American astronaut during a spacewalk on the ISS. Archive photo.
A recent survey conducted by CBS and YouGov indicates that approximately 70% of the US adult population supports sending American astronauts to the Moon and Mars for research purposes.
The survey results show that 67% of Americans approve of Moon missions, and 65% support Mars missions. Among young adults aged 18-29, support for lunar missions is even higher, at 71%. Furthermore, 77% of respondents believe the initial 1969 mission was a worthwhile endeavor.
Interestingly, only 29% of respondents feel a strong sense of national pride regarding the American space program. Another 44% express less enthusiasm, while 27% either do not consider it a source of pride at all or assign it minimal significance in this regard.
The survey, which included 2,404 adult Americans, was conducted from June 18-23, with a margin of error of 2.6 percentage points.
Politico previously reported, citing internal documents, that over two thousand senior NASA employees might face layoffs. This move is attributed to the White House`s push for reduced government spending. Politico warns that significant staff reductions at NASA could leave the administration without the necessary expertise to execute its planned missions to the Moon (by mid-2027) and subsequent flights to Mars.
The Trump administration`s budget request for 2026 proposes a near halving of funding for NASA`s scientific programs, from $7.4 billion to $3.9 billion. This would mark the lowest level of science funding in the agency`s history.
Among other proposals, the White House suggests discontinuing NASA`s Mars Sample Return mission, deeming the project excessively expensive and outdated.
In April 2024, American billionaire Elon Musk, head of SpaceX, stated that colonizing Mars would require at least one million people and several million tons of cargo, which he estimates could be transported to the Red Planet within 20 years. The entrepreneur specified that this colonization project would be carried out using the Starship 3 rocket.
