OK
I'm not out to disparage ISS or doing science on it. To try and keep on point, I'm just saying that as an argument to get the public fired up behind a program of space exploration, it doesn't have much power. "No Buck Rogers, no bucks"...I think that the average non-space-cadet, non-science-buff will tune out arguments for science but be inspired by visions of exploration leading to eventual settlement. Especially Americans, with our core national mythology centered around carving a nation out of a "virgin wilderness". Our mythology offers two powerful archetypes, the Explorer and the Settler, ready-made for updating with a "have spacesuit, will travel" myth-riff campaign (apologies to Heinlein).