Defeating the Homers, Haters and Boomers

Defeating the Homers, Haters and Boomers by Bob Werb for the Space Frontier Foundation.

A friend of ours in DC describes the opposition to the proposed NASA budget as the “homers, haters and boomers.” The homers want as much federal spending as possible in their home state or district. The haters reflexively oppose anything at all that comes out of an Administration they despise. The boomers are nostalgic for the 60s and want to recreate the imagined glories of Apollo. Some of our most vigorous opponents affiliate with two, or even three of these disjointed fellowships (as do many on the other side.)

But the real enemy of progress in civil space is a dramatically more insidious opponent that infects the body politic, an adversary so sinister and commonplace that we have come to take it for granted, the corrosive background noise of democracy. Our real enemy is apathy.