Although NASA’s top priority is to send astronauts to the moon through the Artemis program, more Americans believe that NASA should be focusing on preventing any asteroids from hitting the Earth. In a recent survey conducted by the nonprofit Pew Research Center, only 12 percent of American adults believed that NASA sending astronauts back onto the surface of the moon should be their top priority. Meanwhile, 60 percent of the responses said NASA’s top priority should be protecting the Earth from asteroids, and 50 percent said NASA should focus on climate change. This is an annual survey that has been conducted since before NASA sends their astronauts to space since the 1970s.
As of now, the Artemis II mission is scheduled for late 2024, and follows the first Artemis mission, which sent an empty Orion spacecraft into orbit last year. Despite recent cuts in NASA’s budget, the $8-billion-dollar budget for space exploration has remained, and according to The Senate Appropriations Committee, that is “sufficient funding to continue progress on the Artemis Campaign Development.”
While NASA is battling for funding from Congress, they are also in a fierce space race with China. The space agency wants to send astronauts onto the lunar surface by 2025, but China is only trying to reach the moon by 2030. Currently, both nations want to have the first person in history to walk on the lunar south pole, but China has the upper hand. According to The Washington Post, “China also has built a space station in low Earth orbit and landed a rover on Mars and a robotic spacecraft on the far side of the moon.”
Pew’s survey also asked people whether they believed that NASA remained important and popular in space exploration. 65 percent of the responses say the space agency is essential to space exploration, while 32 percent say that the commercial space sector can make enough progress in space exploration without NASA’s help.
NASA does have the capability to obliterate asteroids coming near Earth, which is what most poll respondents want NASA to focus on. One example of this is the “planetary defense” mission, in which they crashed a spacecraft into an asteroid, and it ended up changing its trajectory. Despite the asteroid’s original path not heading for Earth, this test proves that NASA can defend our planet from asteroids.
On the other hand, if people want to experience space for themselves, their go-to option is Elon Musk’s SpaceX offerings. Despite most of Elon Musk’s customers being wealthy and needing to pay tens of millions for a single trip, over 41 percent of respondents in a Pew survey conducted about “privately funded missions” to space believe that companies are doing well in this area of making space travel more open to others.
However, one massive issue that space companies must deal with is space debris. 26 percent of the respondents to this survey believed that companies were doing a poor job managing space debris, while another 21 percent believed that it was being handled well. The remaining 53 percent remained neutral or unsure. Space debris has overall become a huge problem, as many outer space companies have been sending more of their products into space that they do not intend to bring back down to Earth, causing many unwanted objects floating and drifting at around 17,000 mph, which is incredibly fast and can cause enormous amounts of damage if it hits other objects in space.
As of now, the Artemis II mission is scheduled for late 2024, and follows the first Artemis mission, which sent an empty Orion spacecraft into orbit last year. Despite recent cuts in NASA’s budget, the $8-billion-dollar budget for space exploration has remained, and according to The Senate Appropriations Committee, that is “sufficient funding to continue progress on the Artemis Campaign Development.”
While NASA is battling for funding from Congress, they are also in a fierce space race with China. The space agency wants to send astronauts onto the lunar surface by 2025, but China is only trying to reach the moon by 2030. Currently, both nations want to have the first person in history to walk on the lunar south pole, but China has the upper hand. According to The Washington Post, “China also has built a space station in low Earth orbit and landed a rover on Mars and a robotic spacecraft on the far side of the moon.”
Pew’s survey also asked people whether they believed that NASA remained important and popular in space exploration. 65 percent of the responses say the space agency is essential to space exploration, while 32 percent say that the commercial space sector can make enough progress in space exploration without NASA’s help.
NASA does have the capability to obliterate asteroids coming near Earth, which is what most poll respondents want NASA to focus on. One example of this is the “planetary defense” mission, in which they crashed a spacecraft into an asteroid, and it ended up changing its trajectory. Despite the asteroid’s original path not heading for Earth, this test proves that NASA can defend our planet from asteroids.
On the other hand, if people want to experience space for themselves, their go-to option is Elon Musk’s SpaceX offerings. Despite most of Elon Musk’s customers being wealthy and needing to pay tens of millions for a single trip, over 41 percent of respondents in a Pew survey conducted about “privately funded missions” to space believe that companies are doing well in this area of making space travel more open to others.
However, one massive issue that space companies must deal with is space debris. 26 percent of the respondents to this survey believed that companies were doing a poor job managing space debris, while another 21 percent believed that it was being handled well. The remaining 53 percent remained neutral or unsure. Space debris has overall become a huge problem, as many outer space companies have been sending more of their products into space that they do not intend to bring back down to Earth, causing many unwanted objects floating and drifting at around 17,000 mph, which is incredibly fast and can cause enormous amounts of damage if it hits other objects in space.