🚀 go-pugleaf

PJS@GROUCH.JPL.NASA.GOV (Peter Scott) writes:

>What interests people the most, by far, is people.
> ...
>They lost interest in the Apollo missions because the astronauts weren't
>doing anything *new*, as far as they were concerned, even though we know
>there was more science performed.  They lost interest in the shuttle
>missions up to #25 because the astronauts were doing the same thing.
>What will interest the public more than anything else is people doing
>things that people haven't done before, which is a darn good argument
>for not wasting money sending astronauts up on shuttles which don't
>need them.

I hope it is not true that public support of space is limited to
short-run space spectaculars.  If so, the space program will lurch
from triumph to catastrophe as public support dries up.  Progress
consists of making things as routine and cheap (and therefore
uninteresting) as possible.

Many government programs are awfully boring, so there is hope a
rational, if boring, space program could also be funded.

People are also interested in acquiring wealth, and in protecting what
they have.  It might be possible to sell a program with the eventual
goal of returing asteroidal materials for on-orbit defense use and for
the strategic element content.

	Paul F. Dietz
	dietz@cs.rochester.edu