'Glen-mania' short-lived

That is, until the Challenger accident.

The idea of sending a teacher into space was a dream come true for Reagan's speech-writers and NASA's public relations people. That dream quickly dissolved in a haze of smoke and flame as the accident burned into a generation's memory.

Like many Americans, my interest in the space program fizzled in the years following the accident. Americans began to question whether the space program was really worth it, financially and otherwise.

But now the space program is back with a tornado of hype. By the time you read this, All-American Golden Boy John Glenn will be orbiting high above the earth, chomping on Metamucil wafers and reminiscing about the old days.

Whereas the media has hardly blinked an eye for most of the space shuttle's 94 previous missions, thousands of reporters descended upon Cape Canaveral for last Thursday's launch. Endless specials on CNN and the History Channel have flooded the airwaves over the past few weeks.

Again, a dream come true for NASA's public relations. What do you do when nobody cares about sending a 20-year-old vehicle into space? Why, just throw an all-American hero aboard and watch the magic happen.

Science is not fueled by the quest for knowledge, but the need for money. NASA is a government administration and must compete for tax dollars. Like many scientists, the people at NASA live and die by grant money.

To get that vital grant money, they must prove the worthiness of their work to Congress, and more importantly, to the American people. How brilliant of NASA to send the hero of the baby-boom generation into space to study the medical issues on the boomers' horizon.

And what of Glenn's usefulness as a guinea pig for aging research?

Two weeks ago, NASA quietly announced that Sen. Glenn had been scrubbed from one of the mission's experiments because he wasn't in good enough physical condition. They conveniently waited until the nation was swept up by Glenn-mania to mumble this piece of information. Amid all the hype and hoopla of Glenn's flight, there is hardly any mention of 62-year-old Story Musgrave, who, despite being a more experienced and more healthy astronaut, was dropped from the space program.

I guess it would have been kind of hard to sell Story Musgrave plates on QVC.

Oh, sure, it does sound like a bit of conspiracy-hungry thinking. But in order to justify the spending of hundreds of millions of dollars, NASA must sell itself to America.

These days, the space program is uninspiring, and fails to catch America's attention. The average American can hardly get excited about endless shuttle launches with experiments on rats as the highlight.

Save perhaps the Mars Pathfinder mission (which worked out quite conveniently for Nissan), NASA has failed to capture the public's attention the way it once did.

While mission STS-95 has jump-started Americans' interest in the space program, it is doubtful that excitement will last very long and the other astronauts will be footnotes in history, merely passengers on the "Glenn Shuttle."

But one day, the commemorative plates will have collected dust, and the John Glenn dolls, particularly the Sen. Glenn variety, will be quickly replaced by the newest action figure based on a cartoon show.

People will again start to wonder why exactly their tax dollars are being send putting rats into orbit rather than feeding the homeless and curing diseases. Public support for NASA will once again dry up, amid complaints of wasted money.

But when that time comes, we can always shoot Sally Ride into space again.

Ryan Chirnomas is a molecular and cellular biology senior and can be reached via e-mail at Ryan.Chirnomas@wildcat.arizona.edu.