Why are people so apathetic about space?

[NASAFanboy]

People seem to know when the next Godzilla movie comes out or who won the Super Bowl three years ago and something about some idiot celebrities new haircut or something, but ask them about the valiant space probe in orbit of Saturn (Cassini), and they'll look at you with a blank expression and go "what".

No one seems to care about humanity as a whole anymore, only about fame and cash.

I get scoffed at for wanting to be a astronaut/aerospace engineer because they think I could get a better paying job elsewhere, and that the astronauts only get paid "crap" for money.

Seriously humanity, get into the spirit.

//rant//

Anyways, could we discuss the extreme general apathy displayed by today's youth toward space exploration?

And does anyone have suggestions to end it?

[kmMango]

In 200 years when West Virginia is beachfront property, people will probably be more motivated to find a replacement for the planet they broke.

[Rainbowtrout]

Sadly, it's all too common for people to hop onto the bandwagon, and screw up the planet with chemical hairspray, and other junk.

[Tex]

My solution is to feel just as optimistic, and generally pumped up, as other people are not. I try to make up for the ignorance of others, and it's always such a pleasure when I can find a few like-minded souls. Maybe that's why I've been on this forum longer than any other.

[lajoswinkler]

No one seems to care about humanity as a whole anymore, only about fame and cash.

You're dead wrong about this.

Using "anymore", you're saying that people were better at this in the past. They weren't. Humanity today is the most caring version Earth has ever seen. The same questions asked 40 years ago would yield much less positive results, trust me.

Some things have changed to worse, I agree, but as a whole, humanity is far better than before. It's just that now the communications are global, so you get an opportunity to see the scum we truly are and always were. In the days when telephone and telegram were the fastest routes of communicating, you couldn't grasp out collective crap.

[KvickFlygarn87]

You're dead wrong about this.

Using "anymore", you're saying that people were better at this in the past. They weren't. Humanity today is the most caring version Earth has ever seen. The same questions asked 40 years ago would yield much less positive results, trust me.

Some things have changed to worse, I agree, but as a whole, humanity is far better than before. It's just that now the communications are global, so you get an opportunity to see the scum we truly are and always were. In the days when telephone and telegram were the fastest routes of communicating, you couldn't grasp out collective crap.

Dude. That's dark.

[Seret]

It's not unreasonable for people to only care about things which they perceive are proximate to them. I've always found this model useful:

Generally speaking you can divide anything demanding your attention into one of the three circles. You can operate most effectively in the centre, with decreasing effectiveness and increasing frustration the more time you spend dwelling on things further from there.

The vast majority of people perceive spaceflight as something exotic, distant, and over which they have little control. Which is of course true. So it's actually pretty rational for them to not invest a lot of their time and energy in it.

That's not to say there's anything wrong with being interested in space. Just that doing so isn't actually productive. That's no reason why it can't be a fascinating interest or hobby though. Not everything we need to do has to be productive, we need to stimulate our minds and learn too.

[John Crichton]

It's because space is sooooooo big, and the timescales involved are difficult to understand for a lot of people. Also, most people think very veeery short term...which is true for the economy too.

But yes, I agree, it's a shame. I watched the landing of Opportunity live and jumped up from my seat when the Nasa guys started cheering. The next day at the office, no one even knew about it.

[pebble_garden]

I agree with this 100%.

Also, it's easy to lose sight of the big picture stuff when your personal economics and well being are on a downhill slide, as is happening to just about everyone right now. Work is hard to find, people are getting poorer, unless they happen to be bankers or politically connected.

It's not unreasonable for people to only care about things which they perceive are proximate to them. I've always found this model useful:

http://www.relaxfocusenjoy.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/circle-of-influence-300x300.png

Generally speaking you can divide anything demanding your attention into one of the three circles. You can operate most effectively in the centre, with decreasing effectiveness and increasing frustration the more time you spend dwelling on things further from there.

The vast majority of people perceive spaceflight as something exotic, distant, and over which they have little control. Which is of course true. So it's actually pretty rational for them to not invest a lot of their time and energy in it.

That's not to say there's anything wrong with being interested in space. Just that doing so isn't actually productive. That's no reason why it can't be a fascinating interest or hobby though. Not everything we need to do has to be productive, we need to stimulate our minds and learn too.

[razark]

early 1960s: The Russians are beating us at everything! We need to show them what we can do! (SPACE! MOON! MARS!)

late 1960s: Space Race! We need to beat those damn commies and show them how much better we are! Space is new and interesting! (MOON! MARS!)

early 1970s: We're walking on the moon! Woohoo, we beat those dang Russians! We win! (Moon. Mars?)

late 1970s: Well, we did them capsule thing, the moon thing, the space station thing. What's next? Reusable spaceplane? Cheap access to space? Sounds new and exciting! Let's do this! (What moon?)

early 1980s: Space plane! Woohoo! You know, this isn't quite as cheap as they said it would be. At least we've got that big space station to build! (Those Russians don't have a space plane like this!)

mid '80s: Oh. Wow. You mean this is dangerous and people are dying? Maybe we should just give up! (Oh, hey. The Russians built one, too?)

late '80s, early '90s: Remember when we used to go to the moon? We should start thinking about that again. (By the way, whatever happened to that station?)

late '90s: Well, ok. Space station. Haven't we done that already? (We've been borrowing the neighbor's station for a while.)

early 2000s: Wait, this is still dangerous? Maybe we should just give up! Maybe we should think up a new plan to go to the moon. (Moon. Mars?)

mid 2000s: Woohoo! New program! Oh, are we still using those old things? (MOON! Mars?)

late 2000s: Well, I guess we weren't really using that program. No, you can take it. We're quite happy being in LEO for decades. (Moon?)

Now: Commercial space freighters are a thing that exists. Orion is well under way. And no one seems to know what we're going to actually end up doing with it. Every program we've seen recently has been canceled, the Russians and Chinese seem to be doing everything we used to, and we're told "Maybe next decade" if we ever ask "When?".

[KerbMav]

[Woopert]

Partly because of how crappy the education system here in the US has become. I can't remember the last time we learned about spaceflight in school... yeah, pretty much never.

If people could be more interested in science instead of pop culture, sports, and social life. America stresses those too much, and we waste too much money on high school and college sports programs rather than educational programs. Imagine if at every school instead of having a giant [American] football field complex, that they built some sort of science laboratory with telescopes and chemistry/biology/any other field of science. That would really fuel STEM education (the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math kind).

No one even knows about Orion in schools, or the SLS, or any other future (or even the past!) space missions. My friend said, "How are we supposed to re-direct an asteroid?" after I told him about NASA's real life ARM mission. People also seem to think that to get to the Moon, you leave the engines on the whole time like you're driving a car.

Edited May 22, 2014 by Woopert

[Helix935]

Partly because of how crappy the education system here in the US has become. I can't remember the last time we learned about spaceflight in school... yeah, pretty much never.

yeah no kidding, one time in class when we were learning about the cold war and the space race, we had covered the "Whole" thing in literally 5 minutes that was until i spoke up and filled in the holes that were left in that part of the lesson...

also my school tried to do STEM based education via STEM projects but had failed miserably because the disorganization and the lack of guidelines and instruction not only made the teachers mad but the parents too (especially the students who had to explain it to them)...

it has really become stagnant as those few of us seek to learn things for ourselves (which at my school make up about like six people including myself)...

Education has become too regulated and state-run as a result of increased control by the government through funding which i have already experienced first-hand

[Omicron314]

Rather recently...

*Teacher, wanting to teach us about effective Google search terms, reads short paragraph about the Space Race*

Teacher: Now, what would be some good search terms if we wanted to do research about the Space Race?

Student: Maybe . . . Sputnik (implied question mark) and Apollo- . . . what was it called?

Teacher: Soyuz.

Student: Right! Apollo-Soyuz!

---

That's not the most depressing one. I often partake in the school's "Science Bowl" competition, which offers a great insight as to what science questions are considered not public knowledge. Biology questions can range anywhere from "Which of the following organisms is included in phylum xyz?" to "Which has the most chromosomes? Option A, B, C, or D?" Space, however? You just have to know the order of the planets, the orbital period of the moon, and maybe the major moons of Jupiter. It doesn't even have it's own category: it is in the "Earth and Space Science" category (and most of the questions in that category pertain to geology, which I have no love for).

Anyway, at least here in New York, the elementary school science education segment is (if my memory serves me) divided into what are essentially year-long units. For example, one year is devoted entirely to plants, another to basic life science, another to basic physical processes (like the water cycle). If the Department of Education partitioned a unit devoted to space (which they might have really early on already), it would hopefully serve to foster interest in space in the future American public (or if we do already have it but really early on, postpone it until the children are mature enough to appreciate it). In such a unit, kids would learn the order of the planets, the major moons of those planets (Mars and Jupiter alone if the 13 major moons between Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune is too much), and interesting facts to spark their curiosity ("There is so little gravity on Deimos that you could jump into orbit!" or "We don't know what's under the crust of Jupiter's moon Europa, but some scientists think that alien fish could be hiding there!" or "Saturn's moon Titan seems similar to Earth at first, but its lakes are made of liquid methane!").

Honestly, I have no idea if that would work, but hopefully it would do something(?).

[gooddog15]

In the past, units in school that revolved around space were about the planets and their names ("duh yella ones da sun!"). They were very brief being around 1 week, however the last fewunits have done it a little justice. 1 unit we were supposed to "create" a spacesuit that was to survive in the conditions on a random celestrial body (and of coarse, I made mine overkill). Another unit we got into way more interesting stuff, learning how our universe was created, and how stars lived and died. I often filled holes that were related to spaceflight, from saying that there is more than ONE type of rocket fuels out there, to explaining what the unoperational computer on the ISS did. But this only goes through the science aspect of spaceflight, and not spaceflight history itself. Even though people know about how stars are created, say what was project gemini, and they would say "wut". All the schools teach what apollo and the space shuttle was as they were very recent and important in U.S. history, but they skip mercury, gemini, skylab, ASTP, and every important unmanned mission (only voyager 1 gained significance after news articles detailed how it was the first man made object in the solar system, and possibly its appearance in the reimagining of the cosmos. Also ISEE-3 might come into the spotlight). I find it disrespectful for people not knowing how we experienced space for the first time, how we learned how to go to the moon, how 3 brave men stepped into a capsule, never to come out alive, and how 2 nations that were normally hostile to each other, worked together above our heads. It's apart of our history, not only as a nation, but to all man-kind. It shouldn't pushed into corner like the cold war and WW2, which are topics that are becoming even more important with every day. Space will eventually become the next chapter of human history, and if its start is forgotten, it will become a tragedy for mankind.

Edited May 22, 2014 by gooddog15

[Uberlyuber]

Yeah, I agree. I once asked my friends parent(and my friend as well) what project Gemini is, and they just said "You know way too much about space." I can't believe that people, ESPECIALLY American congress(I am an American FYI) just don't like space. NASA's budget is the lowest it has ever, ever been. But I don't think space is totally a thrown away idea; that's where private businesses come in. I hate to say it, but, unless SLS is not canceled (which would require a miracle), NASA'S time has come and gone.

Hell, I asked my friend who the first man on the Moon was, and he said "I forgot." And he says he knows more about space than me. I could bet a million dollars I'm the only one out of my whole school who knows QUACK about space.

Edited May 22, 2014 by Uberlyuber

[KerbMav]

To contribute a bit more than my failed try on comic relief:

The people (most of them) know that humans have been on the moon, they know we shoot up probes and robots to other planets today and that satellites make their TVs show 1000 channels (of mostly crap).

As they do not know how this is done - apart from "we shoot rockets into the sky" - there is no real appreciation for these things, also because it has become rather trivial today (if you do not go into details that is) and this is the case with most things.

You would not get much more intelligent reactions for asking about how antibiotics work, where electricity comes from, why there is so much meat in the shops etc. - it is just the way it is for most people that have no special interest in a respective subject.

The bad side (in every such case) is that people do not care because or their ignorance/unawareness also of the implications for their own life, the future of society and mankind as a whole:

Global warming, censorship and control of the internet, corporate influence on government, religious influence on government, crimes of the food industry, pleading domestic terrorism to increase control over the own people, crimes of the pharmaceutical industry, watering down of public education ... shall I go on? Better not, I am getting off topic here, but not really.

tl/dr: People do not take much interest in things they take for granted and/or to be of no immediate consequence for themselves or their fellows/humanity.

.

At the first possible (but opportune!) moment - get out of there! And do not let yourself be dragged down to their level!

[Seret]

Most people are just not that bright.

Strictly speaking, 50% of people are of above average intelligence...

[KerbMav]

Strictly speaking, 50% of people are of above average intelligence...

But if average intelligence is not sufficient to grasp some details ... ?

[Seret]

But if average intelligence is not sufficient to grasp some details ... ?

It ain't rocket science.

No, wait...

[lajoswinkler]

Strictly speaking, 50% of people are of above average intelligence...

And 50 % are below. They are more powerful. Intelligent people are more often introvert, polite, and less intelligent compensate by violence. They win most of the time.

[KerbMav]

A friend only yesterday proposed the theory that if only 1% of us are egoistic self-centered aggressive warmongering poopheads and if only 1% again of them have any influence on politics or society it would be enough to end up in the mess we are continuosly seeing all over the world.

[montyben101]

Its worse at my school: In maths we were doing drawings of plan view stuff (AKA birds-eye view) and a picture of the shuttle carrier came up, One girl said "I thought rockets took off from the ground"... I was also chatting to a friend and i cant remember how but I said something about the Soyuz and he had no idea what it was.

[lajoswinkler]

Soyuz isn't a part of common global culture. It's because of the Iron Curtain.

[tychochallenge]

First we must get everyone to play ksp. Then, they will demand their governments to give 99% of their budget to the space program