As someone who has spent the last 5+ years involved in science and astronomy outreach, I am often surprised at some of the questions or comments I get – either because it’s something I assume people know about already, or it’s just plain weird. Here’s just a sample:

“Have you ever been in space?”

“Can you see aliens with your telescope?”

“Is the Moon really made of cheese?”

“But the Earth is only 6000 years old – how can those craters be older than that?”

“I was watching this TV show on the Discovery Channel…” (insert misinterpretation here).

I’ll admit that I have gotten pretty darn good at answering these, and do so with a smile on my face. It makes me happy to be able to clear up misconceptions, especially with children. That’s half the fun of science outreach!

However, the question that I get the most (and I’m sure many scientists agree) is:

“That’s really cool! But what does it matter to me? What can you do with that?”

Well – those are really good questions, and fair ones too. Seriously.

You see, the thing about astronomy is that everyone is interested in it in some capacity. Who hasn’t looked up at the night sky and wondered about the stars or what (or who) else is out there? It’s a wonderful thing, because we can use astronomy to get the public interested and educated about science in general.

The down side is that many people don’t see how astronomy is relevant to our society, or to them personally. In this time of economic crisis, I’ve even had people get upset with me because we are “spending billions of dollars to go to Mars, but aren’t doing anything about our own planet.” (the response to that statement warrants a whole other post).

I usually try three basic tactics to answer these types of questions: the look-at-the-amazing-technology-we-have-now tactic (LATWHN), the you-can’t-beat-that-logic tactic (YCBTL), and the because-it’s-cool tactic (BIC). Usually one, or a combination, will satisfy.

The LATWHN tactic describes the technology we have, and use on a daily basis, because of astronomy. That TV you watch wouldn’t be here if Galileo didn’t invent his telescope 400 years ago! GPS and satellites? Those exist because we have studied orbital dynamics in the solar system! Your digital camera is based on CCD technology developed for telescopes! Not convinced? Here’s a whole list of other inventions that were spin offs from space programs! — you get the picture.

YCBTL is a good one too, because it utilizes some scare tactics, which seem to work well for the news networks. Ever hear of UV rays from the Sun? We know the Sun affects the climate on Earth – but we have to study it, and other stars, to better understand how it will evolve over time. What about killer asteroids or comets? We need to study the motions of the planets and other objects in our solar system if we are to ever stand a chance!

The BIC tactic is a little more for the pure of heart – it tugs at the human need to know about the world around us. Wouldn’t it be cool if you or I could be the person who finds a new comet? water on Mars? an Earth-like planet? aliens? We are meant to inquire, to research, to explore – without that, what makes us different than any other living thing on the planet? Humans have been studying the sky for millennia – it allows us to study the origin of the universe and life on our planet.

Sometimes none of these work, and in those cases I just shrug and say, I’ve heard some astronomers went to work on the stock market…