Mailer Says Piety Dulls Moon Appeal SAN FRANCISCO -- (AP) Jan 31, 1971 Author Norman Mailer says Americans are about as interested in Sunday's Apollo 14 moonshot "as a border war in Bolivia." And he says it's a shame.        The 47-year-old Pulitzer Prize winner blamed the public image projected by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.        He said Friday the astronauts are "tough men --- daredevils" but when they go to work for the space program "suddenly they have to be priests."        "If they were presented to the public as the swashbuckling guys they are, they would be more interesting. We don't present football players as saints ... You're asking this country to love saints and Americans are not noted for that," he said.        Speaking of the Apollo 11 mission, the first to land on the moon, Mailer said NASA "succeeded in making the most transcendental event of the 20th century boring."        He called NASA's public relations approach "incredibly parochial" and said that "unless they get someone like Joe Namath as an astronaut, they're in terrible trouble."        The flamboyant author spoke at a press conference at the Fairmont Hotel promoting his new book, "Of a Fire on the Moon," which he said describes "the moral and spiritual complexities of traveling in space."        Mailer said the astronauts are "heroic men" but are heroes only to kids. "That's because kids don't have to put up with the damn dialogue," he explained. ###