Americans agree on something: returning to the Moon and shooting for Mars

NASA is preparing to lead a coalition of nations and commercial companies back to the moon for the first time in over 50 years, thanks to the Artemis program. Eventually, the plan is to send astronauts from the planet Earth across the interplanetary gulfs to land on the planet Mars.

What do Americans think about going back to the moon and on to Mars? A recent YouGov poll has some very good news for supporters of expanding human civilization to the moon, Mars and beyond.

According to the poll, 64 percent of adult American citizens favor the United States returning humans to the moon. Sixteen percent oppose returning to the moon and 20 percent are not sure. Fifty-seven percent of adult American citizens favor sending astronauts to Mars. Nineteen percent oppose going to Mars and 24 percent are not sure.

The poll did show a gender gap in support for going to the moon and Mars. Seventy-four percent of men vs 54 percent of women supported going back to the moon. Sixty-five percent of men vs 50 percent of women supported sending astronauts to Mars. But the poll suggests that Americans of both sexes favor a program of deep space exploration involving human beings.

The YouGov poll is even more remarkable when compared to how polling measured public support for the Apollo program over 50 years ago. People looking back at the Apollo missions to the moon might be forgiven for believing that they enjoyed wild public support. However, space historian Roger Launius begs to differ.

Looking at polling data, Launius concluded, “The only point at which the opinion surveys demonstrate that more than 50 percent of the public believed Apollo was worth its expense came in 1969 at the time of the Apollo 11 lunar landing. And even then only a measly 53 percent agreed that the result justified the expense, despite the fact that the landing was perhaps the most momentous event in human history since it became the first instance in which the human race became bi-planetary.”

The results of any poll depend on how the questions are asked. In July 2019, former Deputy Administrator Lori Garver published a piece in the Washington Post that cited a Pew Poll stating that 63 percent of Americans regarded mitigating the effects of climate change as the highest priority. Eighteen percent of Americans favored going to Mars as the highest priority and 13 percent supported a return to the moon.

Based on the result of the poll, Garver suggested that NASA focus on climate change and not on “more meaningless new goals and arbitrary deadlines” that the Artemis program to return to the moon and on to Mars would entail, in her view. When President Joe Biden came into office a year and a half later, he declined to take Garver’s advice and instead retained his predecessor’s deep space exploration program.

How do we account for the results of the YouGov poll? It could be an outlier, something that could be contradicted by subsequent surveys. Or, the poll could have caught an upwelling of support among Americans for human deep space exploration.

In July 2022, a study suggested a great deal of public ignorance about the current state of space exploration. But since then, NASA has pulled off the wildly successful Artemis 1 mission, an uncrewed flight beyond the moon. The space agency has announced the crew for the Artemis II mission to fly around the moon. Elon Musk’s SpaceX has started to test the Starship rocket in earnest. A version of the Starship will land humans on the moon as early as late 2025. It could be that these events have started to raise public awareness of NASA’s Artemis program. If the YouGov poll is accurate, Americans like what they see.

Americans may also be more aware of the threat of a Chinese space hegemony. Like it or not, NASA and the rest of the Artemis alliance are in a space race with China with the riches of the solar system as the prize.

Americans are divided over a number of issues, ranging from the economy to climate change. The Artemis program may be a bright point of consensus that was not even seen during the height of the Apollo race to the moon. NASA and its international and commercial partners should appreciate and continue to cultivate this support. The human species can still do great things and, just as important, value that greatness.

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.  He is published in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, The Hill, USA Today, the LA Times and the Washington Post, among other venues.