There wasn’t too much media reaction to the USA Today/Gallup Poll results on support for NASA and the shuttle program (the document is now behind a subscriber firewall; see this earlier summary of the poll results.) One outlet that did cover it was WILX-TV of Lansing, Michigan, although one might wish they hadn’t, since they didn’t appear to properly interpret the results:
This weekend’s planned shuttle launch comes as a poll shows Americans are split when it comes to whether we’re spending enough — or too much on the space program.
[…]
“To continue to learn more, to continue to advance the frontiers of our nation,” Donald Knox of Lansing said Saturday.
Knox sees the issue as roughly 48 percent Americans do: We should continue spending as much as we do on NASA. The result is part of a Gallup Poll released this week.
“Science research is critical to the success of our nation,” Knox said.
Mary Nisbet represents the other 48 percent.
“The home front is in crisis. Our home front is here on this planet at this moment. That’s where we should be spending our time, money and energy,” Nisbet said Saturday in downtown East Lansing.
People like Nisbet see other ways we could be spending the money. And the spending is significant.
The problem is that while 48 percent of the poll respondents indeed thought that NASA should be funded at its current levels, it doesn’t mean “the other 48 percent” want less spending for NASA: according to the poll results 17 percent wanted more money for NASA, and only 28 percent wanted less money.
WILX-TV might have confused the funding question with the space shuttle question, where 48 percent thought that the shuttle program (not the agency as a whole) was worth the money, while 48 percent thought the money would be better spent in some other way (although whether that money would be spent on other NASA programs, or outside the agency, was never specified.) Such subtleties, it seems, don’t translate well to local television.
