MIKE
SCHNEIDER
Associated
Press Writer
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (AP) - Young Americans have high levels of
apathy about NASA's new vision of sending astronauts back to the moon by 2020
and eventually on to Mars, recent surveys show.
Concerned
about this lack of interest, NASA's image-makers are taking a hard look at how
to win over the young generation _ media-saturated teens and 20-somethings
growing up on YouTube and Google and largely indifferent to manned space
flight.
''If you're
going to do a space exploration program that lasts 40 years, if you just do the
math, those are the guys that are going to carry the tax burden,'' said Mary
Lynne Dittmar, president of a Houston company that surveyed young people about
the space program.
The 2004
and 2006 surveys by Dittmar Associates Inc. revealed high levels of
indifference among 18- to 25-year-olds toward manned trips to the moon and
Mars.
The space
shuttle program is slated to end in 2010 after construction of the
international space station is completed with 13 more shuttle flights. The
recent 13-day mission by Discovery's seven astronauts was part of that
long-running construction job.
When the
shuttles are retired they will be replaced by the Orion spacecraft, which NASA
hopes takes humans back to the moon and then on to Mars.
Even though
the Dittmar surveys offer a bleak view, NASA Administrator Michael Griffin
believes ventures to the moon and Mars will excite young people more than the
current shuttle trips to low-Earth orbit.
''If we make
it clear that the focus of the United States space program for the foreseeable
future will be out there, will be beyond what we do now, I think you won't have
any problem at all reacquiring the interest of young people,'' Griffin said in
a recent interview.
At an
October workshop attended by 80 NASA message spinners, young adults were right
up there with Congress as the top two priorities for NASA's strategic
communications efforts.
Tactics
encouraged by the workshop included new forms of communication, such podcasts
and YouTube; enlisting support from celebrities, such as actors David Duchovny
(''X-Files'') and Patrick Stewart (''Star Trek: The Next Generation''); forming
partnerships with youth-oriented media such as MTV or sports events such as the
Olympics and NASCAR; and developing brand placement in the movie industry.
Outside
groups have offered ideas too, such as making it a priority to shape the right
message about the next-generation Orion missions.
And NASA
should take a hint from Hollywood, some suggested.
''The
American public engages with issues through people, personalities, celebrities,
whatever,'' said George Whitesides, executive director of the National Space
Society, a space advocacy group. ''When you don't have that kind of personality,
or face, or faces associated with your issue, it's a little bit harder for the
public to connect.''
He said the
agency could pick the crews for the moon and Mars trips earlier so the public
can connect the faces with the far-off missions of the future.
''You can
take advantage of these personalities and these stories about triumph over
adversity to create heroes, if you will,'' said workshop leader Peggy Finarelli,
a former NASA official who is now a researcher at George Mason University.
But
embracing YouTube is no guarantee that NASA will get the results it wants.
Ali Kuwait,
19, who is studying civil engineering at Brevard Community College, said he
recently watched a clip on YouTube that made a convincing case that NASA's moon
landings between 1969 and 1972 were faked.
Repeating
an old myth that NASA has not been able to kill, Kuwait said: ''The moon thing
was not real.''
