Take IBEX, for instance. Most people seem to havenot even noticed it. A couple of times I’ve even seen a news headling saying something along the lines of “Probe X lands successfully on Mars” — to which I stop and think “Hang on… I don’t remember hearing about that one.”

Everyone (especially in the news, it seems) gets so hung up on things going wrong sometimes, they forget to mention when things go right!

Steve A: you are correct about the weekly section– we used to call it the ‘Science ghetto’… as if science is so out of the mainstream that it needs its own page, totally ignoring how much a part of our lives science is…

I blame it on the fact that in school we had science class and english class and art class and for some reason never did science or art or language arts mix… when, indeed, they should have!

Not enough coverage – but certainly not zero as depicted.

I know the graph above is being silly, but I really would like to see a graph that seriously covers positive vs negative space news.

I guess what this graph really illustrates is that the negative news “sticks” more that the positive with the general public. If not, I don’t think any of us would find it funny.

There are mainstream media that does cover NASA news, but they are papers in areas where there is a NASA center, because that center means a lot to the lives of people in the area, and there you’ll see a lot more coverage. For instance, Florida Today, Orlando Sentinel, and Houston Chronicle all cover a day by day account of shuttle missions and any spacewalks.

Big science news does get coverage, but its not 100% definite, and mostly in a weekly section.

That’s why when ever I see a dumd post railing against NASA’s budget I ALWAYS respond by compairing the DOD annual budget to NASA’s. Thing is, I never seem to get a responce to those posts

Heck I even compaired the R&D budget of the DOD to NASA’s… R&D has about 10 times the annual for NASA.

MSM is not going to be your “go to place” for all things science — if you did that, you’d never get past UFOs in Texas and beached whales…

First is the myth that NASA’s budget is an exorbitantly large and growing slice of the federal pie. People make all kinds of claims without any seeming reference to actual budget numbers.

Second is the notion that, at least in terms of human spaceflight, NASA runs an independent shop. The reality is that the parameters of NASA human spaceflight mission have always been established by the White House. Kennedy directed NASA to go to the Moon. Bush directed NASA to go back. In between, the various occupants of the White House were essentially content with watching NASA run in circles.