The popularity of every Star Wars and Star Trek spin-off imaginable on TV streaming services shows how much Americans remain intrigued by the possibility "to boldly go where no man has gone before." But 53 years after Neil Armstrong first set foot on the moon, our excitement waxes and wanes with the ups and downs of real-world space exploration orchestrated by NASA. Consider a spate of recent news stories, which have alternately grabbed brief snatches of our attention or been mostly greeted by yawns.
Earlier this month, NASA released the first batch of images from the James Webb Space Telescope — photographs that widely impressed viewers (although there were more than a few who compared the latest views of these celestial bodies to upholstery swaths). The price tag for those photos? Close to $11 billion and counting, and Americans are split over whether it was money well spent. In a recent poll, 60% of respondents said the telescope was a good investment, while about 40% were either unsure or thought it wasn't worth it.
The possibility that aliens might have dumped junk on the moon raised eyebrows last month when NASA released photographs of an unusual double crater left behind by something that had smashed into the far side of the moon in March. The ho-hums came when it was later explained that the craters most likely were created by part of a Chinese rocket launched in 2014. It eventually fell from space and crashed on the moon instead of burning up in the Earth's atmosphere as planned. Of course, China denies this, but does China ever admit a mistake?
