A new Pew Research Center poll reveals that most Americans think NASA’s top priority should be monitoring asteroids that could hit Earth and monitoring climate change. Only 12 percent of Americans think that returning astronauts to the moon should be NASA’s top priority and even fewer, 11 percent, believe that landing a human on Mars should be the top priority.
Sixty-five percent of respondents “say it is essential that NASA continue to be involved in space exploration,” Pew reports. A smaller share, 32 percent, said that the growing commercial space sector would be able to “ensure enough progress is made in space exploration, even without NASA’s involvement.”
NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office, established in 2016, actively monitors asteroids that may come close to Earth. While no large asteroids are expected to hit Earth in the next 100 years, NASA estimates that it tracks only about 40 percent of asteroids large enough to cause significant damage if they were to strike.
Respondents report mostly positive views on the safety and reliability of private space travel companies like SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic. Fifty-five percent of respondents believe that space travel as tourists will become routine in the next 50 years, but only 35 percent express interest in orbiting Earth in a spacecraft.
SpaceX has been flying NASA astronauts and other professionals to the International Space Station and plans to conduct privately-funded missions to space. However, commercial space travel companies received unfavorable ratings on the issue of space debris, which has become a concern due to the increasing number of satellites in space.
Nearly seven in ten Americans believe there will be a major problem related to debris in space within the next 50 years. Meanwhile, almost half of the respondents (44 percent) think that the United States will likely engage in conflicts with other nations in space in the next half-century.
Sixty-five percent of respondents “say it is essential that NASA continue to be involved in space exploration,” Pew reports. A smaller share, 32 percent, said that the growing commercial space sector would be able to “ensure enough progress is made in space exploration, even without NASA’s involvement.”
NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office, established in 2016, actively monitors asteroids that may come close to Earth. While no large asteroids are expected to hit Earth in the next 100 years, NASA estimates that it tracks only about 40 percent of asteroids large enough to cause significant damage if they were to strike.
Respondents report mostly positive views on the safety and reliability of private space travel companies like SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic. Fifty-five percent of respondents believe that space travel as tourists will become routine in the next 50 years, but only 35 percent express interest in orbiting Earth in a spacecraft.
SpaceX has been flying NASA astronauts and other professionals to the International Space Station and plans to conduct privately-funded missions to space. However, commercial space travel companies received unfavorable ratings on the issue of space debris, which has become a concern due to the increasing number of satellites in space.
Nearly seven in ten Americans believe there will be a major problem related to debris in space within the next 50 years. Meanwhile, almost half of the respondents (44 percent) think that the United States will likely engage in conflicts with other nations in space in the next half-century.
