Quote:
Originally Posted by sa547
Although with the disclaimer that they're not endorsing the show, just let the producers use the emblem throughout, NASA should be promoting it instead to keep the awareness about space exploration alive, despite that they've been set back several times by those budget cuts as well as the retirement of the entire shuttle fleet.
|
First, I'm pretty sure NASA doesn't want to endorse the content of a show that opens with a UFO sighting!
I also don't see much value in them "promoting" the show if you mean promoting it in the US. (I see no value for them promoting the show in foreign countries.) There might be a few hundred people in the US who will watch this show making its promotional value pretty much nil. Also, contemporary politics both within and without NASA makes the entire concept of manned space exploration controversial at best. Watching the scene where they announce the plans to establish the moon base made me think immediately of
Newt Gingrich. I don't think NASA is in any position to endorse the notion of human space exploration and colonization at the moment.
I know using robots for space exploration isn't as dramatic or uplifting as sending humans. On the other hand, I'd much rather send sophisticated robots to explore remote planets than run a shuttle service to a platform in low-earth orbit. The Shuttle program was mundane and unromantic. It's not surprising to me that Americans lost interest in space travel when we weren't actually going anywhere.