Public Opinion About Space Exploration - Does Space Travel Have Practical Benefits?

Although it is widely acknowledged that space travel has psychological and scientific benefits to society, it is more difficult to point to everyday products that have directly resulted from the nation's space program. Certainly satellites have brought about great changes in telecommunications, navigation, military operations, and weather prediction. All of these developments do affect American lives.

Many people believe that technologies associated with space exploration have advanced the fields of robotics, computer programming, and cryogenics (the physics of extremely cold temperatures).

NASA Speaks Out

One of the mandates of the 1958 National Aeronautics and Space Administration Act is that the Agency (and its contractors) must publicize any new developments significant to commercial industry.

FIGURE 9.8
Public opinion poll on continuing the manned space program, 1986 and 2003

NASA accomplishes this through three publications: the quarterly newsletter NASA Aerospace Technology Innovation; a monthly magazine for engineers, managers, and scientists called NASA Tech Briefs; and Spinoff, an annual publication describing successfully commercialized NASA technology.

In 2003 NASA released a booklet called NASA Hits: Rewards from Space—How NASA Improves Our Quality of Life. The booklet describes practical benefits associated with NASA's work in space flight, space science, Earth science, and aeronautical research and development, including:

• Communications satellite technology
• Medical monitoring systems used in intensive care units
• The Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) system for ensuring food safety
• The NASTRAN software system for computerized design
• Space-based beacon locators used in satellite-based search and rescue systems
• Use of thin grooves in concrete airport runways and highways to improve drainage and reduce hydroplaning
• Advances in hydroponics (growing crops using water rather than soil to support plants)
• Improved hurricane forecasting and wildfire tracking using Earth-observing satellites
• Developments in microelectromechanical systems (extremely small devices and sensors about the diameter of a human hair)
• Combustion research that has improved the performance of jet engines
• Suspension techniques used by animal researchers
• A new light source now used to improve chemotherapy treatment for cancer patients
• Needle-based biopsies used in breast cancer diagnosis
• Bioreactors (devices used to turn cell cultures into functional tissue)
• Lifeshears (a hand-held shearing tool used by rescue workers to free people trapped in cars or underneath rubble)

The booklet also discusses patents and Nobel prizes associated with NASA-funded research and development.

The Public Speaks Out

Figure 9.9 presents the results of polls conducted on the 10th, 25th, and 30th anniversaries of the Apollo 11 moon landing regarding benefits of the nation's space program.

In each poll the participants were asked whether they believe the space program has benefited the country enough to justify its costs. The 1979 poll conducted by NBC News and the Associated Press found that only 41 percent of respondents considered the benefits worth the costs. A majority (53 percent) thought the expense was not worth what was accomplished. In a 1994 Gallup poll Americans were evenly split on the issue, with 47 percent taking each side. By 1999 the space program had earned a bit more respect. Gallup reports that 55 percent of those asked felt the space program's benefits justified its cost, while 40 percent did not.