Support for NASA returning to the moon and going to Mars is surging

A recent poll conducted by CBS News provides an encouraging look into public support for the Artemis program to return astronauts to the moon and eventually send humans to Mars.

Sixty-seven percent of respondents favor a return to the moon and just 33 percent oppose one. On Mars, sixty-five percent favor sending astronauts to the red planet with 35 percent in opposition.

Support for sending astronauts back to the moon tracks favorably among all age groups, with 71 percent of 18 to 29-year-olds in favor.

The current favorable view of the Artemis program contrasts with what people thought of the Apollo program to land men on the moon while it was ongoing. As space historian Roger Launius pointed out, most Americans, with the exception of one poll taken in July 1969, took a dim view of going to the moon.

“Consistently throughout the decade, 45-60 percent of Americans believed that the government was spending too much on space, indicative of a lack of commitment to the spaceflight agenda,” Launius wrote. 

Incidentally, the CBS News poll shows that now Americans believe that the Apollo program was worth the effort, 77 to 23 percent. The findings were consistent with those taken on the 50th and 40th anniversaries of the first moon landing.

The fact that support for going back to the moon and on to Mars is uniform across all age groups jumps out. In times past, some have suggested that supporters for sending astronauts beyond low Earth orbit mainly consisted of boomers nostalgic for the glories of the Apollo program.

If that was ever the case, it isn’t any longer.

Laura Seward Forczyk, a space career consultant, video blogger and author of “Rise of the Space Age Millennials,” likely spoke for a lot of younger people on X when she posted, “I hope to live to see humans walking on another world again. Artemis III can’t come soon enough.”

Her sentiment expresses a desire for something beautiful and glorious in a world often ugly and dispiriting. Come to think of it, that was the Apollo 11 moon landing in the midst of the turmoil of the 1960s.

A lot of famous space influencers, such as former NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine, billionaire private space traveler Jared Isaacman, video blogger Eliana Sheriff and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk were not alive when men first walked on the moon.

One word of caution should be made about how poll results can often be influenced by question-wording. In 2023, the Pew organization released a poll suggesting that returning to the moon and on to Mars were of lower priority than things like asteroid detection and measuring climate change. Nevertheless, when combining the answers “top priority” and “important but lower priority” space exploration still enjoyed healthy support, with 57 percent favoring a return to the moon and 56 percent going to Mars.

People are looking forward to witnessing the first footsteps on the moon in over 50 years and the first ever on Mars. Donald Trump was the latest president of the United States to make that promise when he started the Artemis program during his first term. Now, he has to deliver.

Unfortunately, President Trump is in serious danger of blowing it. Over six months into his second administration, America still does not have a permanent NASA administrator, thanks to Trump’s capricious, last-minute withdrawal of Isaacman’s nomination. 

The White House and the Congress are wrangling over NASA science funding and how long the space agency should retain the Orion Space Launch System architecture for returning to the moon.

Trump needs to move quickly to nominate a permanent head of NASA. He could change his mind again about Isaacman, though he may be loath to admit to making a mistake.

The White House also needs to reestablish the National Space Council as a center for the formulation of space policy. The council performed great service during the first Trump administration. It can do so again.

Finally, Trump and Musk should resolve their feud. The most powerful man in the world and the world’s richest man work better together than at cross purposes.

Trump has won some great domestic and foreign policy victories. It will be a pity if his legacy is one of letting China get back to the moon before we do.

Mark R. Whittington, who writes frequently about space policy, has published a political study of space exploration entitled “Why is It So Hard to Go Back to the Moon?” as well as “The Moon, Mars and Beyond” and, most recently, “Why is America Going Back to the Moon?” He blogs at Curmudgeons Corner.