Dolls in space

I can understand why Lego wanted to put these specially made aluminum Lego dolls on the mission to Jupiter, but it seems silly for NASA to have included this publicity stunt. In theory, this is designed to "inspire children to be interested in science, math, engineering and technology."

But it seems more likely to convince young people that space exploration isn't the brave new frontier of science, but a backwater looking for cheap PR stunts.  That's exactly what NASA doesn't need, particularly at the end of the expensive and relatively pointless (relative to the expenditures) shuttle and space station missions.

Heck, let's throw some more telescopes and robot explorers out there. Let's have nerdy looking robots doing real science as a way to get real potential scientists excited.