Some of my best childhood memories
My dad set up a satellite dish, and we hooked into (legally!) the JPL feed when Voyager passed jupiter (or was it saturn?).
We all would gather around the tube at night and watch the pictures slowly build, line by line. We made some videotapes too.
There I was, out in the middle of nowhere in Oklahoma, watching jupiter on my TV. I may not have been alive to see the moon landing, but voyager was my Niel Armstrong...
So when folks pile on NASA... I largely agree with them, but we must remember, NASA *is* doing rocket science and exploring the outer planets...