Public Perceptions of a Manned Mars Mission
71 Percent of U.S. See Humans On Mars By 2033
“In the wake of the wildly successful landing of NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover on Aug. 6, 2012, it may come as no surprise that the American public are currently feeling rather enthusiastic about exploring Mars. This sentiment has now been bolstered by a recent poll carried out for the non-profit corporation Explore Mars by the global communications company Phillips & Company. After surveying 1,101 people, 71 percent of the participants said they feel confident the U.S. will land a human on Mars within the next two decades.”
“On average, the same sample said they believed the U.S. government spends 2.4 percent (with a standard deviation of 1.68 percent) of the federal budget on NASA after they were told the agency currently has two operational rovers on the Martian surface. This, sadly, is woefully overoptimistic.”
Related: Americans Confident Humans Will Walk on Mars Within Two Decades, Explore Mars
Folks:
Send some of that confidence to Washington and humans on Mars will be a done deal, and quicker too.
tinker
If a national goal would be supported by the government and the public,we could make it to Mars before 2033,the problem is the public’s perception is clouded by their empathy and apathy towards the space program.They don’t know nor don’t care or both.
The poll would seem to clearly indicate that (statistically) the respondents were not well informed as to the actual facts surrounding the issue about which they were being questioned.
The article said it was an email poll, which I’m assuming means that those 1,101 people had the opportunity to do a little web research and find out the facts before responding. The fact that their responses show that they don’t understand either the budgetary or the technical realities, suggests to me that they, on average, didn’t bother to do that research, or that they, like many, don’t know how to do web research properly. Given this, how meaningful is this poll? Personally, I wouldn’t give it much credence.
Two things I have to wonder about: 1) how were these 1,101 people picked, and how representative are they of the general public?; and 2) where did the time frame of “two decades” come from?
Also, did the poll assume that Orion (plus an ESA-provided Service Module) and SLS were going to be used? Were they even mentioned in the context of the poll? Orion will carry only four passengers, plus food and supplies for how long? Even if they managed to finish all of the hardware on time, it is very far from being adequate for a Mars mission. So, was it assumed that during the next two decades new hardware would be designed and built? Was the hardware issue discussed at all in presenting this poll?
I could go on with the unanswered questions, but what’s the point? I’m quite convinced that this poll is absolutely meaningless. More money down the drain. The time and money would have been much better spent trying to educate the general public on some of these issues, rather than asking them questions for which they couldn’t possibly give informed answers.
Steve, I couldn’t agree more with your thoughts on this.
Steve,
Polls aside, I think the point in time when humans will seriously money and pursue a Mars mission will be an event-driven moment or more likely multi-event-driven moment. The turbulent flow and chaotic back and forth of opinion and purpose and budgets that exists today will simply swirl us forward in endless turmoil and indecision. I’ll go for the situation where a profound change occurs, some topological fold in the event-fabric, and then it will happen. In the mediocre meantime, frustration and unpurposed boredom will reign.
I totally agree. From a technology standpoint, as well as a social one, evolutionary changes will not put us around the corner to Mars. It’s going to take one or more revolutionary events before it becomes a reasonable and practical mission to commit to.
I maintain that the situation is made much more difficult to deal with because of the level of misunderstanding with respect to our current capabilities — even among technically literate people.
Brian,
Sounds about right for predictive questions. Have you got a formula for questions that already have answers, but the people being asked have no idea what the answer is, like the NASA budget question?
I think It’s pretty obvious we’re not getting to Mars in 20 years, not unless the funding base changes, the public level of actual support changes, or the private companies pull a rabbit out of their hats in terms of cost reductions.
I’m not too bothered, as long as we get some level of exploration (robotic or human). Barring some kind of collapse, we’ve got time.
Best bet is on the rabbit trick.
The expensive dog and pony show doesn’t have a chance.
Joe Q Parrot
Anyone would be foolish to put any stock in the results from this poll.
It’s notoriously easy to get the results you want from a poll. Even small changes in the wording of the questions has a huge impact on the results. Even polling companies that go to great lengths to get unbiased answers often end up with inaccurate results.
In this case, the poll was financed by a couple of private organization with the express goal of pushing a particular political agenda. I happen to support that goal, and probably most of the rest of you here support that goal too. But it would be stupid of us to believe our own propaganda, which is what the results of this poll are.
Another clue that we shouldn’t trust the results of this poll: it was an e-mail poll. E-mail polls are much cheaper to do than phone polls, but much, much less reliable.
Also, the poll was conducted by Philips & Company and paid for by Explore Mars and Boeing. Philips & Company describes itself as “a global communications firm that helps companies, government agencies
and non-profits create, defend and sustain leadership positions through
public relations and business development”. That is, it’s a firm that specializes in trying to convince people of things, not a firm that specializes in unbiased research.
Maybe they should ask how many _additional_ tax dollars each respondent was willing to pay for human spaceflight. Doubt it would be much. Something new might be discovered, but we are not going to Mars with SLS/Orion under the current budget, and even that may decline.
“Expressed as a percentage, how much of the current US Federal budget do you believe currently goes to NASA?”
“Expressed as a percentage, how much of the future US Federal budget do you believe should go to NASA?”
“Would you support a reduction of NASA’s funding to half of one percent of the Federal budget? [Strongly-support/support/neither/oppose/strongly-oppose/dunno]”
“Why? [Open question]”
The poll demonstrates how uninformed and confused the American public is. Remember these are the same bunch that voted for GW Bush twice and for Obama twice, the current congress and every elected leader in the US. God help us.
“the current congress”
Not exactly. Dems won a bit over 51% of House votes in enough states to win the House. Gerrymandering meant those districts were unfairly set up. The same pattern keeps those states in the hands of state Republicans. People aren’t getting what they actually voted for, so it seems unfair to blame them for a rigged result.
I have read that it is a trip to the vicinity of Mars in ’33.If NASA can go to an asteroid,then they can go to Mars.They are building so few SLS that when they are not building SLS they will have that money to build a single,reusable crew living and storage area.There will be enough funds to keep the schedule.It would seem possible that doubling the funds might speed things up,if that is what people want.I do not think it is technical or building.We all wanted crew to be faster.We did not get what we wanted.I do not things will change this time either.
How about that reality show people that are planning to land in ’21?It looks like they land a capsule with enough supplies for 4 people.Then they land a new one every 2 years.What about the people that came before?Were are their supplies?Are they suppose to have subsistence farming going?Can they get enough money through world wide rights?People starving to death might not be sale-able.Nice drawing of several of these modules hooked together.Is there any reality here?
“If NASA can go to an asteroid,then they can go to Mars.”
But not land. While Phobos/Deimos missions would be similar to a long asteroid mission, and lander also capable of getting back to Mars orbit (let alone Earth) is a whole ‘nother ball game.
In our current state? 1 single human with no other goal than to just step on it and come back alive? Maybe, barely. With better public support? Probably.