Dittmar Associates Finds Young Adults 'Largely Disinterested' in the U.S. Vision for Space Exploration
"In a study reported on at the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Space 2006 meeting, Dittmar Associates reported that young American adults are "largely disinterested" in the Vision for Space Exploration announced by President Bush in January of 2004. ... Most important concerns are jobs, the war, and relationships; space ranks near the bottom of the list of personal priorities. ... Interest in "New Space" (commercial) human spaceflight efforts such as the X-Prize flights of SpaceShip One is increasing, relative to the results of the previous study."
New Gallup Poll Reveals Americans Continue to Strongly Support Space Exploration, Coalition for Space Exploration
"Cumulative results indicate that, over the course of time and despite varying world and national circumstances, the American people still strongly support space exploration and are willing to support its funding at current levels or even slightly increased," said Jeff Carr, chairman of the Coalition for Space Exploration."
Editor's note: Gee, how can these polls/surveys both be correct?
Alas, the usually lethargic Coalition for Space Exploration woke up just long enough to write Gallup a check for conducting this poll and then slipped immediately back into sleep mode. When you go to their website the title page says "Copyright 2004". When you click to go further (as a member of the public) all you see is a link to the "New" 2005 Gallup Poll. C'mon Jeff - there isn't even a link to the new poll. Why send people to such an outdated website? This all seems rather counterproductive to me that the VSE's main corporate cheerleader doesn't even seem to have the enthusiasm among its staff to keep their own website current.
See the earlier NASA Watch posting "What Does the Coalition for Space Exploration Actually Do?" for more examples of their lack of activity.
But wait: someone is thinking ahead: the Coalition did sponsor an official VSE coloring book for all the folks who will be voting in the 2018 election...
Editor's update: I got a call from someone at the Space Foundation today. Looks like the Coalition has dueling websites. The one I linked to above was slightly modified the other day. This version of their website is more up to date - but only with regard to the Gallup Poll. That's it - the rest of this "newer" version is as stale as the "older" version. The accomplishments page seems to be circa 2004, the news page only has 2 items from 2006, the VSE page has lines like "Space Shuttle Discovery is scheduled to launch again July 13 on its first flight since February 1, 2003.", and the Congressional page stops with FY 2006 info (circa 2005). Again, where does all the money that gets donated to the Space Foundation to run this organization go? One Gallup poll a year?