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Apollo

Artemis Generation Wants To Go To The Moon. Apollo Generation: Not So Much

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
January 4, 2022
Filed under , ,
Artemis Generation Wants To Go To The Moon. Apollo Generation: Not So Much

Majority of Americans don’t want to travel to the Moon, Axios
“The new poll found 61% of adults surveyed wouldn’t be interested in taking a trip to the Moon even if money weren’t a factor.”
Keith’s note: The title of this article is accurate. It is also misleading. 52% of people aged 18-34 said they’d go. And they are all tax paying, voting age adults. Just sayin’.
Hey NASA: The Artemis Generation Is Global, earlier post
For The Artemis Generation Living Off World Is Natural, earlier post
NASA Culture, earlier posts

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

17 responses to “Artemis Generation Wants To Go To The Moon. Apollo Generation: Not So Much”

  1. Bill Hensley says:
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    It’s not at all surprising that most young people would go for it, while older folks would have more reasons to say no. I don’t think this poll is discouraging at all for private space flight. Just the opposite.

  2. tutiger87 says:
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    You must not have seen the Chappelle Show skit..

    “It’s Mars bi@@es!!!”

    • HammerOn1024 says:
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      We can launch you there sure, but with our current infrastructure, you’ll be dead on the way there or dead on the ground, but you’ll not be coming home.

      We have tested exactly ZERO equipment in space to sustain a large population off of earth.

      Build out a moon base for testing deep space habitat infrastructure, then go to Mars with it.

      An emergency tree days away is a heck of a lot easier to deal with than 18 months away!

      • fcrary says:
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        Exactly what equipment have we not tested? Life support systems have been tested. For a larger population than ISS, you’d need to scale them up. But that’s just more of the same, not fundamentally new technology. in situ propellent production for the return trip is new, but even then, it’s not required to survive on the surface.

        As for emergencies days versus months from Earth, there are actually a fairly small class of accidents where that would make a difference. For most emergencies, three days would still be too long, or the situation could be stabilized and survivable for months.

      • Zed_WEASEL says:
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        Please stop posting that you can test for Mars on or around the Moon. The hardware requirements are too dissimilar for the two sets of very different environments. You can either go to the Moon or Mars in one program. Not both as that is basically two separate programs with very little in common.

        An emergency near or on Mars just means that appropriate medical resources and over abundance of supplies has to be planned for. Same for the Moon since returning to Earth or getting help from Earth is at least one week’s time.

  3. Homer Hickam says:
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    Where do I buy a (reasonably priced) ticket? Let’s go!

  4. A_J_Cook says:
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    The Apollo moon seemed very forbidding, with no resources to support life or anything of compelling popular interest to justify the expense and danger of continuing to go there. As I heard stated on a talk show discussing Apollo in the late 1980’s, the “common sense” position was “it was disappointing, there was nothing there.” I think the resource-rich moon, gradually uncovered since the Clementine mission, is not how most people in my generation picture it. Hopefully NASA will turn that perception around with the Artemis precursor missions, such as VIPER.

  5. rb1957 says:
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    I wonder how this poll was done, but the same pollsters who predicted the 2016 election ?? I can’t imagine how someone wouldn’t want to go to the moon (or orbit or ISS) if money wasn’t a problem. Unless they’re thinking “I don’t trust the technology”, which certainly has some merit.

  6. Bad Horse says:
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    I wanted to be an astronaut until I saw 1st hand how NASA builds and manages crewed spacecraft.

  7. gadgetnate says:
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    In my Countdown to the Moon interviews (http://CountdownToTheMoon.org) I ask people “If it were safe and affordable would you take a trip to space?”

    Many of the “older” people that I ask are interested but say that they think it might be more valuable sending someone “younger”. I wonder what role this played in the survey responses.

    Also, I think Challenger and Columbia is very much on the mind of “older” people. Where as we are nearing having 2 decades without a crew loss in space… If we can keep that up for another decade, and still continue to expand access to space, I think people’s attitudes would be very favorable.

    Also, the survey is of less than 3,000 people. That really isn’t that many. And depending on where it was taken could have very different outcomes.

    • HammerOn1024 says:
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      “Also, I think Challenger and Columbia is very much on the mind of “older” people.”

      Being one of these older space junkies, I can easily dismiss this; at least for myself.

      Both of these failures were on NASA. They had ample warning and disregarded those warnings.

      Sure, the same thing can happen in any organization, but I’d still go to the moon in a hot minute.

  8. Keith MV says:
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    Average people can barely afford to eat, or keep roofs over their heads. Believe me, as much as I believe in space exploration, the average person could care less about visiting the Moon.

    • Vladislaw says:
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      not enough to eat or to much to eat .. if those are the two states than the average would be just enough to eat… if you can barely afford to eat your below the average.

  9. Bad Horse says:
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    The biggest constraint on going to Mars is people. We don’t know how to keep 6-12 people mentally intact for such a long mission. A good Mars analog mission would be to seal up 6 people on a nuclear sub for two years, no resupply, no physical contact and add in a 10-25 min communications delay.

    • fcrary says:
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      That experiment has been done more than once. Although not on a submarine. The last one I remember had the people sealed in a cave. Amundsen’s Northwest passage in 1903-1906 is also worth mentioning, with six people on the Gjøa, a 21 meter sloop. Although they did spend time with the locals, which a Mars mission obviously couldn’t.

  10. Brian_M2525 says:
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    The Moon and Mars have not changed in fifty years.

    NASA’s spacecraft for flying to the Moon -well NASA really does not have a spacecraft but I guess you could compare Orion to Apollo, and it is not much different. Sure there are some technological advances, mainly computers, but basically its still a small, few person, uncomfortable ship that offers no amenities and little additional margin of safety. Sure there are a few adventurous people who would go.

    Its about like asking, would you like to go with Amundsen or Scott to the poles, or with Columbus or Magellan across the oceans? I think most people would opt for safety and to stay home. Its not a cruise on a ship carrying thousands with the finest dining and vacationing.

    Now advance a few years to passenger ships carrying hundreds to well established and developed vacation facilities on a new world; that poses a different kind of question.