Why did society lose interest in space and sci fi in the early 2010s?

It seems like from 2010 to 2015 ever since BSG ended there was not one single thing on TV with space travel in it.

Passionate sci fi fans were very vocal about it.

https://practicalfreespirit.com/2011/09/06/to-infinity-and-beyond/

https://www.impossiblepodcasts.com/2012/02/rayguns-and-rocket-ships-can-books-save.html?spref=tw

https://ricochet.com/226027/archives/the-death-of-the-space-opera/

https://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2012/06/mind-meld-has-space-opera-lost-its-luster/

https://gizmodo.com/why-we-need-more-space-adventures-5837047

Around the same time a speech by Neil Degrasse Tyson was circulating throughout the internet.


Were 9/11, the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, and 2008 financial crisis the three strikes or final nails in the coffin that killed 90s optimism?

 

Welcome to the forums, fellow Guru.

*ninja edit: Isn't Neil deGrasse Tyson under investigation for sexual misconduct allegations?

 

I think scifi is alive and well although the shows are different from their 90s and 2000s counterparts. Expanse, 3 Star Trek shows and some others are well received. I have my reservations to many aspects of newer TV shows but I will take what I can get.
Oh by the way, I didn't like BSG at all.
Atm, I'm re-watching SG-1.

 

Wow. That takes some guts to say. You have my respect sir/madam.

Not often I meet someone willing to forgo all future relationships with other human beings for the rest of their lives by admitting such sacrilegious utterances.

Next you will be telling someone who has not seen The Empire Strikes Back who Luke Skywalkers father is, or, who/which character framed Roger Rabbit.

Kudos to you, for having the guts.

I think I am in shock. I need to go for a walk in the woods after that.

 

I have no idea what you just said.

 

Didnt like BSG either. Any Sci-fi flick or series that is toned down for family viewing with orchestral music to whip up excitement is just not for me. Sort of sci-fi I like has to be tense, quiet, atmospheric with little to no music to influence moods and shocking at unexpected moments. And of course R rated to allow full natural expressions of actors and gore when need be and no mercy shown to women or kids when something horrible is about to happen. The universe can be an unforgiving place and that must be reflected in film for realism.

 

You're not alone. I found BSG to be a bore.

 

I still like space movies!

 

BSG had awful scenes like that too.

Yea I didn't like it for its cliches, repetitiveness and filling too much screen time with sex scenes and you're cylon arguments.

Space dogs were real so you are not far off.

 

The space race biggest drive was the Cold War. Developing the technology for rockets to go to space is similar same as to build ICBMs.
And making space rockets to go to space is more palatable, than making rockets to nuke the whole world, several times over.
Also, with satellites, it's easier to spy on the enemy's territory.
With the end of the Cold War and with most of the necessary tech developed, the need to invest in the area greatly diminished.
And with o new advancements in maned space exploration, this cultural zeitgeist just died.
Maybe if we go to Mars, with a maned crew, this passion for space and sci fi, will make a big come back.

 

Don't you fancy Elon's dream ?

 

It's a great question

I am guessing it#s a combination of a huge number of factors. For the majority of use the big marker and influence when it comes to Sci-fi would be Star Trek a show that for the most part aired during a time of great political strife between the East and the West and this was reflected in Star Trek not only in it's utopian view of the future and space but also in the way that characters dealt with the situations. It gave everyone a view of space travel that was as easy as getting in your car and heading to the job and masked the realities of just how truly dangerous space was. Even later shows such as B5 and BSG never really dealt with the true potential danger that space itself posed or just how difficult it is for us to survive in it instead opting to deal with a more tangible threat to the protagonists of those shows. All of the shows had the same underlying theme that space was just a very easy place to travel through and it didn;t really matter weather it was the gritty and more 'ground' representations shown in BSG and B5 or the Utopian version shown in Star Trek. While this was all going on we were still launching folk in to space, NASA was still a thing we had the Space Shuttle and despite public interest in space in general starting to show signs of waning their was still that slim hope that it could one day be possible and this only became more likely as we started to see technologies that were nothing but a dream in shows like Star Trek becoming an actual reality; advanced computer technologies, communications devices, gps guidance systems. Technologies that were fantasy and from the world of a Utopian Sci-fi now becoming a reality.

From the late 90s onwards a good number of things changed.

The end of the cold war saw the focus on the great space race end, this was only reinforced by a number of factors such as the death of nuclear rocket programs (due to funding cuts) disasters such as Columbia and the fact it exploded with a civilian and not a trained astronaut on board brought home the reality that space travel was never going to be as easy as sci-fi had made out and that the reality, the true harsh reality was that the chances of use getting to Mars let alone to the worlds of other aliens were not just slim but beyond the realms of our understanding of physics. We had reached the limits of what our rocket technology could realistically do and with the advances in robotics, computers, ai and automated technologies it was far cheaper and easier to send probes to do the job that we had one day hoped man would do.

The general lose of interest in space both from a political and public view no doubt also brought about a lose in interest in programs and entertainment associated with it the fact that the general masses would rather watch a program in which ten vacuous nobodies spend 3 weeks trying to shag each other on an island is a great example of why sci-fi started to die. Sci-fi is generally considered to be a very pricey form of entertainment to produce. If the choice is between 30 different shows of stupid no bodies doing stupid stuff to each other in increasingly bizarre situations for the price of one sci-fi show then it's very easy to understand what will win. The exec just needs one of those 30 shows to be marginally successful to make a profit. I find it truly sad that 9 out of 10 people would rather Keep Up With A Kardashian than watch Picard Scream at a Cardassian.

That's a bit of a splurge of thought on the subject. I am sure their are far more complex reasons for the lose of interest but the main point everyone can take away from this is that I enjoyed BSG but thought the ending was utter arse!

There will be a marginal up tick in the interest but when the reality that we are never going to Mars starts to hit home you'll get a similar fall off in interest the Apollo missions suffered prior to them coming to their end.

 

Seriously though!, if I really wanted to go to outer space the first person I would call would be!



No s*it!....That Dude^

 

I think people like Scott Manley are making it "sexy" again.

 

Because science is not so cool anymore. And because of the same reasons so clearly @Horus-Anhur stated.

If anything, space is boring and it's not fun.
Better to debate on Twitter or other platform is the Earth is flat, to gain exposure, right?
Richard Dawkins, Carl Sagan or others have no followers, so where is the fun in that?
Yeah , maybe launching another lump of materials (a car) in space is more fun.
And being hip on social networks.

We so much forgive day in day out to look , really look up. There is something scary as heck to realise we are rather alone in the University, or not.
And also we long forgot to look down at about feet, to realise we are standing on a Earth we so much punished with all our garbage and stupid waste.

If anything, if aliens will abduct me tomorrow, I'll explain them that they are making me a favour !

 

Because an enormous amount of people don't even believe in science anymore. No funding for science/space programs means no advancement which then means no public interest because we're stuck at the same level for the next 20 years.

If you're just talking about TV shows, then I blame that on the rise of idiotic reality TV that people watch for hours on end.

 

Science wasn't supposed to be a religion or political position, which is the problem currently. When the CDC Director says that men can get be pregnant too, what's a rational adult supposed to say? 2+2=5?

 

Yes. We have to consider that most social media caters to the lowest common denominator, as a way to reach everyone.
If you complicate things, a lot of people won't understand it.
This mean that stupid crap gets promoted, while science and facts get constrained to a niche.

 

Me too. The sad part was when the Stargate series creators decided it was a good idea to go that route with the first season of SG:U. I mean they tried to fix it in the second season, but it was already too late and alienated their fanbase of the previous series. That show had potential if they hadn't tried to attract the BSG crowd.