Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ncar!tank!shamash!nis!sialis!rjg
From: rjg@sialis.mn.org (Robert J. Granvin)
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: Space muzak (Mission Status Report  #12)
Message-ID: <1299@sialis.mn.org>
Date: 26 Mar 89 16:27:55 GMT
References: <18927@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu>
Reply-To: rjg@sialis.mn.org (Robert J. Granvin)
Organization: Dr. Ho Laboratory and Day Care Center
Lines: 29

>I'm sure it did the shuttle crew much good to hear Shatner; I am one of
>those who was inspired by Star Trek.  But it did me no good to hear that
>the crew heard Shatner, I didn't even get to hear the tape itself.  Just a
>report that THEY heard it.  I'd rather have heard about what science they
>were doing that day.  (They DID do some, didn't they?  Or some
>engineering, maybe?)

Wouldn't we all?  But, the "normal" public, who the media tries to
cater to, really doesn't understand the scientific experiments, or why
it's important.  Making crystals?  It's hard finding a handful of
people that understand why crystals are important at all, much less
why more perfect crystals are even more important.

So, the people who lose out from the media, are the people who
_really_ want to know, and those people need to find "secondary"
routes to get basic information (like convincing your cable carrier to
supply NASA Select at least during flights, etc).

The normal at-home TV watcher will be more interested in a shuttle
wake-up call than what the craft performs in orbit.  A lot of people
aren't even very interested in the actual launch and landing anymore
(as is being witnessed by the apathy of media to carry it again).  All
in all a pretty sad commentary, if you ask me.  :-(

-- 
       Robert J. Granvin           
 National Information Services     North Dakota:  11 months of winter and one
       rjg@sialis.mn.org                          month of bad ice skating.
{amdahl,hpda}!bungia!sialis!rjg