A new poll conducted for CBS News and the New York Times suggests that a large fraction of the American public shows little interest, if not is outright opposed, to the new Bush space initiative. A few items from the poll results (go to pages 33 and 34 for the space-related questions):
- 40 percent think the US is spending too much on space, the highest figure in four such polls dating back to 1998;
- 48 percent favor a human mission to Mars, and 47 percent oppose it (a similar figure to a recent AP poll, and lower than in past polls)
- 58 percent think it is not worth “the costs and the risks” to build a permanent base on the Moon.
These results suggest that the Administration and NASA have an uphill battle to sell this plan.
Which sort of leads to the question- why should they expend any money or effort to sell the public a plan which most people apparently do not want? Perhaps they ought to reconsider the plan.
I seem to recall that the poll numbers were not all that dissimilar for the Apollo program in the 1960s. I think the key reason for this is the disgraceful lack of attention the media gives to spave exploration. I also seem to recall that the poll numbers supporting space exploration went up substantially during John Glenn’s return flight back in 1998- which caused nothing expect increased media attention.