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>Investing only $19 billion dollars a year is a no-brainer, considering the return is a generation of American kids interested in math and science. This attitu
by zeteo 15y ago
>Investing only $19 billion dollars a year is a no-brainer, considering the return is a generation of American kids interested in math and science.
This attitude has brought NASA to the lack of relevance we see today. Astronauts spending hours on video chat with middle-schoolers and the use of precious payload to put ant colonies into orbit are not serious ways to advance a space program. When NASA was about exploring and colonizing the final frontier, kids would join in and dream along. When the space program became about forcing science and technology in an artificial way down the same kids' throats, they tuned out. So few youngsters with an interest in space / SF exist today.
- Jach 15y agoYeah, I think the goal of sparking science interest (and other things) would be better suited with mandated reruns of Star Trek: TNG in classrooms. The thing with the ants is I only heard they were doing it, I never heard what they found out, and they never made it sound any fun. In Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! he talks about his own ant experiments in an enlightening way, with a useful application of getting them away from his food without using poisons. We need more of that.
- pplante 15y agoI wonder if there is any sort of correlation between the dumbing down of science and people's interest in learning more about some complicated topic. Are we killing some of the allure for people who want to know more about a subject because maybe at some level they are driven to be an expert in something no one else they know is? </oddthought>