As posted on Slashdot today (but with the proper link here!), USAToday.com has an article (with accompanying video clip) commenting on how today’s astronauts are practically unknown to anyone, and compares the fame of America’s past astronauts to the current ones.
————
Astronauts used to be worshipped as heroes. Now they’re heroes only in the way teachers are: through Hadfield’s “unrecognized but extremely valuable work.” That’s a loss for the country, NASA administrator Dan Goldin says. “These people reflect the American spirit. I’m sad America doesn’t know them.”
At Houston’s Johnson Space Center, the home for the human spaceflight program, astronauts are a dime a dozen. An ordinary person walking across the center wouldn’t pick them out from among the engineers and flight controllers.
————–
To read the entire article in full, click here.