sheaf@helios (Sheaf) (06/18/91)
In article <1991Jun8.070607.28401@sequent.com> szabo@sequent.com writes: >In article <".7-Jun-91.11:13:48.EDT".*.Eric_Florack.Wbst311@Xerox.com> Eric_Florack.Wbst311@XEROX.COM writes: >> >>To obtain the >>public's support, and therefore, an easier time at obtaining public funding, >>at least a certain degree of the space exploration should be manned... > >This is total BS. The civilian space program was originally motivated >by the automated IGY satellites, the first being Sputnik which shocked >the U.S. into funding spaceflight. The correlation between astronaut >flights and NASA funding is negative. NASA funding started to drop in >1966 after Gemini swung into full gear, and dropped most precipitously >during the Apollo flights which the American public increasingly opposed. >Polls have always showed roughly equal public support for "unmanned" >and "manned" endeavors, even when stated with that falsely dichotomous >terminology. The myth that astronauts somehow motivate space funding is >the last refuge for those who can't find any other rationale for the >wasteful astronaut toys the NASA leadership (astronauts) are pushing. > I agree 100%, Nick, I think the general public (at least from waht I could see), was more taken with the VOYAGER encounters than anything else we've done since Apollo 11. The Viking landings as well. At least to the non-scientific people that I know, the results of these missions are better known than anything thats been done with the shuttle. In fact, if the Challenger hadn't exploded, most of them wouldn't give the shuttle program a second thought now. I think too many of us think that the public is awed by technologies like the shuttle that seem to bring science fiction closer to reality, but its been my experience that this isn't really true. If anything, they now take it for granted. I'd say part of the shock of the Challenger was that so many people no longer felt that it was still an experimental and risky technology. But the stunning images sent back from the outer solar system, that was something that no too many of them (or us) could have imagined. The spirit of discovery isn't just for scientists, and the general public is going to see more obvious payoffs from these types of missions than from a space station where the payoffs will be much less accessable to non-scientists. Besides, the pricetag on unmanned exploration is an awful lot easier for all of us to take. S. Sheaffer - sheaf@helios.phyast.pitt.edu