In 2004, President Bush had a vision. His Vision of Space Exploration is expected to have astronauts escort robots to the Moon and then someday to Mars, as opposed to just sending up robots like the Mars rovers.
The future leaders of this country didn't exactly share his vision.
Last month, The Associated Press reported that those future leaders including, "media-saturated teens and 20-somethings growing up on YouTube and Google are largely indifferent to manned space flight."
The AP filed the report as a follow-up to a survey of 18- to 25-year-olds inquiring about young peoples' interest in the space program. The only thing the survey got right was the demographic. Nearly three out of four (72 percent) of those surveyed were either neutral or disinterested in returning humans to the Moon.
It's hard to believe YouTube and Google saturated our poor corruptible minds since the original survey was given in Fall 2004, predating YouTube and only a few years after Google caught on. That's the sort of "cause-and-effect problem" that would make NASA astrophysicists pop their pocket protectors.
But it doesn't matter. NASA's response to the survey will probably just cause more indifference. It's going to heal our simple media-saturated heads by saturating the media, via YouTube and MySpace, to sell the Vision. At least we'll finally know what character of "The Big Lebowski" NASA is most like. I predict 84 percent Walter Sobchak: "Often wrong but never in doubt, you get the job done no matter what the cost!"
The biggest omission by the AP report was what our generation does like and is interested in; 84 percent said they're excited about the Mars rovers.
Hey, NASA: The Vision is stupid. You put astronauts on the Moon more than 30 years ago, and we don't think much has changed there since then. Don't blame the fads of the past five years for the lack of interest in the space program. Maybe the AP was right and the media is saturated, but we were exposed to the 1986 Challenger explosion and 2003 Columbia disasters and still enjoy the returns the Mars rovers offer. Maybe we aren't too willing to break the bank on the president's "visions" anymore.
So leaders of NASA, learn from your stupid survey and build a rover for Venus, Mercury and any other interesting moon. Drop a satellite into Uranus and Neptune and make them all record sound and take movie-quality film. Only then do you have something to post on YouTube.
Space exploration does not call for the frills of a propaganda campaign. This sort of fascination taps into nearly every human imagination. So, before you start a committee to find what music will be on your MySpace page, get back to the science. Fire your "message spinners" and stop hiring survey firms. Because the 18- to 25-year-olds will front the bill and provide the expertise in the future, don't think you can convince us of what we want, or worse, shout the same message repeatedly when you know it's what we don't want.
-Phil Rosenfield is an astronomy graduate student.
-This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Daily Aztec.
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