Remember that public interest waned towards the end of the Apollo program. By then going to space. even the moon, had become routine (even if it wasn't from an engineering perspective).
How many people in this forum can name 5 modern day astronauts? How about 3? Oh, and Hadfield doesn't count. Sadly, this is just the way things are.
Raise your kids to look up to scientists, and not athletes, (some) musicians, or actors. I'm not saying the latter 3 are worthless to society, but they aren't going to solve the problems facing the world today. They can help you raise awareness, so maybe a partnership between them would be worth pursuing.
I'm doing my part. My 13 year old daughter loves math above all else and asks to visit KSC (rather than me needing to drag her there. She still has her interests in pop culture, but she knows that it isn't the center of the universe.
I never could understand how we were able to go from nothing to the moon in just a few years. Then in the decades since we have not sent human beings further than in orbit around the Earth.
Oh sure, I have heard plenty of reasons like 'robots make more sense' and such. In the 60s it was not about what would make the most sense or we would have done more with something like the Surveror line than the Apollos ..... like the Russian space program did with their lunar unmanned flights.
We sent Apollos vs robots for one reason: to inspire. Why the powers-that-be think we do not need inspiration anymore is beyond me.
