Mind-Meld on Science Fiction’s Effects on Enthusiasm for Space Exploration

October 29th, 2008

Over at sfsignal.com, there’s a new Mind-Meld topic I’m participating in:

Q: Astronaut Buzz Aldrin said fantastic space science fiction shows and movies are partly responsible for the lack of interest in real-life space exploration among young people. Do you agree with this assessment? Why?

In addition to myself, participants include Larry Niven, David Brin, J. Michael Straczynski, Jack McDevitt, John Scalzi, Alastair Reynolds, and others.   I found John C. Wright’s response particularly interesting as an experiment in sf hindsight.

I blogged about this over the summer, and there’s a poll there, too, and now update my answer:

I have to be a weenie and equivocate. For some people yes, for some people, no, and for some people it isn’t an issue.

While I think Buzz Aldrin has a point, it isn’t anything close to the complete story. I’ll take my own stab at blaming something at the end of my comments.

There are people like myself, and many science fiction fans, who are enthusiastic about space exploration. Exploration of the wonders of the universe is what we like, and we like it both for real and in the imagination. We’re more fans of exploration and because one is easier doesn’t sour us on the other. This group is important for two reasons. First, there is always going to be base support. Second, the ranks of the scientists and engineers will be filled by many people from this group. Science fiction inspires us to pursue space exploration for real. Unfortunately, we’re something of a minority of the public at large.

Then there are people who are Earth-centric. They just don’t see the point. This can result from extreme political, religious, or humanitarian views. Why spend money on space when there are other, more important problems (from their perspective), on which it can be better spent? Another line of reasoning is that we were given the Earth, the best place in the universe for us to live, so why go anywhere else? Fortunately, this diverse but uniformly uninterested group is also the minority.

That leaves a larger swath of the public that constitutes the “public” that Buzz Aldrin is referring to. Average people who aren’t avid science/science fiction fans and who don’t immediately dismiss space exploration out of hand. This broader segment is influenced by movie science fiction rather than that found in books, and Aldrin is correct that movie science fiction is often based more in fantasy than science. Real space exploration has been slow, expensive, and dangerous, a far cry from rugged, unintellectual heroes and their droids popping into hyperspace, or taking a quick excursion to blow up an Earth-destined asteroid the size of Texas.

While this sort of thing won’t help the general public jump behind real space exploration, I don’t think it does great damage to that cause (scientific literacy, yes). Other issues have larger effects. More damaging is the financial crisis of the stock market which will make people focus on fiscal responsibility and problems here on Earth. Shall we rail against the deregulation than has dampened public interest in space exploration? Hardly.

I am going to blame some things now. The media, for starters. There’s precious little serious coverage on the TV news about space exploration, and what little there is comes out dumbed down or twisted, or bumped to make way for more minutes devoted to Paris Hilton or whatever sensationalist scandal of the moment happens to be. There are fantastic stories happening all the time in space exploration of all forms, from NASA to China to commercial efforts, from astronauts to space science, and few journalists take the time to dig it up and present it effectively. Their editors or backgrounds may not let them, granted, but this one group is to blame, and I could blame them for a lot of other things, too.

But there’s more blame to go around. Advocates of space exploration need to go make their own case to the public. More books, movies, and TV shows should be created about the real deal. There are a few bright points: The Right Stuff, Apollo 13, and October Sky come to mind. These were all terrific, exciting stories about the real thing, and the existence of Star Wars doesn’t diminish their power. A top ten TV show about colonizing the moon or visiting Mars would do wonders. NASA and the National Science Foundation already provide funding for public education, and good public education would also be inspiring, engaging on a personal level. I would love to see NASA sponsor script contests, or produce movies that were realistic about space exploration and possessed some educational component (just getting the science right would count in my book). There’s already a lot that these organizations do, but astronauts visiting colleges to give speeches doesn’t have anything like the impact of a popular movie or TV show.

While I doubt the media is going to change, or we’re suddenly going to get a realistic and wildly popular movie about going to Mars, I have hope. As I write this, computer game pioneer Richard Garriott is in orbit as a space tourist. Only multimillionaires can afford to do this now, but as the prospect of personally going to space becomes a tangible possibility, public interest will increase. Buzz Aldrin is surely correct that for some people the contrast between the reality and fantasy of space dampens the interests of some, but I don’t think the effect is the only one at work or the most important.

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