Hey good to see I am not the only teenager on these boards.

NASA's astronomy picture of the day is nice.
Everyday they feature a picture along with a brief explanation.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html

Also Astronomy Cast is very informative. Once a week they release a 30 minute show discussing everything from stars to relativity and black holes.

http://www.astronomycast.com/

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Also
If anyone has any information, factoids, or pictures, etc regarding Space, NASA, etc. Please send them to me:
crab555@aol.com

PS: If NASA is short some people for employment, I would be more than thrilled to join. (NASA please hire me)

I would just like to say:
I am 17 now, I joined the BIONIC program when I was 16. I have been very much interested in science ever since i was young.

I am ashamed to be apart of an age group that cares more about celebrities than humanity and human progress.

"I teach in the UK and the syllabus for 15/16 contains sections on astrobiology and the search for extraterrestrial life...but they are just not interested."

I WOULD LOVE TO TAKE THAT CLASS!!!!!!!!!

Don't give up on people my age and especially younger one. Get them attach at birth!

I teach in the UK and the syllabus for 15/16 contains sections on astrobiology and the search for extraterrestrial life...but they are just not interested. Along with the problems that whole subject of physics is up against in the education system (which I am not going to go into here), how can NASA hope to compete with Stargate, Alien, Battlestar Galactica..etc? A 20 minute video presented by funny looking beardy men talking about their telescopes and the different sorts of electromagnetic signals from outer space just doesn't cut it. :-)

Forget about the sci-fi shows......
When you've got teens who're so obsessed with life on TV(reality TV, that is) why would would they be interested in some slime mold from another planet ;-??

A short attention span and the inabilty to look beyond the latest 15 minute celebrity wonder and you have the reason for the problem....

That said, although I'm not a teen, I'm looking forward to this year's Celebrity Big Brother.......Ha!
Simply because with all the press coverage, it's going to be difficult to ignore.....
(So sorry, for going OT.....)

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This is really pathetic.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/space/12/28/space.youth.apathy.ap/index.html

[quote]CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (AP) -- Young Americans have high levels of apathy about NASA's new vision of sending astronauts back to the moon by 2017 and eventually on to Mars, recent surveys show.


"I am often amazed at how much more capability and enthusiasm for science there is among elementary school youngsters than among college students." - Carl Sagan

Part of the blame falls to NASA, who through either mismanagement or unforeseen factors has really dropped the ball on spaceflight. I think some of our youth will advance greatly and see space flight as a nesecarry challenge while the rest will "chose to degress". But, the one thing I am sure of is that for a minority of people that brave the harsh enviroment that technologial advancement is awaiting us out there.

I think that the class that you were in is a fairly representitive sample of 'youth' every where,and as for puting it at NASA's door I think some politicos also have to shoulder some of the blame after all haven't they been driving down NASA's budget for a long time now?

I agree, I really don't think NASA can be blamed for this. Speaking as a high school physics teacher the apathy towards the entire subject is more deep seated than this. You would think that the parts of the curriculum involving space travel or creation of the universe would spark interest in the most disenfranchised of pupils. I teach in the UK and the syllabus for 15/16 contains sections on astrobiology and the search for extraterrestrial life...but they are just not interested. Along with the problems that whole subject of physics is up against in the education system (which I am not going to go into here), how can NASA hope to compete with Stargate, Alien, Battlestar Galactica..etc? A 20 minute video presented by funny looking beardy men talking about their telescopes and the different sorts of electromagnetic signals from outer space just doesn't cut it. :-)

(Walla..only 20 students in your class!!?)

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Reality Internet Personality

This is really pathetic.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/space/12/28/space.youth.apathy.ap/index.html

[quote]CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (AP) -- Young Americans have high levels of apathy about NASA's new vision of sending astronauts back to the moon by 2017 and eventually on to Mars, recent surveys show.


"I am often amazed at how much more capability and enthusiasm for science there is among elementary school youngsters than among college students." - Carl Sagan

Part of the blame falls to NASA, who through either mismanagement or unforeseen factors has really dropped the ball on spaceflight. I think some of our youth will advance greatly and see space flight as a nesecarry challenge while the rest will "chose to degress". But, the one thing I am sure of is that for a minority of people that brave the harsh enviroment that technologial advancement is awaiting us out there.

I think that the class that you were in is a fairly representitive sample of 'youth' every where,and as for puting it at NASA's door I think some politicos also have to shoulder some of the blame after all haven't they been driving down NASA's budget for a long time now?

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Old enough to know better(but)still young enough not to care

This is really pathetic.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/space/12/28/space.youth.apathy.ap/index.html

[quote]CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (AP) -- Young Americans have high levels of apathy about NASA's new vision of sending astronauts back to the moon by 2017 and eventually on to Mars, recent surveys show.


"I am often amazed at how much more capability and enthusiasm for science there is among elementary school youngsters than among college students." - Carl Sagan

Part of the blame falls to NASA, who through either mismanagement or unforeseen factors has really dropped the ball on spaceflight. I think some of our youth will advance greatly and see space flight as a nesecarry challenge while the rest will "chose to degress". But, the one thing I am sure of is that for a minority of people that brave the harsh enviroment that technologial advancement is awaiting us out there.

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Most humbly.

This is really pathetic.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/space/12/28/space.youth.apathy.ap/index.html

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (AP) -- Young Americans have high levels of apathy about NASA's new vision of sending astronauts back to the moon by 2017 and eventually on to Mars, recent surveys show.

Concerned about this lack of interest, NASA's image-makers are taking a hard look at how to win over the young generation -- media-saturated teens and 20-somethings growing up on YouTube and Google and largely indifferent to manned space flight.

"If you're going to do a space exploration program that lasts 40 years, if you just do the math, those are the guys that are going to carry the tax burden," said Mary Lynne Dittmar, president of a Houston company that surveyed young people about the space program.

The 2004 and 2006 surveys by Dittmar Associates Inc. revealed high levels of indifference among 18- to 25-year-olds toward manned trips to the moon and Mars.

The space shuttle program is slated to end in 2010 after construction of the international space station is completed with 13 more shuttle flights. The recent 13-day mission by Discovery's seven astronauts was part of that long-running construction job. (Full story)

When the shuttles are retired they will be replaced by the Orion spacecraft, which NASA hopes takes humans back to the moon and then on to Mars.

Even though the Dittmar surveys offer a bleak view, NASA Administrator Michael Griffin believes ventures to the moon and Mars will excite young people more than the current shuttle trips to low-Earth orbit.

"If we make it clear that the focus of the United States space program for the foreseeable future will be out there, will be beyond what we do now, I think you won't have any problem at all reacquiring the interest of young people," Griffin said in a recent interview.

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 as podcasts and YouTube; enlisting support from celebrities, like 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.

Outside groups have offered ideas too, such as making it a priority to shape the right message about the next-generation Orion missions.

And NASA should take a hint from Hollywood, some suggested.

"The American public engages with issues through people, personalities, celebrities, whatever," said George Whitesides, executive director of the National Space Society, a space advocacy group. "When you don't have that kind of personality, or face, or faces associated with your issue, it's a little bit harder for the public to connect."

He said the agency could pick the crews for the moon and Mars trips earlier so the public can connect the faces with the far-off missions of the future.

"You can take advantage of these personalities and these stories about triumph over adversity to create heroes, if you will," said workshop leader Peggy Finarelli, a former NASA official who is now a researcher at George Mason University.

But embracing YouTube is no guarantee that NASA will get the results it wants.

Ali Kuwait, 19, who is studying civil engineering at Brevard Community College, said he recently watched a clip on YouTube that made a convincing case that NASA's moon landings between 1969 and 1972 were faked.

Repeating an old myth that NASA has not been able to kill, Kuwait said: "The moon thing was not real."

Take my high school physics class for example. As an intro to a chapter we did last month on gravitation and planetary motion (which was really cool by the way) we watched an episode of The Cosmos. The majority of the class fell asleep or did other homework. The ones who did watch thought that it was incredibly boring. There were only 3 people including me who enjoyed the video out of a class of about 20 students.

"I am often amazed at how much more capability and enthusiasm for science there is among elementary school youngsters than among college students." - Carl Sagan

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