You'd have to be an idiot to want to fly in space....

Has anyone else noticed how negative the media is towards the privitization of space travel? I thought surely it was because general accounts of teams progress are dull, and flashy imagery of failure is exciting?

When Rubicon's rocket was destroyed, it made the evening news, and the connotation was that look at these idiots trying to build a rocket in their backyard, and look where it got them.

I can understand that failure makes an exciting image, but why the negative spin towards success?

When Tom Brokaw (and on earlier news shows) highlighted spaceshipone's second flight the other night, the stress was on the multiple barrel rolls, and not on how great this achievement was. They mentioned that soon there will be a fleet of these ships, but then basically said you'd be crazy to pay for a flight like that. I mean, if it was such a failure, why are they planning to launch again so soon?

Do people assume this is the spin that the public wants? If space travel is passe, at least there is some entertainment with seeing these quacks?

Who decided that every single separation of conjoined twins is riviting news? Cases get coverage for *multiple* days! But the birth of privitized space travel? Nah, only if something blows up.

What's the deal? Should we write to NBC and the like and complain?
- binarysunrise

"It's interesting when people die" -Don Henley

It took a long time for the mainstream sports press to realize NASCAR fans weren't showing up in the hundreds of thousands just to watch people crash and burn. Sportscaster will report the races, but Dan Rather get's to mention when a driver get's killed. That's how it goes.

Suborbital might well be a fringe issue for a long time. It's still going to be a major investment for anyone that wants to go for a long time coming, and it will be risky.

In a way its comforting that the news will start to be uninterested in these flights, though I hope that occurs after the prize is one. The idea is to make these flights routine. If they are, then journalists won't really have any reason to report on them except when something goes terribly wrong. On the other hand, if the vehicles and the workers get seen as being on the cutting age, there might be more programs on them from the same folks that churn out "Monster Garage", "Monster Chopper", "Extreme Monster Chopper Makeover" and so on.

As long as C-BS keeps Dan Rather and those like him, we're all in trouble.

The new C-BS motto:

They've got REAL, but we've got RATHER!

Sometimes I forget that people even watch 'mainstream' media outlets anymore. I mean, why, when you can get better sources of news online anyway?

The days of Edward Morrow and Walter Kronkite are long gone. Now we have Glossy Barbie and Slick Ken giving the "news" in venacular English, broken up in bullet format peppered with cutsie banter.

Television news produced in the United States is an embarrasing mess of non-information. The newsmags are chock full of ads and also shows signs of using vencaular English. Newspapers still seem ok.

I get my news from multiple sources, mostly the Internet, and I go out of my way to include international agencies as well as local news agencies in the U.S.

In terms of television, no news agency covers science, technology, or space news very well. It's usually dumbed-down and trivialized. In fact, CNN's Miles O'Brien, considered the most popular of the so-called "space commentators" seems out of his league 50% of the time. Printed news is usually much better.

*nodding in vigorous agreement*

The problem is that nobody teaches you how to recognize bias and propaganda in school anymore.

Oddly enough, the Jesuits did a fine job teaching me how to think more freely.

We have all these Exciting events and technology breakthroughs All the time. Main news Channels just ignore them or give them about 10 second slots on the news.

I look for my news Online now


Because the news usually reports the same things Every day for weeks/months There seems like there is nothing els going on in the world that is good.

news only concerntrates on the bad things.


There was one guy on the news that talked about private space travel and he was saying it wont be affordable for another 200 years...

lol[/b]

The more things change....

I just was watching a documentary on Discovery Flight, and they were talking about the history of rockets. I didn't know that in the teens, Goddard was mocked in the papers for what they saw to be a fool's folly in playing with rockets....

Ah well, at least we're consistent....

- binarysunrise

According to a show on the History Channel yesterday, the first newspaper report of the events at Kitty Hawk was 99% inaccurate. Stuff like that doesn't make me feel much better about printed news.

I noticed that even sites like Space.com were spending a LOT more time focusing on the rolling of SSO than they probably should have. Doesn't give me much hope for online news sources, either.

My conclusion? News = hopeless.

(for anyone who takes this post 100% seriously and begins to type a scathing negative reply: Please save me the trouble and smack yourself right now.. ha)