[CmdrShep2154 (OP)]

I remember thinking space was cool during the Summer before my first year of college but sadly during college that interest largely died out.

I remember during the 2010s during my college years the only thing I cared about were German made cars, nice vacations, and getting a cushy office job. I was obsessed with "Organic Food" from places like "Trader Joe's" and "Whole Foods" because I wanted to give a middle finger to right wing corporations like Walmart.

I viewed "Frat Bros" and professional athletes as the coolest people ever.

Then 2020 happens and during the quarantine of 2020 I check out Apple TV out of boredom as well as curiosity and one show on there awakens something inside of me.

After finishing that season I picked up any book, movie, or TV show about space exploration and astronauts I could find.

I end up experiencing movies like "First Man", "The Right Stuff", "Hidden Figures", "Gravity", "Interstellar", and "The Martian" for the first time.

I wish I could have experienced these movies earlier but sadly back then only Marvel and Star Wars interested me.

Also the history of space became much more interesting as I dug deeper. I didn't know Apollo 1 was a disaster that killed the whole crew. I didn't know Neil Armstrong and David Scott almost died on Gemini 8. I didn't know Apollo 12 was struck by lightning. I didn't know the Soviet Union tried to develop a rocket to put people on the Moon but exploded on every test flight called the N1.

Perhaps if people knew this there would be far less people who believed the Moon landings didn't happen.

I was on the West Coast when the heatwaves happened and I went from not caring about climate change to thinking about it more often.

Can the space program help inspire people to become supportive of other science or has the evolution of my beliefs been due to other things besides the revival of the space program and a TV show?

It also helped that the news source I was following for space also covered other science.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/03/as-kenyas-crops-fail-a-fight-over-gmo-rages/ [nofollow]

Now I have became very supportive of "GMOs" and nuclear power.

I also think astronauts, scientists, and engineers are the coolest people.

Looking back I am embarrassed that I became so vapid.

[Eternal Student]

Hi  and welcome.

    A lot of us are cautious over first posts because there are a lot of instances where things just become advertising.
However, your post looks interesting and looks like you've put some time into it rather than just copying some text from somewhere.

Can the space program help inspire people to become supportive of other science or has the evolution of my beliefs been due to other things besides the revival of the space program and a TV show?

    Obviously, I don't know what caused your interest in science better than you would know yourself.
A lot of people are interested in space and the science fiction genre for books and TV shows usually attracts a big audience.   I'm reasonably certain this stirs some interest in science among many people quite often.

Looking back I am embarrassed.....

   It's less important what you did some years ago and perfectly fine to acquire or re-acquire an interest in science now.

Best Wishes.

[Zer0]

@Cmdr

Welcome Back!
It's been a very very long time.
Still, better Late than Never!

I've come across similar feelings from other individuals specifically after the pandemic lockdowns.

Perhaps what it did was make Us pause the rat race for awhile, n gave Us time to look up at the skies.

Many that i know personally would want to switch fields to hard sciences, but are constrained by the want of daily chores & need of earning bread n butter for their families.

ps - the woods, were always, too dark too deep.
& i had mouths to feed & promises to keep.