For Immediate Release
Contacts:J. Kelly Beatty (617-864-7360 x148) [email protected]
Richard T. Fienberg (617-864-7360 x144) [email protected]
Public Wants NASA To Explore Europa, Pluto
Results of a nationwide survey show that the U. S. public supports the exploration of two fascinating bodies in the outer solar system. According to Sky & Telescope magazine, which sponsored the poll, 64% of Americans want NASA to send a spacecraft to Europa, an enigmatic satellite of the planet Jupiter. Moreover, 58% approve sending a probe to Pluto, the only major planet not yet seen at close range. The exploration of Mars also continues to receive strong support, as 70% of people would like to see samples of the Red Planet returned to Earth for analysis.
These results are significant in light of recent decisions made by NASA. In 1997, the space agency combined missions to Europa and Pluto under a single program that shared development funds and technical expertise. The plan called for one spacecraft to orbit Europa, a distant moon believed to have a subsurface liquid-water ocean, possibly with conditions suitable for life. The other would dash past Pluto, the most distant planet and the only one not yet explored by a spacecraft. However, by mid-2000 escalating costs threatened both programs, and in September NASA managers opted to defer the Pluto mission indefinitely so that work could continue on the Europa orbiter. Then, in late December, NASA associate administrator Edward J. Weiler announced that the agency may dispatch a mission to Pluto after all, to arrive by 2015. A final decision is expected later this year.
"Our poll shows that Americans want NASA to carry out both programs," says J. Kelly Beatty, Sky & Telescope's executive editor. "People have an insatiable appetite for interplanetary exploration, and these two missions would be dramatic voyages of discovery." In fact, many Americans were more likely to endorse the Pluto mission once they realized that this distant world, which averages 3.7 billion miles from the Sun, has never been studied at close range. "We all learn in school that our solar system has nine planets," says Richard Tresch Fienberg, Sky & Telescope's editor in chief. "It's downright dissatisfying that one of them remains unvisited after 40 years of interplanetary exploration." Fienberg encourages NASA to reconsider its deferral of the Pluto mission in an editorial appearing in the magazine's February 2001 issue.
The survey, conducted last December by Roper Starch Worldwide, also found that the space agency is currently enjoying more public support than at any time in the past decade. Right now 71% percent of Americans believe that NASA is doing an excellent or good job, compared to just 53% of those asked in a similar Gallup poll taken one year ago. "Apparently people have forgiven the loss of two Mars missions in 1999 and are excited by the construction of the international space station Alpha," suggests Beatty.
Methodology: Roper Starch conducted the nationwide survey for Sky & Telescope on December 8-11, 2000. The 1,015 adult respondents (18 or older) were contacted randomly via telephone. Results cited here have a margin of error of +/- 3%.
For more details of the survey, supporting graphics, and for the full text of Fienberg's editorial, see http://www.skypub.com/news/planetpoll.html.
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