GLENN IN OUTER SPACE: A GIMMICK TO LOOK UP TO; WHEN HE SHOULD BE AT HOME ENJOYING THE GRANDKIDS, NASA IS SHOVING HIM BACK INTO THE FRAY TO CONDUCT EXPERIMENTS ON ``SPACE AND THE AGING PROCESS''.

Byline: Wendy Dager

WHEN is a gimmick not a gimmick?

Never.

A gimmick is something people use to get the attention of others.

Forget, for a moment, the implication that a gimmick is dishonest. There have been a lot of genuine - if not mercenary - ways to attract attention, generate controversy, create icons, even sell books.

For example, it is a gimmick for large publishing houses to pay well-known actors millions of dollars to write their autobiographies while struggling midlist writers have to keep their day jobs - even if their novels sell. That's because it's the big names that bring in the big dollars.

Making movies based on television shows of the '70s is gimmicky. It plays on baby boomers' nostalgic pining for blurry childhood memories, even though there have to be better scripts out there than ``The Brady Bunch Goes to Hawaii - Again.''

Sending television reporters to restaurants as faux health inspectors is a ratings-increase gimmick. Selling cheesehead hats on the street corner is gimmicky. Giving dogs makeovers on talk shows is a gimmick, like dancing bears, talking horses and teaching apes sign language. There is entertainment value, sure, and animal rights issues to be addressed, maybe, but folks who implement gimmicks always have ulterior motives. Whether it is making money, winning sweeps week or evoking sympathy.

Stuffing 76-year-old John Glenn in a rocket and hurling him into outer space is a big, fat, expensive gimmick.

And it plays on much more than nostalgia.

Nearly 40 years ago, Glenn went for a three-orbit ride into the history books. As the first American to orbit Earth in 1962, his pioneering achievement made him a darling of the United States.

All-American boy, freckle-faced, clean-cut, born right in the heartland of Ohio. Former Marine who saw combat in World War II and Korea, flight instructor, jet fighter test pilot, astronaut, then cola company executive and, finally, senator.

Just when he should be at home enjoying the grandkids, NASA is shoving him back into the fray to conduct experiments on ``space and the aging process.''

Oh, come on.

While no one is against advances in the space program, let's call it what it is, shall we?

What's the real reason we're sending a senior citizen - albeit one in damn good physical and mental shape - into oblivion?

It's because kids don't want to be astronauts anymore.

Nope, they want to be Michael Jordan. They want to be Dennis Rodman. They want to be Brad Pitt. Not that sports stars and actors aren't somewhat heroic in their own, highly profitable, name-a-shoe-after-me way. But parents are seeking heroes like the ones they had as children. When, as the story went, anyone could grow up to be president. All it took then was patriotism, deep red blood, a good education and the desire to succeed.

The truth is, the space race is slowing. It needs a boost. And it's getting it with John Glenn, American hero.

Hollywood uses this gimmick from time to time. Tom Hanks did it with ``Apollo 13.'' Jodie Foster did it, to a lesser degree, with ``Contact.'' These types of films renew interest in the space program, but that interest eventually wanes as the movies leave the theaters and hit the video stores.

So NASA took it upon their genius selves to come up with something new. A gimmick for the next millennium.

Let's get the oldest guy we can find, they said, someone who used to be an astronaut - someone who is still a hero to many of us - and stick him into space. Maybe, just maybe, we'll have kids saying they want to be astronauts again.

And for the sake of our nation's children, I hope it's one gimmick that works.