One good thing I’m seeing is teenagers talking about this stuff with some actual interest. My 19 year old nephew was posting about this on his facebook page talking about how cool it is and he’s not a science geek like me.
One thing that I believe did some harm to me, and perhaps my generation to some extent is that I was a young child during the early 80s. I was 4 or 5 years old, the Shuttle program, or even space exploration itself hadn't been around terribly long, but to me it always was. It unfortunately trivialized it to me somewhat. Not until my older years did I realize how totally remarkable going to the Moon was, and I began to truly appreciate it all. I would have loved to been around during the 60s and seen all of the early space exploration literally as it happened. Those had to be some remarkably exciting times like no other.
Science is awesome!