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We do hear from people who either just aren't interested in traveling
to the moon or anywhere else. We don't understand why someone
who isn't interested in the moon would invest time looking around the
Artemis Project web site or listening to presentations at space
conferences; but they do, so you will eventually run into someone who
will complain that nobody wants to do this.
The only answer we can provide here is to remind the plaintiff that others aren't under any obligation to share the same interests. While it's certainly true that public interest in government-sponsored space programs has continued to wane since the peak of the Apollo program, we cannot say the same for opportunities for people to travel in space themselves.
Today, we have no history of market statistics because the market simply doesn't exist. If you are not one of the chosen few government astronauts or cosmonauts, you can't go. NASA gets 1500 applicants for every astronaut they hire, so we can see that there is a tremendous interest in those jobs. We assume, without any statistics to back us up, that most astronaut applicants are motived by the adventure of space flight, and would be very interested in other opportunities for space travel.
We can reasonably attribute waning public interest in space as a spectator event to the necessary lackluster presentation of government-sponsored space programs. At best, the government can offer up heroes to be admired and worshipped by the public. Once in a while, that plays well as a political motivation for flying people in space.
Unfortunately, this alienates the public at large from the experience, reinforcing the idea that space is the domain solely of artificially created heroes. While one can admire heroes, it is very difficult to share their experience, either in person or vicariously. Heroes satisfy a human need for symbols and icons, but they don't make for a very good story. Artificially created heroes who don't really do anything to create their own adventures are even more difficult to sell because they don't return any real value, or even promise of value, to the personal lives of the people in the audience.
Over the years, hundreds of polls been conducted about people's interest in space. In all those polls, we see a tremendous interest in space flight among the people of the world. The majority yearn to go themselves, and would be willing to spend a large percentage of their personal wealth on the experience.
We can also reasonably conclude that everyone is interested in a good story. Evidence for this dates back farther than recorded human history. The challenge is assuring that when we present our endeavors for the conquest on the moon to the public, we tell a good story. With the entire future of the human species at stake and the incredible promise of the realm beyond the sky, we're sure there's a good story in here somewhere!
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