Jack McDevitt is a prolific SF author, with a couple of running series that recently appeared in booklog entries here (see, for example, Antiquities Dealers in Spaaaace!!!). Coincidentally, he's also talked to the Slush God, in an interview posted at SciFi Weekly. He says a bunch of interesting stuff, and not just about his books:
The problem with space travel is that you don't really get much benefit from it. Not the sort that makes, say, for better transportation or better toothpaste. NASA is always trying to sell it that way, but the money would be better spent developing the toothpaste directly than looking for it to come out of the space program.
The problem is that scientists are notoriously poor public relations people. The space program gives us, basically, blue-sky science. It teaches us about the place where we live. But the truth is most people don't care. More than half of the U.S. population, before the recent stir over "degrading" Pluto, didn't know where in the system it could be found. Whatever the reason, we've been notoriously unsuccessful in stirring the interest of kids in the sciences. The condition is exacerbated by the fact that roughly 1/3 of the U.S. population sees science as an enemy, as a force trying to disrupt their faith.
It's a good read, as author interviews go.
The problem is that scientists are notoriously poor public relations people.
There's the problem in a nutshell. At the core, science is a belief system - scientists believe that scientific methods produce more accurate information about the physical world than can be obtained from, say, reading the Bible. At least a sizeable minority, perhaps the majority, of Americans think differently. Part of the explanation is cultural inertia and part of it is the recent prominence of fundamentalist Christianity. What's lacking is an organized campaign to change the way people think. The world needs lots of scientific evangelists delivering a clear and consistent message, that system has worked out really well for Christianity over the years.
roughly 1/3 of the U.S. population sees science as an enemy, as a force trying to disrupt their faith.
If God fears Phys. Rev. D then He should. Either trade up or place privies upstream of wells and drink of faith abundantly. Are dysentery, cholera, typhoid, giardiasis, cryptosporidiosis... tests of faith?
If you had to lose one class, would it be priests or dentists? Blessings or soap? Eternal salvation or electricity?
Actually the public is quite rational in what it wants from science. It wants cures for medical problems, technological improvements in goods and services and better ways to deliver and generate energy. Why should they care about something with no practical benefit like space travel?