Clearly Goldin does not know how to connect with the younger generation...
Unfortunately, we all get old, no matter what we do to try and hold off time...

Like I said, I'm looking for solutions, not insults. Phil, how would you connect with the younger generation?

Plain fact is that the kids have seen Mars four times now, once through Mariner, twice through Viking, and once through Pathfinder. If Mars Polar Lander had of worked they would have seen it five times, and what they would have seen would have been the same thing, with variations...

Is Mars interesting? Yes. I think that you could do Mars rovers on a commercial basis, at least for a good while - maybe 10 to 15 years.

Is Mars interesting enough to spend the money to send people there? No: you can't live there, at least not now.
That's why the space race ended, and that's why you've had the reduction since 1964 in NASA and the general loss of public interest in space.

Part of my solution to this would be video games - fly over Mars, the Moon, Io, or anyplace else on your Playstation 2.

Another part of my solution, a part I've been working on recently, lies in science fiction which shows space developed in real terms: not Starwars, not StarTrek, just real space with real technology.

Remember, at the same time, we have is a very, very serious problem with impactors, one which I think is likely to be declared "vital" shortly, with very little public awareness at this time. So another part of my solution would be to nominate Gene Shoemaker's workmate and Apollo Moon walker Harrison "Jack" Schmitt for NASA Administrator. (Schmitt is "hip" enough to bridge the generation gap; Musgrave is not.)

After ten years, Goldin deserves a break and time for himself and his family - but no one is going to take the job unless this constant cr*p slinging stops. So another part of my solution is to stop it.

If you read Goldin's quote, he set out the problem: the need to connect with the younger generation. Agreed the solution the team came up with was lame, so then,

What would Phil do?

EP