Today's kids: NASA is irrelevant

Saw this story about modern kids, who happen to think NASA isn't very cool. But there weren't any actual survey results in the story, so I dug a little deeper. Here's a report on the survey with more findings.

They're not good for the space agency:

• 51 percent of 18-to-25 year-olds regard NASA as "irrelevant or very irrelevant"

• 72 percent believe that money spent on NASA would be better spent elsewhere

• 27 percent expressed some doubt that NASA went to the Moon, with 10 percent indicating that it was "highly unlikely" that a Moon landing had ever taken place.

• Only 28 percent were able to answer basic questions about the International Space Station, including information about its location (Near Earth Orbit), the number of crew aboard (two at the time of the survey) -- and 32 percent were completely unaware that there is an ISS.

What's NASA going to do about it? Spin. Spin. Spin.

At an October workshop attended by 80 NASA message spinners, young adults were right up there with Congress as the top two priorities for NASA's strategic communications efforts.

Tactics encouraged by the workshop included new forms of communication, such podcasts and YouTube; enlisting support from celebrities, such as actors David Duchovny (X-Files) and Patrick Stewart (Star Trek: The Next Generation); forming partnerships with youth-oriented media such as MTV or sports events such as the Olympics and NASCAR; and developing brand placement in the movie industry.

I can already see it happening: NASA will have a reality TV show to select the first lunar and Mars astronauts. Bleh.

I honestly could care less about NASA's public image in regards to funding. As evidenced above, today's kids don't know much about space. Moreover, the money's going to continue to roll in because the agency's centers are so widely distributed that politically the funding pressure will always be there.

But if NASA's not a cool place to work — and clearly it isn't right now — then the bright young minds are going to continue to go into biomedicine and the private sector, rather than build tomorrow's rockets.