Rand Simberg wrote:
On 10 Nov 2005 13:12:06 -0800, in a place far, far away,
" made the
phosphor on my monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:


snidely wrote:

No, no, Scott -- this is the core of what you have wrong. The public
doesn't care a fig about HERO-ASTRONAUTS unless there is a hint of
blood and gore (a bit like NASCAR). What VG, XCOR, Bigelow are selling
is PERSONAL SPACE TRAVEL, and quite a few more people are interested in
that.


Here's your problem: the public tends to identify more with astronauts
than bajillionaires.

What difference does it make whether or not the public identifies with
bajillionaires?

Simple: the claim here was that people don't care about astronauts,
they care about "personal space travel." "PST" is all about
bajillionaires, and will be for a while. But astronauts... people like.