Once again, the US public says NASA should prioritize asteroid defense

Enlarge / Artist’s illustration shows the ejection of a cloud of debris after NASA’s DART spacecraft collided with the asteroid Dimorphos. (credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser)

The Pew Research Center published the results of a new public survey on Thursday, the 54th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing on the Moon. The survey assessed Americans’ attitudes toward space exploration and space policy issues.

Similarly to five years ago, the survey found that Americans broadly support the national space agency, NASA. Three-quarters of respondents had a favorable opinion of NASA, compared to just 9 percent with an unfavorable opinion.

However, as several previous surveys have found, the public has far different priorities for NASA than are expressed in the space agency’s budget. In this new report, based on a large survey of 10,329 US adults, the highest support came for “monitor asteroids, other objects that could hit the Earth” (60 percent) and “monitor key parts of the Earth’s climate system” (50 percent). Sending astronauts to the Moon (12 percent) and Mars (11 percent) lagged far behind as top priorities for respondents.