IRENE: How many launches are there each day, Vincent? A dozen?
VINCENT: Sometimes more.
IRENE: You’re the only one that watches all of them. If you’re going to pretend like you don’t care, don’t look up.
— Uma Thurman (Irene) to Ethan Hawke (Vincent) in Gattaca (1997)
The Apollo 11 launch and Moon landing were extensively covered in the press. Over 53 million households tuned in to watch this mission on TV, and an estimated 650 million viewers worldwide watched the Moon landing.
The same was not true in 1972, as people were more interested in game shows than space missions. Space quickly became boring.
The same is true of the Space Shuttle program. With 134 launches (133 successes, 1 catastrophic failure resulting in death of all onboard) from 1972 to 2011, Americans and the world lost interest in going to space.
And the same is true of SpaceX. What is today’s novelty becomes tomorrow’s boredom. In Andrew Niccol’s GATTACA, he knew this lesson well, only the truly passionate “watches all of them. If you’re going to pretend like you don’t care, don’t look up.“
People have a limited attention span and care for the truly wonderous.