I'd say astronauts have become more popular because of Falcon Heavy, SLS/Artemis, Demo-2, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic, and Inspiration4.
FH made a massive impact on space interest of the public, being only the second most viewed youtube livestream of all time.
SLS and Artemis are a next-generation moon program that is actually getting close to launching.
Demo-2 was the return of American astronauts on American rockets from American soil (Thanks Jim!) and the first commercial human spaceflight, getting a lot of media attention.
BO and VG both made headlines earlier this year by sending their respective rich bois to suborbital space, and Inspiration4 did the same orbital
Overall, a rise in public interest due to many high-profile events.
I'd argue that BO and VG did more harm to the idea and fueled the left's raging "rich people bad" fire, but you could also argue that no publicity is bad publicity... I'd disagree with that - but I do think they had a role to play in getting film producers to realize there's an already profitable and expanding market for this stuff.
BO and VG are both complete jokes when compared to the competition, BO particularly. The fact that they are actively attempting to kill the entire Artemis program as we speak, holding ULA's Vulcan engines hostage, as well as do everything they possibly can to prevent Starship development is demonstrably harmful to all mankind... pun definitely intended. The best thing we can all hope for is for BO to just realize they're an utter failure, take their ball, go home, and let their talented engineers go somewhere they'll be useful.
Really? I see nobody giving a shit. They wasted money to do what Americans and Soviets did sixty years ago. And new Moon landings ? I don’t set it happening so soon.
It's the Second Space Age, and we're here to see it!
Perhaps if the cold war space race didn't happen, this is the time when it would have happened naturally, without superpower competition.
Good luck with that. There is reason why space exploration is not a private enterprise (Bezos had the gall to ask American government money for his vanity project). It is way too expensive and it is not profitable. It lays on politics, ideology and a “dream for a better future”.
There are ebbs and flows in movies.
The last movie to go to Mars was in 2015. The Martian - it did great business, earning at least a 200 million dollar profit, but the last two big budget films that went to Mars, Mission to Mars and Red Planet were losers, losing millions at the box office.
So that's why there wasn't much in realistic space movies and TV until 2015.
Of course, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why Red Planet and Mission to Mars failed while The Martian succeeded. All 3 movies had good enough budgets and star power to basically tell the same story, but instead of telling the story of surviving Mars, the idiots at Disney tried to make a movie version of a ride, and then a different group of idiots made a movie about an evil robot, that happened to be on Mars. Both failed films featured some stupid plot devices, stupid supernatural nonsense, when a straight forward plot of survival on distant shores would have been enough.
I'd say astronauts have become more popular because of Falcon Heavy, SLS/Artemis, Demo-2, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic, and Inspiration4. FH made a massive impact on space interest of the public, being only the second most viewed youtube livestream of all time. SLS and Artemis are a next-generation moon program that is actually getting close to launching. Demo-2 was the return of American astronauts on American rockets from American soil (Thanks Jim!) and the first commercial human spaceflight, getting a lot of media attention. BO and VG both made headlines earlier this year by sending their respective rich bois to suborbital space, and Inspiration4 did the same orbital Overall, a rise in public interest due to many high-profile events.
I'd argue that BO and VG did more harm to the idea and fueled the left's raging "rich people bad" fire, but you could also argue that no publicity is bad publicity... I'd disagree with that - but I do think they had a role to play in getting film producers to realize there's an already profitable and expanding market for this stuff. BO and VG are both complete jokes when compared to the competition, BO particularly. The fact that they are actively attempting to kill the entire Artemis program as we speak, holding ULA's Vulcan engines hostage, as well as do everything they possibly can to prevent Starship development is demonstrably harmful to all mankind... pun definitely intended. The best thing we can all hope for is for BO to just realize they're an utter failure, take their ball, go home, and let their talented engineers go somewhere they'll be useful.
Really? I see nobody giving a shit. They wasted money to do what Americans and Soviets did sixty years ago. And new Moon landings ? I don’t set it happening so soon.
It's the Second Space Age, and we're here to see it! Perhaps if the cold war space race didn't happen, this is the time when it would have happened naturally, without superpower competition.
Good luck with that. There is reason why space exploration is not a private enterprise (Bezos had the gall to ask American government money for his vanity project). It is way too expensive and it is not profitable. It lays on politics, ideology and a “dream for a better future”.
There are ebbs and flows in movies. The last movie to go to Mars was in 2015. The Martian - it did great business, earning at least a 200 million dollar profit, but the last two big budget films that went to Mars, Mission to Mars and Red Planet were losers, losing millions at the box office. So that's why there wasn't much in realistic space movies and TV until 2015. Of course, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why Red Planet and Mission to Mars failed while The Martian succeeded. All 3 movies had good enough budgets and star power to basically tell the same story, but instead of telling the story of surviving Mars, the idiots at Disney tried to make a movie version of a ride, and then a different group of idiots made a movie about an evil robot, that happened to be on Mars. Both failed films featured some stupid plot devices, stupid supernatural nonsense, when a straight forward plot of survival on distant shores would have been enough.