All of a sudden people care about NASA again, it’ll pass. 
by David Mantey, Editor, PD&D
I don’t remember where I was when we landed on the moon. This can be attributed to the fact that my mother was only 10 at the time and still years away from her public school lesson on baby-making.
I do, however, remember where I was when Fox aired one of the first conspiratorial specials on whether the moon landing was faked: Instead of sitting together as a family to watch this great accomplishment, which would motivate thousands of engineers around the nation and invigorate overwhelming nationalism, I watched "Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon?" the 2001 Fox TV documentary that featured inconsistencies in NASA's Apollo images and TV footage.
I became more excited about the possibility of a hoax. Landing on the moon was one feat, but faking it and pulling it off? What a testament to the power of the PR machine.
I didn’t grow up with NASA heroics. We didn’t have space shuttle toys or Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong action figures. I heard we landed on the moon, thought it was pretty interesting and then put down the issue of 3-2-1 Contact before I finished the article. I have become more interested in Buzz ever since he smoked Michael Moore wannabe, Bart Sibrel with a better jab than I’ll ever muster.
It’s not that landing on the moon or space exploration isn’t interesting, I just think most people don’t care – unless they have $200K to hitch a ride into space on Virgin Galactic, one of Branson’s latest ventures.
The 40th anniversary makes for good nostalgia-stoking, water-cooler fodder and time-filling segments on news outlets, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The 40th will not jump-start a newfound passion to reach the final frontier – J.J. Abrams did a better job with his Star Trek revamp.
Our society is too Hollywood, too commercial, too individualistic. We want to buy a ticket to space or turn a blind eye to the opportunity if it’s out of our price range. Instead, we’ll watch a young space cowboy befriend a pointy-eared alien for $10 and imagine our role as a button-pushing extra — maybe a sickbay male nurse.
Who’s to blame when the movie Armageddon fires people up more than NASA had in 30+ years? Who knows? Maybe we just need a more charismatic crew. Put an astronaut up on the podium at a press conference and get him to sign off with “Yippee-kai-yay.”
The media is equally to blame. NASA’s failures simply drive more traffic. The shuttle launch is a success, whoo. But did you hear about the foam?
I wish I could hire the narrator who worked on the trailers for the old monster flicks. We’ll give it a spooky soundtrack and it’ll go viral on YouTube. Now that’s sensationalism.
Will they make it? Did it damage the fuel tanks again? To drum up any interest in NASA, we need life-or-death implications – or a jazzy Aerosmith number and a pre-Bennifer Ben Affleck with a box of Animal Crackers. Yes, I know entirely too much about the movie, it’s inexcusable.
From all of the coverage that I have read, I have learned one thing: In this economy, the majority would like cash to stay on this planet. That chunk of foam probably accounted for enough resources to build a new school in my hometown. We didn’t have media outlets scrutinizing the bottom line 40 years ago. Landing on the moon didn’t have a price tag; and we didn’t have analysts re-appropriating the funds to “worthier” causes.
So we landed on the moon 40 years ago, big deal.
For the verbal lashing, post comments below, but I understand that many of you still prefer an abnormal, Jersey-like amount of cussing in your responses. To you, my email is always available, david.mantey@advantagemedia.com.