Our Loving Public
If you're like most people, you probably at least vaguely remember that a while back a Space Shuttle, like, blew up or something and killed a bunch of people. Sound familar? It was a huge national tragedy, and for a period of at least a day, maybe two, people actually cared about spaceflight again. People who previouly had forgotten about what we were doing because it had become routine were reminded of the dangers of exploration, and were going to start paying attention again.
So I get up this morning, visit several of the sites I go to that list headlines, and a total of one of them actually mentioned that an American astronaut had been launched into space for the first time since STS-107, and that a new crew was on its way to the International Space Station. To be sure, this "return to flight" isn't and shouldn't be the big deal that the launch of STS-114 will be, but still... (Google news gets partial credit. They had a headline this morning mentioning that a Russian rocket was PREPARING to launch--about 11 hours after it had already done so--particularly interesting considering that the last update to the story about the rocket preparing to launch was 10 hours after it took off).
And I've been involved long enough in the media to be savvy enough to know that there's a huge difference, but I can't help but think about what the coverage would have been like this morning if the launch had been unsuccesful versus the actual coverage. And it just makes me sick. Sorry, I'm done. </ranting>

:: :: 09:50 :: David :: [permalink] ::