[ad_1]
In 1962, US President John F. Kennedy famously offered an explanation of why NASA was setting its sights on the moon.
"Kennedy," said Kennedy, "Americans are pushing the limits of space exploration and the desire for discoveries." learn was in their nature. "We set sail on this new sea," he said, "because there is new knowledge to be gained, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people."
Now we know the ending: Americans did, indeed, make it to the moon, and make it easy to look back at the Apollo missions with pink-colored glasses. But it Was very hard: An estimated 400,000 directors played on the moon. And it cost us not only billions of dollars, but the lives of three Apollo astronauts. So it makes sense that, despite the fact that the United States has a large number of missions, it has a large number of Americans.
Now that often-neglected piece of American history is being brought back to the forefront of cultural memory First Man, the new Neil Armstrong biopic. The film showcases a range of objections to the moon mission, via scenes featuring protesters, doubtful newspaper headlines, and, memorably, a recitation of Gil Scott-Heron's poem "Whitey on the Moon."
Indeed, despite his moving words, Kennedy himself did not have much faith in space exploration. In a 1962 White House meeting just a couple months after his famous moon speech, Kennedy told NASA administrator Jim Webb that he was "not that interested in space" and that the "fantastical expenditures" of the lunar program had "wrecked our budget." Kennedy said that he was motivated to keep the lunar program going political: In the midst of the Cold War, Russia was a priority. "This is it we like it or not-an intense race."
The audience was not wild about NASA's lunar program, either. In 2003, space historian Roger Launius reviewed public opinion polls about space exploration between the 1960s and 1990s, uncovering Americans' deep skepticism of space exploration. A majority of the public was not significantly affected by the fact that it was significantly more important than the previous year. In Launius's paper, published in the journal Space Policy, he references to national education, education, anti-poverty programs, and even water desalinization research as more worthy of government spending than space exploration.
In one poll from the summer of 1965, Launaius explains, a third of Americans, that by 1969, that had increased to 40%. Even after the moon landing, people were still skeptical:
Apollo was worth its expense in 1969 at the time of the Apollo 11 lunar landing … .and even then a measly 53 percent agreed that the result justi fi ed the expense, despite the fact that the landing was perhaps the most momentous event in human history since it became the instance in which the human race became bi-planetary.
Public opinion may still be swayed by the media and popular culture, however. Launius points to polls between 1989 and 1997. Through most of that period, people supported unmanned missions over manned ones; this is not terribly surprising, given the tragic
1986 Challenger explosion
.
Aim, Launius observed, public feeling shifted back to supporting manned missions again in 1995, which, coincidentally, was the year that
Apollo 13
was released. Other movies like
Armageddon
,
Deep Impact
, and
Contact
may have helped buoy interest in space exploration through the late 90s and early 2000s. Now that NASA has turned its sights towards a Mars mission, maybe movies like
First Man-
along with movies like
The Martian
and
Interstellar
-Will play some role in public interest in humankind's exploration of the universe.
Source link
