{"id":14515,"date":"2014-04-23T11:12:16","date_gmt":"2014-04-23T16:12:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/%year%\/%monthnum%\/%day%\/americans-keen-on-space-exploration-less-so-on-paying-for-it\/"},"modified":"2024-04-14T03:22:44","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T08:22:44","slug":"americans-keen-on-space-exploration-less-so-on-paying-for-it","status":"publish","type":"short-read","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/2014\/04\/23\/americans-keen-on-space-exploration-less-so-on-paying-for-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Americans keen on space exploration, less so on paying for it"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Many<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Apollo<\/a>
Charles “Pete” Conrad Jr. stands with U.S. flag on the lunar surface during the Apollo 12 mission, in 1969. Credit: NASA\/Reuters\/Corbis<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/figure>\n\n

Many Americans are optimistic about the future of space travel, but they don\u2019t necessarily want to pay for it.<\/p>\n\n

It’s been that way for some time, actually.\u00a0A Harris survey taken in 1970\u00a0\u2013 less than a year after the first moon landing \u2013\u00a0showed that a majority (56%) thought the landing was not worth the money spent. A separate Harris poll, in 1971, however, found that 81% of Americans agreed with the statement that “nothing can equal seeing the astronauts land and walk on the moon as it happened live on TV.”<\/p>\n\n

In fact, as we dug through data archives of the National\u00a0Opinion Research Center’s General Social Survey<\/a>\u00a0—\u00a0which has been asking the public for 40 years about their views of space exploration and federal funding for it — we found that Americans are consistently more likely to say that the U.S. spends too much on space exploration than too little. \u00a0At no time has more than 22% of the public said that the U.S. spends too little on space exploration.<\/p>\n\n

Still, that doesn’t mean Americans aren’t optimistic about exploring the possibilities of space. In a Pew Research Center\/Smithsonian magazine<\/a> survey released last week, a third of Americans said they believe there will be manned long-term colonies on other planets by the year 2064, despite evidence<\/a> suggesting the difficulties of accomplishing that. Also, 63% of respondents to our 2010 survey<\/a>\u00a0said that they believe astronauts will have landed on Mars by 2050. More than half said\u00a0that ordinary humans will be able to participate in space travel.<\/p>\n\n

And it’s not as though Americans have a dim view of NASA, which overseas the government’s space program. About\u00a0three quarters of Americans view NASA favorably – second only to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention among federal agencies – according to a 2013 Pew Research survey<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

Despite these positive opinions of the space program, just a two-in-ten Americans in the 2012 GSS survey said that the U.S. spends too little on space exploration. Four-in-ten believed the current spending was adequate, while three-in-ten believed further cuts should be made to the program. Instead, Americans strongly preferred increased spending on programs closer to home, including education (76%), public health (59%), and developing alternative energy sources (59%).<\/p>\n\n

Currently, total funding for\u00a0NASA\u00a0accounts for 0.5%<\/a> of the federal government\u2019s budget. Of that funding, the space exploration program accounts for roughly\u00a022%<\/a>\u00a0of NASA’s\u00a0budget.<\/p>\n\n

The disinclination to spend money on space exploration has already had an impact when it comes to ambitious projects like space colonization. In 2012, the NASA budget took a 20% hit to its planetary science programs, severely crippling NASA\u2019s Mars exploration program<\/a>. This year, the budget for Opportunity, NASA\u2019s decade-old Mars rover, may be eliminated<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

Update: A previous version of this blog post said no more than 20% of the public said the U.S. spends too little on space exploration. Some data sources have conflicting data and we have updated our post to reflect the higher figure, at 22%.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Americans are consistently more likely to say that the U.S. spends too much on space exploration than too 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