Therumancer said:
The whole issue with less and less people wanting to go into careers featuring the skills they are referring to as "STEM" related is a debatable one. I've oftentimes criticized a lot of the studies that have talked about Americans and our poor academic performance, especially competitively. Most such studies are usually slanted on a number of levels.
While hardly a case study, at my current university (The University of Texas), the college of Natural Sciences (which includes biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics, computer science and...fashion design) is the largest on the campus, beating out even the College of Business. The College of Engineering on the other hand is one of the smallest.
As a result, I know plenty of people who pursue science with a fervor that only a passion could inspire and yet not one of them aspires to work for NASA. And, as you pointed out later in this post, why would they? One may not become rich by being an engineer, but one will command a far more impressive salary in the private sector than the public. Just as important, it's not as though these people will be behind the curve in any sense as the private sector drives technology forward at least as regularly as any space program of late.
While at one point I certainly wanted to work for NASA, the dream eventually died when I realized the odds of being one of the lucky few to ever be shot into space was so remote as to be effectively non-existent. More people win the lottery jackpot in my state than have been into space. Eventually, after a particular sour experience, I swore off the public sector for good and resolved to never again try to do anything important and took up Computer Science instead.