A newly released survey from Pew Research Center suggests that Americans still strongly support the space program, 60 years after NASA’s founding, but that they’re more interested in Earth science than exploration beyond Earth orbit.
That’s a turnabout from the broad strokes of White House policy, which has tried to downplay Earth observation and talk up the idea of sending Americans to the moon and Mars.
Despite that dissonance, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine welcomed the findings from Pew Research Center’s survey. When reporters told him that 63 percent said monitoring key parts of Earth’s climate system should be a top priority for NASA, Bridenstine reportedly answered, “Good.”
