Online, new telescopes spark viral moments and missions draw hundreds of thousands of followers on social media. Pew finds that Americans want their country to be a leader in space exploration, with NASA playing a role in addition to the private companies that have helped to spur excitement. There’s likely a bias in the halls of a museum dedicated to space, but outside of the museum, public support for NASA spending has climbed steadily for the last 20 years, according to Gallup. He grew up watching moon missions on TV, and thinks they serve as an inspiration. “It’s a great investment” says visitor Chris Healy, who described himself as a “conservative Republican tightwad” as he stood a few feet from Neil Armstrong’s spacesuit. “It’s a better way of spending taxpayer’s money, I would say.” Later on when we go to Mars, there might be some lessons learned,” he says. But being able to go back to the moon…hopefully build a moon base up there. “To be honest, I don’t think there’s really too much on the moon. He stayed up to watch the Artemis launch this fall and is looking forward to people going back, even though the moon isn’t the most appealing body in the sky. “It's kind of what inspired me to become an engineer,” says Derek Chan, who works with satellites in the defense industry. Other visitors, though, were drawn by the science facts on display. One visitor strolled past a case showing the fender of the lunar rover from Apollo 17 while wearing a Baby Yoda bag (yes, his name is Grogu, please don’t email us). “The hope in 1972 was that there would be a return.”Īs the museum’s new exhibit Destination Moon opened on a recent morning, tourists filtered in, many wearing Star Wars shirts and other gear supporting sci-fi shows. “You see Apollo looking forward,” curator Margaret Weitekamp says. “I think we're living in a golden age of ‘Star Trek,’ ‘Star Wars,’ ‘The Expanse,’ and creative visions of what it means to imagine going into space.” Robert McCall’s design of the Apollo 17 patch has the eagle’s wing overlapping the moon to signify humanity’s connection to the moon after the Apollo missions. “Enthusiasm about space flight draws not only from real achievements but also from the fiction that people are watching and enjoying,” she says. So have missions happening in a galaxy far away. The Artemis mission and its plan to put the first woman and first astronaut of color on the moon, as well as rocket launches from Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic, and SpaceX have stoked that excitement. “We’re living in a new space craze right now,” says Weitekamp, who has just published the book “Space Craze: America’s Enduring Fascination with Real and Imagined Spaceflight.” It’s the first of a series of missions that could, in the next few years, put a person back on the moon.īut has the public interest in moon missions changed? But now the moon is back on the agenda: Artemis I splashed down on Dec. Public interest in space has waxed and waned based on missions. NASA pivoted to space stations and the space shuttle instead - reusable, longer-lasting crafts than the capsules used for Apollo. By the time Cernan went up with Apollo 17, NASA’s budget had shrunk and Americans were more focused on myriad issues on Earth, including the Vietnam War and civil rights. Interest especially faded after the first moon landing in 1969, the Apollo 11 mission. Support for moon missions was rarely a majority opinion among Americans. People tend to think it costs more than it does,” says Margaret Weitekamp, chair of the space history department at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. "One of the things that I don't think people realize is that public support for Apollo, for human space flight, has always been a little lower than we think, perhaps, in popular imagination, especially if you ask about how much it costs. (Satellites and robotic rovers made the trip, though.) He concluded with, “We leave as we came and, God willing, as we shall return: with peace and hope for all mankind.”įive decades later, still no human has returned. “As I take man's last step from the surface, back home for some time to come - but we believe not too long into the future,” he began. But his remarks before he boarded the lunar lander reflected an optimism that humans would return soon enough. 14, 1972, he knew there were no more moon missions planned. When astronaut Eugene Cernan ended his moonwalk on Dec. (Courtesy of Mark Avino/Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum) Astronaut Eugene Cernan's lunar overshoes on display in the "Destination Moon" exhibition at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC.
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