This Is Why America Is Falling Behind In Space

1. I can’t really say the astronaut answer surprises me. But do 26% of American kids, age 8-12, really want to be teachers when they grow up? That’s one of the most thankless jobs I can think of. If that’s really what they think, and don’t change their minds when they get older, there might be some hope left.

2. Before anyone gets excited it’s important to read the fine print. This was an online survey and it’s clearly states there is no way to determine sample error. In plain English we have no idea who actually filled out the survey except by how they self reported.

   Second, Youtubers with a popular channel may earn thousands of dollars a month from advertising, today as kids, versus waiting decades to become an astronaut. Kids in China who are online are more regulated.

   So as someone who teaches marketing research I see the results of this survey as being useless for decision making. Instead it is an example of a survey that is being used instead as a promotional piece to launch their product line, basically encouraging folks to join the “herd”.

   1. Those are good points. It’s also important to realize that the respondents are, almost by definition, an unrepresentative sample. They are the subset of the population who both found out about the survey and took the time to respond. The odds of those people, especially people from that age group, being typical are very low.

      And, now that I think about it, the fact that there are only five results to the question (what do you want to do when you grow up) implies they were only given those five options. Which makes the results even more meaningless.

   2. Goes to ease of access. I can be a youtuber with a $49,99 smart phone from walmart and 40 bucks a month for card with internet…

      So for less than a 100 bucks you can start a career online. Versus a career that you are more likely to win the lottery or become a senator than fly in space currently. *not even an astronaut, just a commercial passenger*

      1. You could also mention that the cost of a college degree adds up to tens of thousands of dollars. Why borrow that much money if hosting an internet blog or something similar can give you a good income?

         1. And let’s not forget the high drop out rate for engineering majors because high schools didn’t prepare them for the college courses needed.

            Also in the UK and United States kids are free to choose their own career path while in communist nations like China they are steered into the career paths that the state needs from the moment they start school. And the government doesn’t spend time educating those who do poorly beyond 9th Grade forcing them into manual labor jobs.

            So even if you could trust the data and legitimately extend the results to the population as a whole, which you are not able to do, you are comparing Apples to Oranges.

3. No, this is why we are falling behind in space:

   https://arstechnica.com/sci…

   1. Those are related issues. Despite the flaws in this survey, I think it is safe to say that American children aren’t as excited about careers in science and engineering as they were in past decades. And that is a reason why other countries are catching up with us (or, in some cases, staying on par with us.)

      The article you linked, about SLS being absurdly behind schedule and over budget, explains why American children are less interested in those fields. Why should they get excited about the space program or want to go into relevant fields when they grow up? That survey was of children between the ages of 8 and 12. Has NASA’s human spaceflight done anything new or exciting since the day they were born? Actually, have they done anything worth mentioning since that date? You do not attract children to the field, or attract the best and brightest college graduates by spending lots of money while spinning the wheels and going nowhere.

      1. You’re right of course, I hope the more successful space probe side of NASA is inspirational.

      2. Trust me. that isn’t the problem.

         1. You know, just a tiny bit of content might have made that comprehensible.

      3. According to a NASA source familiar with this assessment, the agency found that under current plans, including a “green run” test firing of the core stage at Stennis Space Center in 2020, the Artemis-1 mission would not be ready for launch until at least “late 2021.” Moreover, NASA was likely to need more money—above the more than $2 billion it already receives annually for SLS development—to realistically make a late 2021 launch date.

         ————————

         Bridenstine may have found his way to cancelling the project. The GAO said that NASA was hiding the true cost growth of the project and that it is at 29%. Bridenstine is saying they need more money which, if it bumps it above 30% overcost then the whole project needs to go to reauthorization by Congress.

4. Yeah, except you don’t need astronauts to get ahead in space, what you need is engineers.

   One can make a reasonable argument that astronaut worship would hurt space exploration more than it helps. For example if the Shuttle can be launched unmanned, the program would be able to take much more risk.

   1. Many astronauts are and have been engineers. Many of those wanting to be astronauts became engineers to enable a future astronaut career. So, more “astronaut worship” would arguably lead to more engineers anyway.

      1. Not necessarily, the early astronauts are all fighter pilots or test pilots, some of them may have engineering degree but that’s not why they were chosen.

         This changed gradually once Shuttle and ISS started, but then astronaut worship is already waning, because it has become relatively common to fly to space, NASA even tried to send a teacher to space. The lost of astronaut worship is a good thing, it means spaceflight has become more common place, less an elitist activity. There’s an article on NYT talked about some of these, search for “As New Space Race Beckons, Astronauts Face Identity Crisis”.

         China is still in the early stage of human spaceflight, all of their astronauts are from PLAAF, so their astronaut worship is still strong. Also there is another factor that people don’t understand, that is Chinese put special premium on government jobs, due to their stability and good benefits, among the 5 choices only astronaut and teacher are government jobs, it’s not a surprise that they’re the most valued professions among Chinese.

5. I think all those US kids saw Keith’s blogging efforts and thought “I want to be like that” 😛

6. Another reason it falls behind is that there is a tragically successful ‘cottage industry’ of conspiracy theorists, Flat Earthers and ‘Hoaxers’ working day and night, 24/7 and 365 days per year on the internet to spread their toxic ideas and memes and to deny that space itself is even real! I have heard strong rumors that ‘Hoaxer’ and anti-American hackers are trying to crash some space news websites. Certainly, several Facebook sites have already been effected. NASA may have struggled at times to find a budget for education and STEM promotion – but these clowns are doing their agenda for free!! It’s difficult to counter that.

7. The US crewed space program is about 6 decades, or 3 generations, old. If you want to see the generations it inspired, look no further than the Space Hipsters group on Facebook.

   China’s crewed space program is far younger, so it is naturally more likely to catch the attention of, and inspire, younger Chinese.

   1. Well that is kind a crock ! US Program is all about pork and hasn’t really gone any place for 50 years. The chinese program has goals and will reach those goals. I lay you money a chinese man step on the moon before the next american ! thats why it inspires , they see they do , they don’t sit about debating the budget because they don’t have too , Time US law makers pulled a little money back from the military and gave NASA a real budget and a true objective !

      1. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin set foot on the moon 50 years ago. What’s so impressive about the Chinese repeating that effort more than half a century later?

         As for money for NASA, I came to the conclusion back in the late 1980s that NASA’s budget would continue to remain relatively flat in dollars (adjusted for inflation) off to pretty much infinity (barring some sort of huge external force). I still hold that point of view. Heck, I doubt Congress will give NASA the extra cash this Administration is seeking to return to the moon in a relatively short period of time. It’s just not going to happen, IMHO.

         So all the space supporters who actually want to go somewhere have to get it into their heads that NASA has to do more with less $. How do they do that? Start by ditching the $2+ billion dollar a year SLS and buy commercial launches, which are dropping in price. More launches for less $ would enable a human lunar mission faster than depending on SLS, whose first launch just keeps on slipping into the future.

8. And now that boys have been informed that they can’t be the next person on the Moon, expect that number to decline further.

9. For kids today there are huge amounts of noise vs. signal, especially as compared to previous generations. Or more kindly, there are a simply a huge number of competing signals for kids today that will shape what they aspire to compared to a time when there were just three channels with relatively curated messages.

   Add to that how the US continues an undeniably strong anti-intellectual streak, for reasons that range from religion to offering many economic opportunities that did not require much of the “three r’s” and it was easy to predict who would have kid’s attention in the US going forward.

   So looking ahead, messaging competing with STEM / NASA and all will only increase, getting even more sophisticated. US anti-intellectualism if anything has increased too (witness recent trends with the general evisceration of “experts”, for example in human caused climate change denial). For STEM in the US, the hill to climb is getting steeper. An analyst would likely say – if you can’t beat’em, join’em, and NASA and all STEM have to adapt and up their game in such a world. The NASA STEM outreach message that succeeds will be unrecognizable from today’s piss poor attempts.

Comments are closed.