What can we do to get young people more supportive of space exploration?

[Proponent]

Part of this is the notion that "billionaires intentionally conspire to abandon us on a dying planet as they escape to space." Not saying that I agree with this (nor do I believe in hero-worshipping billionaires), but that's their argument.

I think it would have been better if Branson and Bezos had not flown on the inaugural flights of their respective passenger-carrying vehicles.  Their doing so amplified the evil-billionaires theme about private spaceflight.

It's also a problem that so many people conflate anything related to space with NASA.  When they see billionaires flying to space, they assume the taxpayer is funding it.

[Cherokee43v6]

Some well educated people absolutely do not care one jot about space or spaceflight.
An old friend of mine, an arts graduate who knew several languages and became an accountant is a case in point.
A very intelligent guy, but I once mentioned something about Jupiter and his response was something like "Oh, that's millions of miles away, it doesn't have any effect on the real world.". I believe he meant 'real effect on people'.

And once again, we circle back to the argument that the lack of opportunity to participate breeds disinterest or even disdain.

Taxpayers do not want to pay for someone else to do something they won't be able to or does not provide a visible service to them.  For over 60 years, spaceflight has been an insular and highly restricted 'club' paid for by public money.  The taxpayer doesn't see the benefits first hand in a manner where they can directly tie them back to the expenditure.  Thus these perceptions, however inaccurate develop, persist and get passed on to the subsequent generations.

On the subject of Billionaires 'wasting money on space', I look the speaker in the eye and ask them directly.  "So you want to put 130,000 plus people out of good paying jobs so you can hand out a pittance to everyone?"

[Welsh Dragon]

Of course, those are legitimate concerns. But what's annoying is the either-or / false dichotomy proposition that space travel must be abandoned completely to fix poverty or the environment.

I think that's a view more commonly (and falsely) ascribed to people by space fans than actually held by people. Most of the general public couldn't care less either way.

Wrong.

I'm a volunteer for an obscure little space museum in the Netherlands. One of our activities is that we organize lectures about spaceflight and astronomy subjects. After each lecture there is time for questions and discussion.

Over the past 24 years I've seen many times where people in the audience came up with "we must abandon spaceflight and use the funds to fix poverty/famine/climate change".

This thing is NOT a view falsely held by space fans. It actually does exist in the general public and it's been in existence for a long time. The first comments of this nature from the general public go as far back as the Apollo program.

Kindly point out where I said it doesn't exist? If you actually read what I wrote, you'll see I said it's often falsely ascribed to people who don't hold that view. That's very different from saying it doesn't exist. It does, but it is far less pervasive that some people here make it out to be.

EDIT: I'm talking about the many people here who characterise anyone who has the vaguest critical thing to say about spaceflight, or is conscious about the environment as a luddite who wants to abolish all space activity. Yes they do exist, but not everyone who is critical is like that. Far far from it.

[JAFO]

Phraseology question: are we talking "supportive", and in "I approve of a space program.", or interested in getting into a STEM career, as in "Not only do I want to get into a STEM field, but I am smart enough to do it, and am willing to make the sacrifices to be in it?" From what I hear, SpaceX burns people out at a rate equaling NASA in the 1960s. I'd like to hope that's wrong.

It's because they have far more important things to worry about, like their insecure employment and housing situations, or the fact so many of them are being discriminated against, or the fact they're inheriting a screwed up climate. Young people are getting screwed over by the previous generations at every angle, space hardly matters then. Priorities, people.

Our small town just sold the Little League baseball complex (that was donated to the city by a local farmer decades ago) so a developer could build "affordable housing" in our real estate limited town. Affordable to the developer means 10 houses starting at $500,000 and going up, and the city bought off on it. Generations played ball, ran dogs, flew kites, and had picnics on that field, now a few people making far more than the average US citizen will be living on it.

It took 9 years of working 2 and sometimes 3 jobs while going to school to get into my career field, I had to choose between having a family or chasing my dream, a lot of people I knew dropped out, and I was lucky to be one of the ones who made it but was still stuck with years of high interest debt I finally paid off at 40. I don't want to think of what college costs now if someone wants to get into a STEM career field.

[Cherokee43v6]

On the subject of Billionaires 'wasting money on space', I look the speaker in the eye and ask them directly.  "So you want to put 130,000 plus people out of good paying jobs so you can hand out a pittance to everyone?"

Just a note.  I ran the calculation.  NASA's budget is just under 25 billion and there are just under 330 million US Citizens.

So cancelling NASA, you can hand every US citizen $75.75... Once.

I'm reminded of the old saying.  Give a man a fish, feed him for a day.  Teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime.  NASA/Space exploration is about learning to fish.

[MATTBLAK]

Saturday Night Live has been doing 'Billionaire Space Race' sketches - eviscerating and denigrating the efforts of the 'Space Billionaires'. A lot of people watch this show and these items could certainly be interpreted as Anti-Space Propaganda, bought and paid for with network budgets and advertising revenue. The Genie is out of the bottle and the tide is turning. Even a space fan like Stephen Colbert has at times been harsh in his lampooning of Space ventures. When 'Space Billionaires' - not NASA - are poised to play the major role in the future of Space Exploration; everyone concerned would have a right to be worried about it's future...

[Cherokee43v6]

Saturday Night Live has been doing 'Billionaire Space Race' sketches - eviscerating and denigrating the efforts of the 'Space Billionaires'. A lot of people watch this show and these items could certainly be interpreted as Anti-Space Propaganda, bought and paid for with network budgets and advertising revenue. The Genie is out of the bottle and the tide is turning. Even a space fan like Stephen Colbert has at times been harsh in his lampooning of Space ventures. When 'Space Billionaires' - not NASA - are poised to play the major role in the future of Space Exploration; everyone concerned would have a right to be worried about it's future...

The flip side of this could also be interpreted as:

The meek shall inherit the Earth...

                                 ...The rest of us are going to the stars.

[dondar]

Of course, those are legitimate concerns. But what's annoying is the either-or / false dichotomy proposition that space travel must be abandoned completely to fix poverty or the environment.

I think that's a view more commonly (and falsely) ascribed to people by space fans than actually held by people. Most of the general public couldn't care less either way.

Wrong.

I'm a volunteer for an obscure little space museum in the Netherlands. One of our activities is that we organize lectures about spaceflight and astronomy subjects. After each lecture there is time for questions and discussion.

Over the past 24 years I've seen many times where people in the audience came up with "we must abandon spaceflight and use the funds to fix poverty/famine/climate change".

This thing is NOT a view falsely held by space fans. It actually does exist in the general public and it's been in existence for a long time. The first comments of this nature from the general public go as far back as the Apollo program.

The comments of this nature predate Apollo program (money are better spend on hunger etc.). It is a moral hummer thingy and is used when something needs to be destroyed. Such instruments were widely used of course in USA of XIX century (see rail road discussions), in Soviet Russia, Nazy Germany etc.
 
More of it such rhetoric is very firmly engraved in the school program. Such rhetoric coupled with the absence of any proper training of critical thinking is  very high quality "moral license" drug  and is very popular in your country (probably a bit less than in Germany though).
Can be easily combated with narrative breaking counter questions.
If it hunger- why not climate, if it climate why not hunger etc. Follow the same pseudo moral crap (because it's the only thing they "understand") and hummer back.
These people sit on moral silence drug (they want to be better than others, it is very important here) and don't feel comfortable on receiving end because it breaks their "flow". They don't have anything beside slogans. And don't understand logic (starting with the basic understanding of the economy of scales, and fundamental importance of diversity in everything).

[su27k]

Saturday Night Live has been doing 'Billionaire Space Race' sketches - eviscerating and denigrating the efforts of the 'Space Billionaires'. A lot of people watch this show and these items could certainly be interpreted as Anti-Space Propaganda, bought and paid for with network budgets and advertising revenue. The Genie is out of the bottle and the tide is turning. Even a space fan like Stephen Colbert has at times been harsh in his lampooning of Space ventures. When 'Space Billionaires' - not NASA - are poised to play the major role in the future of Space Exploration; everyone concerned would have a right to be worried about it's future...

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you (you're here), then they fight you (this is about to start), then you win"

[MATTBLAK]

From your mouth to Gods' ears, as it were...

[ttle2]

Phraseology question: are we talking "supportive", and in "I approve of a space program.", or interested in getting into a STEM career, as in "Not only do I want to get into a STEM field, but I am smart enough to do it, and am willing to make the sacrifices to be in it?" From what I hear, SpaceX burns people out at a rate equaling NASA in the 1960s. I'd like to hope that's wrong.

Also, there's a big difference in being interested in STEM subjects, being interested in space (science), and being interested in space exploration (human spaceflight etc.). For example, even many professional astronomers are not interested in space exploration.

[laszlo]

My immediate response to this was that space exploration needs to be presented as a good vs. evil rivalry with vicarious participation, heroes and villains and actual conflict and competition, albeit non-violent, if you actually want mass support. If done correctly, the masses will voluntarily donate their money and support. In short, it needs to be run the same way as sporting franchises.

Look at the NFL (American National Football League for our metric-using friends). Half the NASA budget in 2020, at least that much again with gambling (legal and otherwise), a devoted army of fans that know everything about "their" team (even though virtually every team member was born and grew up somewhere else and looks nothing like them) and will spend ridiculous amounts of money on stuff with the team logo while giving up significant amounts of their increasingly scarce free time to sit in one place to watch the teams "play", all while swilling the rotten beer that the sponsors have been programming them to swill for decades (3 times the NASA budget just for the beer). Add in baseball and basketball in the US and the budget is staggering compared to NASA.

Apollo was such a success with the public because it hit many of those same points - American mom-and-apple-pie vs. Soviet godless communism, an actual competition and Death always waiting in the wings, spectacular visuals and home town heroes (plus Tang to drink). It didn't fall apart until after the US won the championship game. With no rematch scheduled, NASA had no reason to stay on the field yet refused to go home, so the fans lost interest (except for the hardcore ones that always want post-season games and no one likes those folks except the other fanatics).

What few sports-like features space exploration has now are more like English fox-hunting or polo than a mass entertainment sport. It's done by the wealthy, requires a position in life that most will never achieve and it's easier to focus on the animal-cruelty aspects than any mass enjoyment. Sound familiar?

So that's my prescription - rather than trying to inspire youngsters to go into STEM to participate in Humanity's Grand Adventure, dumb it all down and make it appeal to the fundamental instinctive need to show those miserable others who don't know their place that we're better than they are (pass the cheap beer).

We don't need scientists - we need Space Hooligans.

[Cherokee43v6]

My immediate response to this was that space exploration needs to be presented as a good vs. evil rivalry with vicarious participation, heroes and villains and actual conflict and competition, albeit non-violent, if you actually want mass support. If done correctly, the masses will voluntarily donate their money and support. In short, it needs to be run the same way as sporting franchises.

Look at the NFL (American National Football League for our metric-using friends). Half the NASA budget in 2020, at least that much again with gambling (legal and otherwise), a devoted army of fans that know everything about "their" team (even though virtually every team member was born and grew up somewhere else and looks nothing like them) and will spend ridiculous amounts of money on stuff with the team logo while giving up significant amounts of their increasingly scarce free time to sit in one place to watch the teams "play", all while swilling the rotten beer that the sponsors have been programming them to swill for decades (3 times the NASA budget just for the beer). Add in baseball and basketball in the US and the budget is staggering compared to NASA.

Apollo was such a success with the public because it hit many of those same points - American mom-and-apple-pie vs. Soviet godless communism, an actual competition and Death always waiting in the wings, spectacular visuals and home town heroes (plus Tang to drink). It didn't fall apart until after the US won the championship game. With no rematch scheduled, NASA had no reason to stay on the field yet refused to go home, so the fans lost interest (except for the hardcore ones that always want post-season games and no one likes those folks except the other fanatics).

What few sports-like features space exploration has now are more like English fox-hunting or polo than a mass entertainment sport. It's done by the wealthy, requires a position in life that most will never achieve and it's easier to focus on the animal-cruelty aspects than any mass enjoyment. Sound familiar?

So that's my prescription - rather than trying to inspire youngsters to go into STEM to participate in Humanity's Grand Adventure, dumb it all down and make it appeal to the fundamental instinctive need to show those miserable others who don't know their place that we're better than they are (pass the cheap beer).

We don't need scientists - we need Space Hooligans.

To use your sports analogy, every kid (at least in the US) has the opportunity to play sports.  If they have the talent and put in the work, they can make money doing it.  Not all of them are going to make the top leagues, but the actual opportunity is there.

All those fans?  Most of them played sports as a kid.

Does 'Space Camp' even exist any more?

(ps.  A couple years back, didn't SpaceX field a Soccer team?)

[aquanaut99]

Short answer: you can’t.

We need to recognize that this is a generational thing. Space was the “in thing” for Boomers and Gen-Xers. Unsurprisingly, most of our forum members seem to belong to those generations. And our childhood has a huge influence on what we fan for later in life.

Boomers had Apollo. Gen-X had Shuttle back when it was cool. What did Millennials and Zoomers have?

Let me illustrate this with a personal example: I belong to that small cohort or “micro-generation” called “Xennials”. They are defined as being born around 1980 (or a few years before); their defining characteristic is that they had an analogue childhood but a digital adolescence.

During my childhood, I was a huge space fan. I didn‘t experience Apollo, but read about it in books. Shuttle was cool, it was new, it had wings and looked cool, and it was a symbol of US superiority over the “godless communists” (Cold War was still ongoing and we feared the bomb). Other than Saturday Morning Cartoons, building model spaceships were my main passion back then. And it got me interested in science, and I wanted to become an astronaut (like about half the boys in my class).

Then the 1990s came around. The Cold War was over. My voice broke and hormones started raging. Shuttle was no longer cool, because it never went anywhere besides some “rickety old piece of Russian space trash”. Other things were becoming more important (like girls). And we discovered the internet. A whole new world we couldn’t even imagine as a child. This was new, this was cool. Space was has-been. Nobody wanted to be an astronaut anymore, everyone wanted to work with computers and video games.

Then I saw Jurassic Park. And then I devoured the book. And then I read all of Michael Crichton. And I decided that biology and genetic engineering was cool and the future (this was the 1990s, this was the new “in-stuff” for the aspiring STEMs back then, half my high school class went into life sciences, nobody into aerospace). I didn’t care about space anymore and wouldn’t until much later, as a post-grad, when I got into astrobiology…

What about today? Space has to complete with game designers (who are often treated like superstars with fan clubs even though it’s a hellish and badly paid job). We have millions of cyber jobs. Biotechnology and genetic engineering is now available to almost everyone straight out of college. Compare that to space jobs, even among the so-called “new space”: they are but a tiny minority, and will never be able to compete in terms of numbers with cyber, biotech as well as green tech. And, to be honest, space has totally lost the high-tech appeal, too. Most of our current space tech is little different from what we had in the 1960s (yes, even SpaceX). Back then, space was high-tech, but without any competition. Today, the competition has several laps advance and is still speeding up, while space is still slow and out of breath, even compared to where it was 50 years ago.

The race is over.

[Orbiter]

Short answer: you can’t.

We need to recognize that this is a generational thing. Space was the “in thing” for Boomers and Gen-Xers. Unsurprisingly, most of our forum members seem to belong to those generations. And our childhood has a huge influence on what we fan for later in life.

....

The race is over.

I'm a millennial (born in mid-90s) and I think you underestimate how popular space is for our generation and overestimate how popular it was for yours.

We've watched incredible things in our lifetimes too: reusable rockets, commercial space exploration, Starship, mission to Pluto, Curiosity and Perseverance, and soon we'll be watching humans land on the Moon with Artemis. I'd argue the times we're living in now are the most exciting since the 60s. We see space everywhere: YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, et cetera.
Plenty of us are excited about space, just the medium in which we express our excitement has changed.

There's no trick to get people excited about space exploration. It's pretty simple: explore space, and the excitement will follow IMO.

[ThereIWas3]

It's also a problem that so many people conflate anything related to space with NASA.

I look at the name of this forum and wonder how widespread that idea is. 

Apollo was addressing a political problem.  That we incidentally found evidence in support of the Earth/Moon origin theory was a bonus.  There was not, and still is not, any pressing NATIONAL need for going to the Moon,  or anywhere else, that outweighs the more immediate problems that young people are facing.

[Welsh Dragon]

Short answer: you can’t.

We need to recognize that this is a generational thing. Space was the “in thing” for Boomers and Gen-Xers. Unsurprisingly, most of our forum members seem to belong to those generations. And our childhood has a huge influence on what we fan for later in life.

Boomers had Apollo. Gen-X had Shuttle back when it was cool. What did Millennials and Zoomers have?

I question your premise that space was popular then, at least after the whole moon race appendage waving competition was over (Gen-X in particular). I suspect your recollection is coloured by your own biases and the majority of people then couldn't care less, exactly the same now. In fact, I would counter that space now (with SpaceX) is far more exciting than it was in the shuttle era when - for the casual viewer - absolutely nothing new happened and the coverage was terrible.

[dondar]

about "it's all lost"....
"No, it is not".

I see a lot of very smart people who are interested in new things (space included)  around.
 The latest generation of kids (kids who are 16-18) are amazing. The only problem this generation has is "clip"  mentality(we were calling it "MTV brainwash" 25 years ago), i.e. some difficulty to maintain focus for any considerable time. But it's very easily fixable. And these kids are quick, significantly quicker we were.

because myself I've "downshifted", I see around a lot of very well educated people who downshifted and prefer to do simple physical work, the whole generation of office space fans who are invisible otherwise. The problem lies not in "the first interest", "importance", "generations" or "popularity" of anything. The problem lies in the absence of place to land.

 All smart people while being extremely heterogeneous group have one thing in common. They are harder (I haven't wrote hard here!) to control and lie to.
The problem lies in absolutely retarded formalist HR policies, in mind boggling management choices and depressive status quo. There is no good place to work and there wasn't for very long time.

There're plenty of young people who would choose engineering=>space route if they were shown that there is a good chance to satisfy curiosity and achieve something. But so far the only places in USA are SpaceX and Caltech .... and nothing in Europe.
"It ain't much".

You won't satisfy curious people with Powerpoint projects. You will break their will.

[Star One]

It is a valid question. In a broader context I would change it to "how to make people/children interested in tomorrow instead of living the immediate gratification life just in the today?".

While I have no great answer, my simple thinking would be two-fold. Basically, less CableTV and less Fa[ck]ebook time and more books to read which encourages concentration, dreams and time commitment to reach the end. With endings that inspire and lead to a realization "Wow, I never though about that!" and many questions to their peers and parents. From Jules Verne "to the moon" to, I don't know, "Harry Potter" or even "Moving Mars". 

For the older ones, plenty of reading material in the Hard science fiction books thread.

Good luck.

Cable TV is dying a death on its own thanks to streaming.

Speaking more generally the Inspiration4 documentary on Netflix shows it’s possible to interest the general public in space.

I think half the problem is NASA’s isn’t considered cool Space X is. They have high and positive brand recognition amongst the public. If I want to make use of a spaceflight example on a general forum I’ll always use Space X not NASA just because people are more likely to get the reference.

[Star One]

One way you can increase interest in space as a natural progression; try find a way to stamp out the constant, 24/7 barrage of conspiracy theories, flat earthers and 'space isn't even real' imbeciles who pollute social media, comments sections on news and science websites, YouTube etc. Their barrage is determined and relentless and they *ARE* getting converts and winning hearts and minds, every day. There are not many people actually doing it; but they are doing it for free, with an almost religious zeal. No amount of education and public affairs budget can ever hope to compete with those who are doing it free of charge. And the tack of anti-space people has changed recently: they are now using the tactic of "Billionaires and Space Billionaires are Evil and they're wasting money and taking food from the mouths of those in poverty". And "All those rocket launches are ruining the environment!!"

Those are direct quotes, said to me in recent weeks - to my face. And the internet is full of similar sentiment. I am not exaggerating, even one iota. The anti-intellectual and anti-science & engineering movement is a gathering storm. They came after and undermined medical science and vaccinations; now they are coming after Space as well.

Don't believe me? Think I'm exaggerating? I wasn't exaggerating when I warned Apollo 11 celebrations in 2019 would come under Troll and Hacker attacks - they did. Bezos and Branson in space came under almost universal condemnation. Just watch the escalation of this when Starship and SLS fly in space.

Think I'm exaggerating? You just watch... >

Nothing will happen as if it did the bottom lines of the hosting companies would be hurt. It pays not to do too much about nonsense.