Over and over, we’ve seen masses flock to watch astronauts begin their journey into the heavens, even when all they can see of that titanic cataract of flame is just a tiny smudge of brightness on the horizon. Why is it that the one vital, visceral ritual of spaceflight open to the uninitiated public is so often reduced to little more than watching a single bead of light rise into the sky from a dozen miles away?
When hundreds of thousands of people show up to a launch to partake and share in the spectacle of sending humans and their robotic proxies on voyages to make the human world bigger than the Earth itself, they’ve come to join in a kind of social contract. These people are placing their trust in the engineers, scientists, and technicians, hoping that the resources they’ve entrusted are used wisely and in pursuit of worthy goals.
I think social media presence is something that could have been leveraged a bit better this time. JPL has a good record of that with such things as the Curiosity rover, and ESA had a really good media campaign for Rosetta.