Why wouldn't there be stories? Haven't Hubble and the Mars missions gotten a lot of stories? At least in my media bubble, they've gotten much more attention t

Why wouldn't there be stories? Haven't Hubble and the Mars missions gotten a lot of stories? At least in my media bubble, they've gotten much more attention than the order-of-magnitude more expensive ISS. If the unmanned space program got as much funding as the manned space program gets today, I think it would generate far more news and interest. I'm not sure manned versus unmanned is the right distinction to make for media attention, though. More important is whether a mission is TV-ready (like a manned moon landing), or not (like an unmanned Mars landing where after landing we spend six months calibrating each instrument one at a time, before rolling forward six inches). Right now, science is barely on the radar of the manned mission planners. While for unmanned missions, science is the highest priority. If this were only tweaked slightly, and media appeal made another priority for unmanned missions, then I think you could get cost-effective unmanned missions that are both media- and science-friendly.