures or again Virgin Galactic. This does not necesarily come at great expense.

“Space exploration advocates need to create a better sales pitch if we are ever going to realize our dreams;”

This to me is a (slightly) separate issue but I do absolutely agree with you.

@sc220:

“If that is the case (and I think it is for most of advocates in the human space flight community) then it would be far more cost effective for the government to make inspiring sci-fi films with the best special effects money can buy. ”

No! No! No! This will keep space in the realm of fantasy for ever! It MUST become REAL for the average citizen!

As to associating “human space exploration” and “decline of civilization” I think that is a (little bit of a) stretch. There are other factors that should send red-flags WAY before the termination of HSF, like hunger in the country or lack of health care or greedy financial system ready to blow out the world to make a buck or two or… But HSF? Nah, that is a stretch.

If that is the case (and I think it is for most of advocates in the human space flight community) then it would be far more cost effective for the government to make inspiring sci-fi films with the best special effects money can buy. Although I don’t have numbers to back it up, I’d bet that more people in the world are emotionally affected by the movies than with NASA. The fact that people voluntarily pay money to see movies, and must be coerced to do so for space probably means something.

I know that this line of reasoning is a stretch, but to justify a government investment because it is “inspiring,” touches on our visceral urges to explore…yatta….yatta…yatta just doesn’t sound right. It smacks of bread and circuses, and may actually indicate that we’ve passed our zenith and have begun our inexorable decline as a civilization.

“This is not a movie.”

For most people today, space IS essentially a movie, i.e., a spectator sport, and barely one at that: a 30-second “muted wow” that they occasionally see on the news or hear about from others.

MY point is not missing your point, it’s that I believe bringing about your scenario (which is my desired one, too) would be helped along immensely by making the spectator-sport opportunity that IS available today more engaging for more folks by putting it in front of them in smarter ways.

Launching hundreds or thousands of people into space isn’t feasible in the next two or three years, but inserting inspiring, well-crafted “NASA shorts” with spectacular space imagery into movie trailer line-ups is. If you can get enough people exposed to space material in ways that entertain them (and I use the term “entertain” in its broadest possible sense), then the larger the groundswell will become that demands more of the “real”.

Space exploration advocates need to create a better sales pitch if we are ever going to realize our dreams; I’m merely offering some thoughts on how to accomplish a portion of that task.

This completely misses the point.

You are treating space as a “show” or “movie” in which the vast majority of the people are watching a few (one in a million) people get to go. It does not matter whether the lottery is by ticket, or by astronaut application. The result will be the same.

But if we begin treating space as a “frontier” that with smart and effective action could become open and available to the vast majority of the American people — who might earn enough during their lives to pay to go — or who could earn one of many jobs working on that frontier … then it will TOTALLY change how everybody thinks about space.

It stops being about the few — the one-in-a-million — getting to go on the backs of the millions, and becomes personal.

This is not a movie.

This is reality, and the American people deserve the opportunity to go. To quote Lincoln, we need a national space agenda that is “of the people, by the people, and FOR the people”.

I think the Augustine committee has gotten it exactly right — it is about expanding human civilization across the solar system.

FWIW,

– Al

So imagine someone today in high school trying to work for the space program, let alone becoming an astronaut. How do they go about it? Well you must be the best. The best what? Engineer? And say you become the best engineer, is NASA really the place to work today? So basically you must become the best engineer (or whatever) to work at NASA to do… To do what? I mean related to human space exploration of course. Work your bottom off for a program that has good chance of being killed? Anyway, there is no glamour in working at NASA for the average public. Sure they (usually) respect you if you do but so what? And the same goes for the usual Defense contractors that work for NASA.

Unlike a movie, NASA is really real. Nobody dreams when they see a Shuttle launch for the 100 time. Nobody even understands what it takes to launch a Shuttle. According to NASA it is/was routine. Who cares about routine? Routine is when you commute to work. That is routine. How inspiring?

So there ought to be a grand scheme. Not Mars, not the Moon, not ISRU, not a new shuttle. Nobody cares. The grand scheme however will have to start small and grow. An academy might just well be the first stepping stone in that direction. Otherwise there will always only be the select few, and that is not inspiring any more, and that is that.

@common sense

“But one must be included or at least has the vague feeling that one may be included – again see Virgin Galactic.”

To counter this (or at least to reinforce my position….”vague feeling” can be open to interpretation…) I would cite something from my personal experience:

Quite a number of years ago, as I was pondering out loud these questions (why folks enjoy this but not that, in particular spectator sports vs space coverage) with my brother-in-law, he indicated that the only reason he enjoyed watching football so much and not spaceflight was that he related to football since he himself had played it back in high school.

So I countered with the question: Do you enjoy the Star Wars movies? Of course he did. So I asked him how many times he had actually fought a duel with a real light saber.

And thus my point was made: one need not participate directly and really in something to have it become one’s own. Every time a person reads a novel (or any compelling story) or watches a movie or documentary that grabs them, they become emotionally linked to the people in that story and through that link the material in the story becomes their own—they care about it.

I would LOVE to see a national lottery for a trip into space, at govt expense even, and I agree that your space academy idea has much merit (I’ve yet to hear of ANYONE who didn’t enjoy space camp), but I just don’t see such things entering at the level of the Augustine panel’s list of options.

In the meantime, those of us who are already caught up in the excitement of space travel all need to become better storytellers (libraries have been written about effective storytelling techniques across all media) for the sake of our fellow citizens whose exposure to spaceflight is currently through a very narrow, distorted filter, a filter which has deprived them of the opportunity to participate in it as we do…even when that participation may be as mere audience members.

And what’s really so wrong with that, to start with? When I leave the theater after seeing a great movie, I don’t feel excluded since I wasn’t the hero on the screen; on the contrary, I come away with the distinct impression that I WAS the hero on the screen…or at the very least, I shared in his or her adventure and celebrate their triumph because the storytelling skills of the writers, directors, and actors made that adventure my own through the emotional links they forged between me (an ordinary but fellow human) with the character(s).

Perhaps I’m too cynical, but I strongly suspect that in the current “space coverage” media environment, even a national lottery to fly someone to the space station for a week, open to anyone, wouldn’t make much inroads into the public’s consciousness. [And it ain’t the ISS as a destination that’s the problem here; if we had an established lunar base and it was to there, same difference].

Even the space tourists that pay their tens of millions barely get any coverage—just the usual 30-second mention on the news here and there. Do you really think that the mere chance of flying one or two “average” folks a year would seriously change that dynamic? Maybe, just maybe, if it became a weekly TV show a la Survivor, along with a matching promotional budget.

But in that circumstance, the fact that the folks getting to go had won a lottery to gain their seat into space becomes incidental to the drama of the mission preparation & execution itself…and right now, there already are “average folks” who ARE training for going into space, average folks who, like you and me, have families and insecurities and personality quirks and histories. They just happen to have higher degrees and/or military and/or technical backgrounds that they helped shape to put them into that seat into space.

If we can’t engage the public by drawing them into THEIR just-as-real drama (and I think we can), I don’t think the “average joe” angle will make a bit of difference…because most folks, once the lottery is over, would become mere spectators or audience members…just like they are today. Only today, we’re not engaging them with the story like we should.

@common sense (again):

“The public must be in the equation. The public is the support. No-one in politics will go against the electoral public. No-one. Not for long anyway.”

I agree with you wholeheartedly.

So let’s start with what we already have available, and draw the audience in more effectively. If we can get them to “leave the theater” feeling satisfied, I think we will move a long way toward winning them over and having them ask for more.

We have all sorts of military academies we can use as examples. Make a Space one, a CIVILIAN academy. Define a curriculum that if you can make it through you will be assured to be part of the space program. And as with any such academies there would be astronauts, engineers and whatever you like.

Is it that difficult?

“I find it difficult to imagine how public participation can be folded directly into any of the proposed options in a first-tier sense, and even whether doing so would necessarily accomplish much.”

Well, I never said it was going to be easy to include the public. BUT isn’t there someone somewhere who has an idea? Even a simple idea? Look, you want to get public support, you get the public to fly. Far-fetched? Ask Virgin Galactic. Is this a government’s job? Heck I don’t know but what I know is that without the public you and/or I will keep whining about underwhelming budgets/goals.

“I believe that if it were to occupy a larger (any?) portion of their daily musings (in-between buying their cosmetics, iPods, and tuning in to American Idol), support for more space investment will come of its own accord because they’ll want more stuff happening, in the sense that it will seem to them to be the right thing to do.”

Here again, I understand the frustration but this language is way too demeaning of the public. You turn the public into a somewhat ignorant mass hooked to whatever is fashionable. Who is to say that the public does not see space exploration as useless. I think their day-to-day concern has grown as of late, don’t you think? And remember they have a direct application/enjoyment of their iPods and such. Nothing comes even close with human space exploration.

As to explaining what is what to whom, I don’t think anyone can with words. After those many years of space flight it still is very difficult for any astronaut to really explain the experience to those who stay on the ground. The only experience that I believe can approach it may be flying an airplane, not as a passenger but as a pilot. And probably aerobatics and probably somewhere in a vast, remote and uninhabitated place. Or maybe ocean diving… In any case those experiences can hardly be communicated via a set of rules. Rather someone with great (TBD) communication skills can only do that. It cannot be packaged or quantified. It is the human experience.

“Something about it appeals to things down deep that I believe nearly all humans share: the fun of learning, the adventure of exploring, the sense of accomplishment that stems from achieving difficult goals…even the sense of community (both the supportive and antagonistic interactions) inherent in a team effort.”

Yes to that we agree. But one must be included or at least has the vague feeling that one may be included – again see Virgin Galactic. Today the public at large is all but included in the space program. It looks like the unachievable goal. It looks so difficult that it feels, right or wrong, you may become a millionaire more easily than you can be part of this adventure.

The public must be in the equation. The public is the support. No-one in politics will go against the electoral public. No-one. Not for long anyway.

Despite Griffin’s protests to the contrary, OMB isn’t the problem in the current era, either. This is a repeat from earlier posts, but over the past six years, FY 2004 – FY 2009, OMB, the White House, and Congress have provided $2.5 billion more for NASA’s Exploration Systems Mission Directorate (ESMD) — the division within NASA responsible for building Constellation — than what the Bush II Administration promised in the FY 2004 budget.

Here’s what was promised in the FY 2004 budget:

FY 2004 $1,646.0M
FY 2005 $1,782.0M
FY 2006 $2,579.0M
FY 2007 $2,941.0M
FY 2008 $2,809.0M
FY 2009 $3,313.0M

Total $15,070.0M

And here’s what ESMD actually received in each fiscal year:

FY 2004 $2684.5M
FY 2005 $2209.3M
FY 2006 $3050.1M
FY 2007 $2869.8M
FY 2008 $3299.4M
FY 2009 $3505.5M

Total $17,618.6M

The total difference is $2,458.6 million. So OMB during the Bush II Administration and prior Congresses provided almost $2.5 billion more for ESMD than what the Bush II Administration promised to develop systems and technologies to return to the Moon. This doesn’t include the $400 million that ESMD received in the Recovery Act (passed after the Bush II Administration), which would increase the total difference to $3 billion.

The fault for the current situation with Ares I/Orion/Constellation does not lie at the feet of OMB underfunding of these projects/programs, because there has been none. On the contrary, the problem is that ESMD continued in the long tradition of NASA human space flight programs that can’t formulate and execute programs to anything resembling the original budget. That might be acceptable during the Apollo era, when many of these systems were first-of-a-kind. It’s not acceptable in the modern era, after decades of learning and with the ready availability of many of the necessary systems.

FWIW…