Space-Race revolution
Let us travel back in time to the last summer of the 1960s, July 1969. Millions of people sit at home in front of their televisions and watch Niel Amstrong take the first steps on the lunar surface. The culmination of the space race, America had won! But what exactly have they won? A few rock samples? A few reflectors on the moon? No, the real answer is that they won public interest. They showed the world what man could achieve and inspired millions. The space race between the United States of America and the former UDSSR boils down to one word: a PR stunt.
Under the current (2025) Trump administration, we are facing a scientific crisis (1), a project like the Apollo missions is unthinkable under the current budget cuts. But we may need a new unifying project like those of the Cold War. To bring humanity closer together again and to rekindle trust and interest in science in the global consciousness. So let us look back more than half a century and see what we can learn to stop this modern crisis.
Don't get me wrong, space is fascinating from a research perspective - literally looking over the horizon to see how Earth ticks is a worthwhile endeavour to increase knowledge. But beyond that, space itself has little value for the everyday human being. It's quite unlikely that the answer to any of our current world problems will be found off-world. No off-world mining is going to make us rich, no Mars colony is going to end the conflict on Earth (quite the opposite is likely), and no alien civilisation is going to take us into their utopian alliance(2).
So why have we spent so much money on space exploration? What drove the big players to spend billions of taxpayers' money on something so seemingly pointless? And why should we continue this trend?
The simple answer is that it brings in the clicks. As human beings, we are fascinated by the unknown, whether it be the strange landscapes of the deep sea floor or the rapid vastness of space. Where there are unknowns, there is room for imagination. I believe that this quest for the unknown is why it seems that every other popular science news story has some connection to space science.
Another important point is the effort required. Space wants you dead, extreme temperature changes, no atmosphere, high radiation, and the way to get there is to strap yourself to a bomb that is detonated in a controlled manner, aka a rocket. To do anything in space, you have to build expensive equipment to protect you from everything that wants you dead.
“That is the ultimate power, to stare death in the face and be unafraid.” - Orson Scott Card
The final thing that makes space so alluring is its exclusivity; fewer than 700 people have been to space (3), so we all rely in some way on their stories of the outer worlds. We listen to the stories of those who have seen it with their own eyes. Astronauts are seen as superhumans beyond comprehension, role models for young and old.
In this sense, space exploration and the way it is carried out by the major space agencies is the perfect example of what makes good science communication. In the inherent characteristics described above lies a recipe for how to better bring your science topic into the public discourse and generate interest among the general public. This public interest is now more important than ever. With leaders declaring scientific endeavour to be a waste of money, generating interest in one's own research may be the only saving grace for many scientific programmes. With this in mind, let us formulate a strategy, based on what has worked in the past, for greater public engagement with science in all its branches. We could call it the "go big and go public" approach:
Go big - give your research prestige
Give your research a slightly inflated ego, show that you need fancy, expensive equipment too. It may not be a rocket, but maybe it's a room-filling microscope, custom-built machines that are unique to your lab, or a high-tech, ultra-fast supercomputer. Bring these to the forefront, they had to be developed in the same way that rocket propulsion had to be developed. Describe how these instruments will help you go into the realms of mystery and how they unravel those mysteries.
Make it important - Sell a dream and highlight your competition
Make it seem like the most important thing in the world. As mentioned above, space isn't really that important for many things other than gaining insight into the things that are already around us, because space is so different from anything here on Earth. Although the rationale for space exploration is realistically only so important, the space agencies have always added some broader, more important looking rationale to it. In the early years it was the political conflict of the Cold War and national prestige, later it was the exploitation of space resources and the building of extraterrestrial habitation centres. Most people in the industry know this is out of scope, but the public likes it, so tweak the rationale to include the distant, lofty goals to justify the closer and more manageable steps in between that you actually care about.
Do it in broad daylight - engage the public
However, all the previous points are meaningless if you never reach the masses. Look at what NASA has been doing for over half a century. They televise rocket launches, they seek out a variety of channels for public engagement, be it print, audio or video. They are loud and they are many. I'm aware that it's beyond the scope of a normal small lab to have multiple media outlets, but NASA is not a small lab, it's an organisation. So I encourage every scientist out there, if you want to reach the public, you don't do it with just one voice, you need many individual voices brought together under a central organising body, which is your PR department or something similar. There needs to be a constant stream of outreach attempts from the labs, in a variety of forms, to be broadcast to the nation. And not just the final result, but the courage to show the way, including failures and setbacks. There probably wouldn't have been much interest in the moon landing if it had all been broadcast after the crew had returned. The journey is often more interesting than the end result.
Take these lessons from the experts, the master communicators, and apply them to your research to get the public interest that every scientist should strive for, not just for financial reasons. And remember, they made us want to shoot for the stars, even though there is a lot of nothing in between.
Weinersmith, K., Weinersmith, Z., 2023. A City on Mars: Can we settle space, should we settle space, and have we really thought this through? Penguin Press.
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