While some of us are concerned about water on Mars, the Great Space Race with China, and other mighty issues, the press seems to be quite concerned about astronauts in diapers and the latest boyfriend of Martha Stewart.I suppose this is to be expected in a country where reality TV is still the rage, but maybe it is not such a bad thing. The more the austronauts seem like the rest of us the more we can relate to them. Maybe we are not looking for super people anymore. And the expansion of commercial space represents the movement towards the regular folks reaching the heavens.
I was even surprised to recently read that the circulation of National Geographic (8.5 million) is more than twice that of People magazine (3.7 million). So maybe we like our gossip, but we also like our science (and by extension, our scientists).
