this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2023
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Many Americans think NASA returning to the moon is a waste of time and it should prioritize asteroid hunting instead, a poll shows::Americans like NASA, but don't support their funding going towards moon missions, according to new polls.

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[–] [email protected] 82 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Who the heck did they survey that had this contradictory thought? 69% of dem and 70% of repub dissaprove of moon mission but 62% overall want more space travel?????? How do they think we plan to have more space travel without a moon base?

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Maybe they are bad ay data, cause that would be 31% Dem and 30% rep approve so add them together and round up a little and boom 62% approval

[–] markr 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I point out why this is wrong but I suspect it wouldn’t help.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

....well it might not help because I did it wrong on purpose trying to sort out why the OG article messed up? Unless I'm misunderstanding you

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

A ‘no take, only throw’ mentality.

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[–] [email protected] 51 points 1 year ago

A massive amount of Americans are idiots so I would not trust what they have to say. To get our selves to the outer planets we need to perfect the tools that will allow us to reach planets. The moon is a great place to perfect those tools.

[–] holiday 50 points 1 year ago

A majority of Americans have little to no education in the areas of science that NASA researches and develops for.

That's like saying the sourdough breadbakers think that the Atlanta Braves should hit fewer homeruns and focus more on defense.

[–] [email protected] 45 points 1 year ago (4 children)

The only reason it would make sense to return to the moon is to establish a base for exploration of Mars. I go really back and forth on space exploration. On one hand it is a giant money pit. On another, the research that has come out of space exploration has been beneficial to life here on earth.

[–] [email protected] 62 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The technologies we invent along the way are worth the investment, in my opinion. Look at everything that came out of the original space race.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 year ago

Nah. If we go back to the Moon, we are going to need more than "new technologies", but an actual purpose.

Right now, Helium-3, rare earth metals, and a slingshot to the rest of the solar system are good reasons to colonize the Moon if we can figure out how to do it cheaply.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago (1 children)

like ICBMs and freeze dried ice cream sandwiches!

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[–] foggianism 2 points 1 year ago

The technological breakthroughs aside, the first company that returns with mined goods from space is gonna be worth trillions.

[–] NeoNachtwaechter 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

the research that has come out of space exploration has been beneficial to life here on earth.

But space is 100% innocent.

It was just a huge pile of money spent on research and development.

[–] Kraven_the_Hunter 8 points 1 year ago

Yeah and we only spend massive piles of cash on war and space exploration. Both have resulted in technology advantages but I prefer space exploration.

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Where do these oddballs (who approve of space programs, but not moon missions) think those asteroid mining missions are going to launch from?

[–] Lord_McAlister 5 points 1 year ago

Space tethers.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago

I'm glad that science isn’t a democracy.

However, I’m not so glad about NASA having to follow the current US Congress' whims all the time.

[–] agent_flounder 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Many Americans are anti-intellectual science deniers.

I do not hold in high esteem opinions based on woo-woo.

[–] postmateDumbass 2 points 1 year ago

We should have NASA's priorities determined by poll results from bar trivia machines.

[–] scarabic 17 points 1 year ago (3 children)

If you want to hunt asteroids, go to the moon.

You read that right. What “many Americans” aren’t thinking about is that we are at the bottom of a very big gravity well here on Earth. Launching anything into space, like an asteroid destroyer, takes enormous energy to accomplish.

If instead we could launch from the moon, we’d be able to get bigger things into space faster and cheaper and more often. But to do this we need a base and a way to manufacture fuel. The raw materials are there, but we don’t have any of the infrastructure built.

Eventually we HAVE to get to a point where we are mining, refueling, and building off-Earth. The only thing we should be launching from Earth is people.

The moon is our first stop on this evolutionary path.

[–] ArchmageAzor 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Most americans don't understand this, sadly

[–] scarabic 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Happily, though, NASA isn’t run by internet poll 👍

[–] Dark_Arc 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It is ultimately run by elected representatives though. Popular opinions matter

[–] scarabic 4 points 1 year ago

I think they do occasionally toss a mission into the agenda because it will capture the popular imagination. NASA has it pretty well dialed in. They serve science so liberals are happy and they have big explodey rockets and a history of competing against enemies so conservatives are happy. You don’t get to half a percent of the national budget without a good sales pitch.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (2 children)
[–] TurnItOff_OnAgain 7 points 1 year ago

Both would be best. Go to the moon and use it as a base/staging area for both asteroid hunting, and further reaching space travel.

[–] themeatbridge 5 points 1 year ago

Because politicians will use the argument to rile up their base, make sure neither gets accomplished, and pocket as much of the money as they can.

[–] motorheadkusanagi 14 points 1 year ago

Americans thought it was a waste to go the first time too.

Only 33% of Americans supported trying to land on the moon according to a Gallup Poll from 1961 https://www.newspapers.com/image/118394464/?clipping_id=128550438&fcfToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJmcmVlLXZpZXctaWQiOjExODM5NDQ2NCwiaWF0IjoxNjkwNDAwNzAzLCJleHAiOjE2OTA0ODcxMDN9.MEY6lxes8ZstjM9mggg5zOxedJFf2RCbBklHOKFcw9w

It didnt have support over 50% until a few weeks before launch.

More detail here https://newsletter.pessimistsarchive.org/p/the-moon-landing-was-opposed-by-majority

[–] Cstrrider 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yes but most Americans think asteroid hunting requires a rifle.

[–] Hackerman_uwu 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Hey that’s not fair. They just think that all asteroids would be safer if all asteroids had rifles.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I remember a TED talk that sold me on big science: For every dollar we spent on the moon shots, we made fourteen.

The thing is, going to the moon involved doing a lot of development, and this time we're going to the moon better and are going to do more things.

At some point we'll want to put a colony up there, and will need still more development to make it work.

A lot of the technology that we use today was developed thanks to the space race. In fact, when the USSR was taking its victory laps for Sputnik, Eisenhower freaked out, signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act and then extended a grant to Fairchild Semiconductor which started the digital revolution in Silicon Valley, eventually propelling us into the cyberpunk dystopia of smart refrigerators and zombie bot-nets that we know today.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Note the use of "many Americans" in the headline. If it was most they'd've said most. Clickbait headlines are the worst.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

Since when did we need to flip a coin on issues like this? Spoiler: We don't! There are plenty of resources to go around.

If anything was a waste of time, it was this poll. Go home, Pew Research, you're drunk.

[–] Desistance 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Business Insider is a shady source.

[–] stevedidWHAT 2 points 1 year ago
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[–] contextual_somebody 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Just give them more money and do both

[–] Kbobabob 1 points 1 year ago

This is the obvious answer.

[–] Canyon201 7 points 1 year ago

true though, if they can mine one of these asteroids and put the wealth on the block-chain AsteroidCoin would literally go to the moon!

[–] AA5B 5 points 1 year ago

I wonder how much of this is politics. NASA is too popular to threaten to shut it down, but you can publicly condemn $otherParty is wasting money on program X

[–] Redditiscancer789 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

this may be an asinine fear based on my rudimentary knowledge, but I hope they never drill the moon, because human greed can't be contained and some dumb ass will just see $$$ signs like some looney toons cartoon shit in their eyes and want to mine the whole thing up. Then there goes a ton of shit that we depend on the moons gravity for. Pretty similar to the rick and morty episode about pluto except the moon instead of our own planet.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Lagrange point station would be neat.

[–] c4lvaruga 1 points 1 year ago

I guess it's expected since showing the innovations and returns that could come from a project like this is hard.

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