For the past year I've asked high school aged students what that bright star in the western sky was. Not once has anyone guessed the correct answer. When told it was the International Space Station they were completely surprised and most claimed to have never heard of it or to have only heard of it in passing and were not interested enough to ask anything about it. The ISS is up there every night and not one of them looked up long enough to notice it. I started with a new question. Do you believe that the successful landing of a man on the moon for the first time this year was a wast of taxpayer's dollars and future launches should be cancelled and NASA should be abolished? 27 students agreed that it was all a waste of money and never questioned the details. 11 stated that they knew there was no such event but of the 11, 7 said that NASA was a waste of money with comments like "What have they ever accomplished?". Only 3 had any knowledge of NASA and made statements that science and technology were important and worth funding.
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