Poll Shows Public’s Priorities in Space

Article by Marcia Smith                                        February 25, 2021                                         (spacepolicyonline.com)

• A survey of 2,200 American adults conducted February 12-15, 2021 by ‘Morning Consult’ ranked space research and exploration 25th in a list of 26 priorities for the Biden Administration. It appears that the public wants the government to focus its space research agenda on monitoring Earth’s climate, and not human exploration of the Moon and Mars. But a he same time, the public also wants the U.S. to keep its competitive edge in space over countries like Russia and China. Ranking the most threatening countries in space, respondents viewed China the biggest threat to the U.S at 52 percent, Russia next at 45 percent, North Korea at 34 percent, and Iran at 30 percent.

• With regard to activities in space, monitoring the Earth’s climate system is the top priority 35 percent of those surveyed. In second place is monitoring asteroids that might threaten Earth and third was developing technologies that could be used broadly, not only for space. At the bottom of the list of 10 possible priorities was sending civilians to the Moon or Mars, which was a priority for only 6 percent of the people polled. The public is slightly more amenable to sending professional astronauts to the Moon or to Mars, but not civilians.

• Regarding NASA’s Artemis program aiming to return people to the Moon and go on to Mars, only 33 percent of the participants rate the Moon goal as a top or important priority and 24 percent for Mars. When considering Jared Isaacman’s proposal to hold a lottery for people to join him on Inspiration4 in a space flight (see previous ExoArticle), 58 percent said they were unlikely to travel to space even if price was no object. Most of those polled supported Biden’s decision to keep the US Space Force many said they did not know as they felt they weren’t “up to speed” on the government’s space efforts.

A new poll from Morning Consult finds that the public wants the government to focus its space research agenda on monitoring Earth’s climate, not human exploration of the Moon and Mars. Overall it ranked space research and exploration 25th in a list of 26 priorities for the Biden Administration. However, it also wants the United States to keep its competitive edge in space over countries like Russia and China.

The top priority was monitoring Earth’s climate system for 35 percent of those surveyed, while it was “important, but lower priority” for 28 percent, “not too important of a priority” for 18 percent, “should not be done” for 7 percent, and “don’t know/no opinion” for 11 percent.

Second was monitoring asteroids that might threaten Earth and third was developing technologies that could be used broadly, not only for space.

At the bottom of the list of 10 possible priorities was sending civilians to the Moon or Mars. That was a top priority for just 6 percent, important for 18 percent, not too important for 39 percent, should not be done for 24 percent, and 12 percent did not know or had no opinion.

Ranking just above that was sending “astronauts” to the Moon or to Mars, which apparently refers to professional astronauts as compared to the general public. NASA is embarked on the Artemis program with commercial and international partners to return people to the Moon and go on to Mars, although according to this survey only 33 percent rate the Moon goal as a top or important priority and 24 percent for Mars.

Also of interest, especially as entrepreneur Jared Isaacman is testing the waters of public interest in flying into space by choosing a person by lottery to join him on Inspiration4, of those surveyed 58 percent said they were unlikely to travel to space themselves even if price was no object.

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