[I'm referring to the MAJORITY of taxpayers, numbered in the TENS of MILLIONS. Sorry, you don't count if you're a highly educated, dedicated spacefan. You're only a TINY MINORITY...
See how many members belong to Planetary Society, NSS, HZ and compare those numbers
with say 200,000,000 TAaxpayers. No comparison, huh?

What the AVERAGE taxpayer wants from his or her space program.

(1) He or she wants to see his or her space program deliver EYE CANDY, lots and lots of EYE CANDY.
That's why HST has been so popular over the past 10-12 years.

(2) The average taxpayer wants their space program to have pizzazz, flash.
They want their space program to be sexy. Unmanned space programs
suffer from lack of such.

(3) The average Joe or Jane taxpayer wants their space program to deliver ADVENTURE...
and, yes, deadly PERIL [Hey! Humanity is not much removed from the Ancient Roman
crowds at a Gladiator contest; check the vicarious blood and gore on recent video games]....
Newspaper owners have known for DECADES that death, deadly peril, and potential or
actual bad news sells newspapers [BAD NEWS , OR PERIL SELLS!]

No robotic mission could deliver such blood and guts peril, pizzazz, or seat-of-your pants tension [Are they going to land? Or crash and die?]. Only a MANNED SPACE MISSION can deliver such
nail-biting, death-defying...danger and excitement.

(4) The average taxpayer wants excitement....excitement...excitement...They can't stand
boring space missions; the taxpayers will deny those projects M-O-N-E-Y that bore them to tears.
[NOTE TO NICK HOFFMAN: The average taxpayer doesn't give a shit about geology or geophysics, unless it involves some humongous volcanic explosion or earthquake. So the average
taxpayer gets bored very easily seeing spacecraft images containing rocks and rocks and more rocks. The average taxpayer would rather see his tax money - spent elsewhere, than on
space-mission geology, geo-imagery or interplanetary geophysics....]

(5) The average taxpayer, if they express any interest in unmanned planetary missions,
it is because of one word: L-I-F-E. They couldn't care less about seeing more rocks or chunks of icy real estate, the average TAXPAYER WANTS to see spacecraft to search for and find evidence of ET. They're not interested in ET microrganisms either - they want to see evidence
of some naked eye specimens crawl, fly, walk or swim into some JPL camera's view.
If you think the average [THE MAJORITY] of taxpayers think otherwise, you need a serious reality check.

[NOTE TO GARY: However much you [and your coworkers] despise or want to crucify Carl Sagan, at least he had the instincts to know what MILLIONS of taxpayers wanted from their unmanned space programs, and from a deepspace manned program [Mars]. Don't you remember how popular his TV series COSMOS was?...Were all those watching that program geeks, or students or spacefans [a tiny part of the taxpayer populace]?
What would you do without those TENS of MILLIONS of taxpayers, Gary? You know the ones?
The ones who are usually scientifically illiterate, easily bored, seeking instant gratification, with short attention spans?] They're your bread and butter, Gary. They pay your bills.
When they ask you to sit. You sit! When they ask you to jump. You say, how high?]