No One Seems To Care About Apollo – Except NASA
ICYMI #NASA is obsessed with Apollo things that 2 generations of humanity weren't alive to witness & stumbles when it comes to making what @NASA does now & will be doing in the future relevant to their lives today & tomorrow.
The Artemis Generation is not the Apollo Generation. https://t.co/gpVpm1q2Fq
— NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) March 11, 2022
I am not sure why you think NASA is interested in Apollo. For the last several years one Apollo 50th anniversary has been passed after another. Except for Apollo 11, 3 years ago, I’ve not seen any signs of commemorations since.
Constellation program, SLS… it’s all Apollo on Steroids. NASA human spaceflight ambitions beyond earth orbit does indeed seem pretty obsessed with Apollo.
Perhaps not so much Apollo as the Apollo model.
Brian’s right: There was a fair bit of to-do on the Apollo 11 anniversary. But NASA publicly seem to be passing over all other Apollo 50 year anniversaries in silence, or at best in a low hushed voice.
In one case, they didn’t have a choice. The Apollo 13 mission was probably the most exciting one (from a public interest point of view) and the 50th anniversary of it would have been a great opportunity for NASA. But that was in April of 2020, and the whole COVID-19 thing sort of overshadowed any media coverage NASA could have tried to create.
But I’m fairly sure NASA won’t say anything on December 16th of this year, unless forced to do so. Explaining why it’s been 50 years since anyone has walked on the Moon would be a bit embarrassing…
NASA might also have to explain why its taking them 2 decades and $5 billion to replicate an Apollo capsule.
NASA continues to inspire with its planetary exploration programs, space telescopes, and Earth Science. Astronauts haven’t been interesting for a generation; even the rush of media coverage for commercial suborbital flights last year was a flash in the pan.
In this Apollo Jeopardy they got all but one right. The one they got wrong was a Moon geology question.
https://www.youtube.com/wat…
so why the tweet with “none right” ?? fake news ?
If you take a look at them, you see that the video listed here shows a category entitled “The Apollo Missions”. The one to which Keith refers (image at top) was entitled “The Apollo Program”. These were different episodes of Jeopardy!.
“Those who do not know history will forever remain children” – Marcus Tullius Cicero
Well it’s now official. I no longer fit in with the zeitgeist of western society. Back in the 1960s when I was attending Forest Heights secondary school in Kitchener (Ontario, Canada), most students would have gotten 3-of-5 correct. I was situated in the tech wing where I am certain that everyone could have easily answered 5-of-5. Same with students in the electronics program at Conestoga College.
This isn’t NASA fault. not by a long shot.
Our television is nothing but reality shows. All Hollywood does is regurgitate ideas, and we elected a reality TV star and con man as President. Most America could care less about space travel. Even though SpaceX is new and bright and shiny, and impresses those who care, Kim and Chloe Kardashian get more likes than NASA. And that’s the real sadness.
Apollo started in 1961, 61 years ago. It’s not surprising that millenials etc. don’t know much, if anything, about our Moon program. These younger folks don’t know much about the Space Shuttle or Artemis either.
For me, Apollo seems like it happened yesterday. I worked on Gemini and Skylab (1965 to 1970). Now I’m enjoying a front row seat watching SpaceX and Starship make the next step in human beyond-LEO exploration.
I found 4 of the questions online … knew 3, guessed 1
The reality is that the moon landing is as far in the past as WW I was at the time of the moon landing.
JSC is constantly looking back as if it is a guidepost for all future actions. How we went to space 50+ years ago is not the only way to do things but folks seem to have blinders on to realize how to go to space for the next 50 years has fundamentally changed and we may not be the center of the universe if we we don’t adapt and innovate going forward.
If you roam the halls of any NASA field center…. and look what is there on the walls, you will see photos.
All of the past.
The space program and Apollo are rarely if ever taught in schools. Not long ago there was a debate about whether the name Neil Armstrong ought to be listed among famous Americans. And its not only the schools that don’t cover it, only a few years ago you could find dozens of mission reports, science reports, NASA Facts; post mission films, they all used to be mailed to be interested citizens. 25 years ago you could find them all on the internet. Now most are not available unless you find them in a library or museum. Its not like its costing NASA; these are written and published decades ago, but NASA apparently cannot afford the web space or even others’ web space, like Youtube. Even more recent missions are hard to track down pertinent details. NASA is failing not only in designing and flying new vehicles, they are doing a really poor job of communicating even their earlier successes.
Dude…Americans care more about the Real Housewives of (insert city here) and The Kardashians than the space program. Is that NASA’s fault? No.
In a sense, it is NASA’s fault. Or perhaps Congress’ fault, since there are some regulations about government what sort of media relations government agencies can do (providing information is fine, but lobbying is not.)
Shows like the Real Housewives of whatever and the Kardashians market their product. They pay people to advertise it and get the public interested. If it’s done correctly, someone can sell almost anything. Victor Lustig sold Eiffel Tower (well, technically, he conned several companies into paying him to make sure they got a contract to demolish it…) I know an aerospace manager who was described by a colleague as someone who could “sell a ketchup flavored ice cream cone to a nun in a white habit.”
Since people can do things like that, NASA should be able to get the public interested in spaceflight. For one reason or another, NASA has really dropped the ball. Honestly, I’d say Tom Hanks has done more to get the public interested in spaceflight than NASA has.