Poets and Popularity.

In this weeks Space Review Dwayne Day argues that space exploration needs a new poet to replace Carl Sagan. Dwayne misses the point slightly, Sagan was not only a poet of space exploration, but something far more vital; he made science popular and accessible in the same way the Isaac Asimov did before him. If science in general becomes a topic for the average man, then the boat of space science rises on that same tide. With the loss of Sagan, Asimov, and Stephen Gould, science no longer has a public face, a public advocate, or a public voice. (The closest thing we have now to a national science spokesfigure is John Pike, and as near as I can tell his main activities are more in the realm of politics and naysaying.)

On the same note; commercial space development needs a spokesman of equal stature and gifts to these giants. Great things are coming and the space access community has difficulty in getting it's message across to the general public.

[Transterrestrial Musings has some interesting comments on my article of yesterday "Can we get there from here".]