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AP-NORC poll: Asteroid watch more urgent than Mars trip
Americans prefer a space program that focuses on potential asteroid impacts, scientific research and using robots to explore the cosmos over sending humans back to the moon or on to Mars, a poll shows.
The poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, released Thursday, one month before the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, lists asteroid and comet monitoring as the No. 1 desired objective for the U.S. space program. About two-thirds of Americans call that very or extremely important, and about a combined 9 in 10 say it's at least moderately important.
The poll comes as the White House pushes to get astronauts back on the moon, but only about a quarter of Americans said moon or Mars exploration by astronauts should be among the space program's highest priorities. About another third called each of those moderately important.
"More than 80% say the United States is not leading the world in space exploration."
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday June 24 2019, @03:17AM
Need a more precise definition for "we".
'Cause for different values of the "we" parameter, the value of "attitude" function varies wildly.
For the moment, the humanity can't afford to "Promise everyone ... get people moving *out there*"
You see, it's a matter of controllable energy available in enough amount (to get the hell out from the gravitational well) and high enough density (to limit the dead-payload for the transport).
In other words, we need more powerful but still controllable bombs. Which, you see, is The problem: looking into the human history, one can bet the moment those become available, their first use will be as weapons or in building weapon platforms.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford