I found this pretty interesting, especially given the apparent number of people who seem to bleat about NASA's funding...

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...orationsurveyed

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"The stars are my home"
"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe... Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion... I've watched c-beams glitter in the dark, near the Tanhauser Gate... all those moments will be lost, in time... like tears in the rain..."

I am relieved that people still want to support NASA. I wonder who they surveyed? It appears John and Jane Q. Public are not nearly as apathic as I believed. Then again, surveyees are notorious for giving the answers surveyors want to hear. Thanks for the article, it gives me hope for the future.

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Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Albert Einstein

Hmmmm... maybe I've watched one too many eps of The West Wing, but I wonder who at the White House gets to see this survey data and what effects it will have on national policy...

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"The stars are my home"
"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe... Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion... I've watched c-beams glitter in the dark, near the Tanhauser Gate... all those moments will be lost, in time... like tears in the rain..."

We can thank some of President Bush's opponents for recent TV ads bringing negitive publicity on space.

For those who haven't seen it, the comercial quotes excerpts from a couple of Bushes speeches addressing the latest goals of space exploration, and then quotes a number of ordenary people who say Presidental prorities should include failing schools, exported jobs, and lack of decent health insurance, implying that Bush's priorities are more for space exploration then the problems at home.
And that his opponant Sen John Kerry is more rooted and down to Earth about domestic problems.

This has been my continuing problem with the Democratic Party for a number of years. While there is some truth to such claims, they are blatently overblown to cause either fear or anger in the common voter in order to get more votes for their candidate.

Unfortunatly this tactic works, and works very well, and any attempt to downplay the tactic results in the election of their opposing party which is more harmful then helpful to John Q and Jane Q Public. In addition it doesn't help space exploration either, because 1, the Republican interests really don't include space(unless they can make a lot of money at it) and 2, causes the Republicans to become more carefull to not invest in space after getting elected so as to not bring such public critisem on them again.

I think there is a lot of support for NASA. We just don't hear about it. I would say what I think people do not support...but that would be my biased, political opinion so I will keep my mind on science. (plays theme from Star Trek)

I am not sure that the survey is all that accurate. I do believe that in general if asked, people will support funding space exploration. But if you were to ask the question a little differently, I think you would get a different answer. I think the democrats have picked up on that nuance very nicely. If you were to ask someone to pick between spending 50 billion dollars on better schools for their children or a base on the moon (whcih they have no chance of actually using themselves) they will inevitably pick the schools. People can be short-sighted and self-indulgent and support for space initiatives falls apart when faced with the costs and what else their tax dollars could be getting them. Ultimately, space exploration benefits everyone, and the offshoots of the Apollo program and other space research is all around us today.

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Quid hoc ad aeternitatum
The conversion of complex and abstract ideas into simple and concrete ones is the essential function of teacher of a body of knowledge.

Exactly Greg - or to put it another way, if you were to ask the general public at the end of the 60's if they were willing to spend $billions on sending the Voyagers on their Grand Tour, they'd most likely say no. If you were to tell them instead that it would cost a penny per world for every person in the country (according to Carl Sagan) then they might think differently.

(Sagan give this stat in the "Travellers Tales" episode of Cosmos)

__________________
"The stars are my home"
"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe... Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion... I've watched c-beams glitter in the dark, near the Tanhauser Gate... all those moments will be lost, in time... like tears in the rain..."