Sunday, April 18, 2010

Poll: Most Americans Clueless on Space Program

Courtesy of the excellent Space Politics blog ...

A poll released by The Everett Group found that 45% of those polled want space funding cut, and one-third mistakenly believe the United States already has commercial space entrepreneurs launching people into Earth orbit.

The poll showed what one Congressional staffer once told me years ago — "The American public's support for the space program is a mile wide and an inch deep."

To quote from the summary:

Overall, Americans aren't really tuned in to the nation's space program. Slightly more than a quarter (28%) say they're very interested and 42% say they're only "somewhat" interested. Nearly a third (30%) say they're not too interested or not at all interested (11%). More than a quarter say they haven't heard anything recently about NASA, the nation's space agency.

The survey found that only 10% were "very familiar" with the Obama administration's proposed FY 2011 NASA budget, while 42% said they were not familiar with it.



UPDATE 9:30 PM EDT — I e-mailed Dr. Steve Everett, the principal of The Everett Group, to ask who commissioned/funded the poll. He said they did the poll themselves as a public service.

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