What Does Pew Research Show About Americans’ Views of the U.S. Space Program?

Key Takeaways

• 69% of Americans in Pew’s 2023 survey said U.S. leadership in space remained essential.
• Asteroid monitoring and Earth science ranked far above crewed Moon and Mars missions.
• NASA retained broad public favorability in Pew’s 2025 federal-agency survey.

What Pew Research Measures in American Space Opinion

A 2023 survey of 10,329 U.S. adults found that 69% considered continued American leadership in space essential, compared with 30% who did not. Those results sit near the center of Americans’ views of the U.S. space program: strong support for maintaining national capability in space coexists with much more selective support for individual missions, spending priorities, and commercial activities. The Pew Research Center survey was conducted from May 30 through June 4, 2023, through the American Trends Panel, a nationally representative panel recruited through random sampling of residential addresses.

The 2023 study remains Pew Research Center’s newest comprehensive survey devoted specifically to space policy as of September 2, 2026. Pew’s space-topic collection lists that study as its newest dedicated publication on American attitudes toward space. A newer 2025 Pew survey examined public opinions of federal agencies and found that NASA continued to receive substantially more favorable than unfavorable ratings, giving a more recent measure of institutional sentiment even though it did not ask the detailed mission-priority questions included in 2023.

Understanding that distinction matters. A favorable opinion of NASA does not automatically translate into support for every NASA mission, a larger NASA budget, a human landing on Mars, or a specific commercial partnership. Pew’s surveys repeatedly show Americans separating the value of having a national space agency from judgments about what that agency should do.

That pattern can be traced through more than a decade of Pew polling. In 2011, 58% of Americans said continued U.S. leadership in space was essential. Pew also found that 55% regarded the Space Shuttle program as a good investment. In 2015, 64% called the International Space Station a good investment, and 59% said human astronauts should remain part of the U.S. space program. By 2018, 72% considered U.S. leadership in space essential, and 65% said NASA should remain involved even with private space companies becoming more capable. In 2023, the corresponding figures were 69% for U.S. leadership and 65% for continuing NASA involvement.

The table organizes several Pew measures without treating them as a single continuous polling series. Question wording, survey methods, and subject matter differ, so small changes between years should not automatically be interpreted as changes in public sentiment.

The broad pattern is more informative than any isolated percentage. Americans have repeatedly endorsed having a capable national space program, yet they make sharp distinctions among planetary defense, Earth science, fundamental research, commercial activity, human exploration, and personal space travel.

How Americans’ Views of the U.S. Space Program Have Changed Since 2011

Pew’s 2011 polling arrived as the Space Shuttle program was ending. At that moment, 58% of Americans said remaining a world leader in space exploration was essential, and 38% disagreed. The same survey found that 55% regarded the shuttle as a good investment, compared with 36% who did not. Public opinion was favorable, but it did not amount to unrestricted approval of space spending.

That distinction became clearer in Pew-related analysis of older spending data. A 2014 Pew article examining General Social Survey findings observed that Americans had historically been more inclined to say the federal government spent too much on space exploration than too little. About four-in-ten regarded spending as adequate in the data discussed by Pew, and roughly three-in-ten favored reducing it. At the same time, Americans could express positive opinions about NASA, the International Space Station, scientific benefits, and U.S. leadership.

Another revealing result appeared in 2015. When Pew asked about the federal government’s proper degree of involvement in advancing space exploration, 47% favored substantial involvement and 48% preferred a minor or nonexistent federal role. That near-even division looks very different from the 65% who later said NASA itself should remain involved in space exploration. The difference demonstrates how question framing can produce different measurements of what sounds, superficially, like the same public attitude.

Specific programs often performed better than abstract questions about federal involvement. In Pew’s 2015 science survey, 64% said the International Space Station had been a good investment and 29% said it had not. That survey also found 59% regarded human astronauts as essential to the future U.S. space program. Men were more likely than women to take that position, at 66% compared with 52%, but Pew found little difference by age on that question.

By 2018, 72% said continued American leadership in space was essential. Pew also found 80% regarded the International Space Station as a good investment, and 65% believed NASA should continue to be involved despite the increasing capabilities of private companies. These results came during the rise of commercial launch and crew-development programs and several years after SpaceX began delivering cargo to the International Space Station.

The 2023 findings changed surprisingly little on those broad institutional questions. U.S. leadership registered at 69%, and NASA involvement remained at 65%. Commercial space had expanded significantly during the intervening five years, yet Pew found no corresponding public movement toward replacing the government agency with private companies.

This continuity is more meaningful than a simple NASA popularity score. Americans appear comfortable with commercial participation but continue to reserve a distinct place for government space capability. New Space Economy’s examination of American space-exploration opinion provides additional internal context on that relationship, though Pew remains the stronger authority for the polling figures themselves.

Why NASA Retains Unusually Strong Public Support

NASA occupies an uncommon position among federal institutions. In Pew’s August 2025 federal-agency survey, 64% of Americans viewed NASA favorably, 15% viewed it unfavorably, and 20% were unsure. Among the 16 agencies measured, NASA ranked behind the National Park Service, National Weather Service, and U.S. Postal Service in favorable ratings but ahead of most of the federal institutions included in the survey.

The 2025 results are significant because they show that positive sentiment toward NASA survived in a period when Americans remained sharply divided over numerous parts of the federal government. Pew found both Republicans and Democrats rated NASA more favorably than unfavorably. A 2024 Pew survey had similarly found 67% overall favorability, including 74% among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents and 62% among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents.

Those figures should not be combined casually with older telephone surveys. Pew has warned that changes in polling mode and question wording can make direct numerical comparisons misleading. Online surveys give respondents an explicit “not sure” option, which tends to increase the share declining to express a favorable or unfavorable opinion. Pew consequently advises against treating older telephone results and newer online results as a precise time series.

NASA’s public identity may help explain its position. The agency is associated with astronauts and planetary exploration, but its activities also include Earth observation, aeronautics, astrophysics, heliophysics, planetary defense, technology development, research aboard orbital laboratories, and partnerships with universities and private companies. Citizens can support NASA for quite different reasons.

That broad mission portfolio also helps explain why the public’s approval of NASA should not be confused with enthusiasm for a single exploration architecture. Someone who supports asteroid detection, climate monitoring, space telescopes, or aeronautics research can hold a strongly favorable view of NASA without ranking a human Moon landing near the top of the agency’s priorities.

Government spending and private enterprise increasingly overlap as well. NASA funds technology development, purchases transportation and other services, conducts research, establishes technical requirements, and provides early demand for capabilities that companies may later sell to other customers. New Space Economy’s discussion of government and the space economy describes how public procurement can support commercial capacity without converting a government mission into a purely private market.

That arrangement helps explain one of Pew’s most consistent findings: public acceptance of private space companies has not displaced support for NASA. Americans appear to view public and private space activity as compatible rather than mutually exclusive.

Why Asteroid Detection and Earth Science Rank Above Human Exploration

Pew’s 2023 mission-priority questions produced one of its clearest findings. Monitoring asteroids and other objects that could strike Earth ranked highest among the nine NASA objectives tested. Some 60% of U.S. adults called asteroid monitoring a top priority, another 30% considered it important at a lower level, and only 9% placed little or no importance on it.

Monitoring important parts of Earth’s climate system ranked next, with 50% calling it a top NASA priority. Basic scientific research followed at roughly four-in-ten. Developing technologies that could later have uses outside space exploration received a 35% top-priority rating, and research on the health effects of spaceflight and the search for resources useful on Earth received support from roughly three-in-ten as top priorities.

The bottom of the ranking is equally informative. Only 16% regarded searching for life and potentially habitable planets as a top NASA priority. Human Moon exploration received 12%, and human Mars exploration received 11%. Pew found 41% regarded a crewed lunar mission as relatively unimportant or something NASA should not pursue, with the comparable figure for Mars at 43%.

These percentages do not mean most Americans oppose lunar or Martian exploration. Pew allowed respondents to classify objectives as important but lower priorities. A mission can have broad acceptance yet still rank poorly when respondents must compare it with detecting hazardous asteroids, observing Earth, or conducting science.

The contrast with 2018 strengthens the interpretation. In that earlier survey, 62% called asteroid detection a top priority and 63% said the same of monitoring Earth’s climate. Basic space science received 47%; technology development, 41%; human-health research, 38%; resource searches, 34%; and searches for life, 31%. Mars exploration received 18%, with Moon exploration at 13%.

Several top-priority ratings were lower in 2023 than in 2018, yet their general ordering remained recognizable. Planetary defense and Earth-facing functions remained near the top, with crewed Moon and Mars exploration near the bottom.

Planetary defense is a good illustration of how public preferences can align with an existing technical program. NASA operates systems for detecting and characterizing near-Earth objects and continues work following the successful 2022 Double Asteroid Redirection Test, which changed the orbital period of Dimorphos around Didymos. New Space Economy’s coverage of NASA planetary-defense studies provides related context about how asteroid detection, tracking, reconnaissance, and deflection fit into broader space-science priorities.

Orbital debris introduces another risk-oriented issue. Pew found 69% of Americans expected debris from spacecraft, rockets, and satellites to become a substantial problem during the next 50 years. Public concern about preventing hazards in space consequently extends beyond natural asteroids to the consequences of human activity in orbit.

Why Moon and Mars Missions Face a Public-Priority Gap

Human spaceflight produces an apparent contradiction in Pew’s polling. Americans repeatedly say astronauts belong in the national space program, yet only small minorities rank crewed lunar or Martian exploration among NASA’s highest priorities.

Pew found in 2015 that 59% considered human astronauts essential to the future U.S. space program. The 2018 survey reached a similar result, with 58% saying human astronauts were essential even after respondents were reminded that sending people costs considerably more than robotic exploration. Yet in that same 2018 study, only 13% ranked sending astronauts to the Moon as a top NASA priority and 18% said the same of Mars.

By 2023, the top-priority ratings stood at 12% for the Moon and 11% for Mars. Republicans and Democrats were remarkably close on both measures. Among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, 13% called the Moon a top priority and 10% said so for Mars. Among Democrats and Democratic leaners, the corresponding figures were 12% for each destination.

That is not the same as opposition. A citizen can believe astronauts should remain part of NASA and still think asteroid detection, Earth observation, scientific research, or technological development deserves greater attention. Public support for human spaceflight appears broader than public demand for a specific destination.

The distinction has become more relevant since Pew conducted its 2023 survey. NASA’s Artemis program changed substantially during 2026. Artemis II launched on April 1, 2026, carried four astronauts around the Moon, and returned April 10. NASA now plans Artemis III as a crewed demonstration in low Earth orbit during 2027 to test rendezvous and docking with commercial lunar-lander systems. The agency targets Artemis IV for a crewed lunar surface mission in 2028.

Those events occurred after Pew’s detailed space-policy survey. No newer comprehensive Pew survey establishes whether Artemis II’s successful flight, changes to Artemis III, or the planned 2028 lunar landing altered Americans’ mission priorities. Using the 2023 Moon and Mars percentages as though they were measured after Artemis II would be inaccurate.

The polling still creates an important policy question. NASA and elected officials may regard lunar missions as serving strategic, scientific, technological, diplomatic, industrial, or Mars-preparation goals that are not captured by a simple priority-ranking question. Public opinion surveys measure public preferences; they do not decide engineering architecture or national strategy.

The economic component adds another dimension. Artemis relies heavily on commercial suppliers, contractors, lunar-lander developers, launch systems, communications providers, and supporting industries. New Space Economy’s analysis of NASA’s 2026 technology agenda shows how lunar activity connects with computing, mobility, surface operations, communications, science, and industrial capability. Those functions extend far beyond the symbolic act of landing astronauts.

Pew’s polling nevertheless warns against assuming that public affection for NASA constitutes a popular mandate for an accelerated Moon-to-Mars program. Americans seem to accept human exploration as part of NASA’s identity, but the available surveys place other missions above it when priorities must be ranked.

How Americans Judge Commercial Space Companies

Commercial space receives a generally positive but cautious public assessment. In 2023, Pew asked Americans about private space companies across four performance areas: building safe spacecraft, contributing to exploration, expanding access to space travel, and limiting orbital debris.

Some 48% said private companies were doing a mostly good job building safe and reliable rockets and spacecraft, compared with 12% who gave them a mostly bad rating. Another 47% rated their contributions to space exploration positively, with 12% giving a negative assessment. For opening space travel to more people, 41% said companies were doing a mostly good job and 15% said mostly bad. Large portions of respondents were unsure in every category.

Orbital debris produced a different result. Only 21% thought private companies were doing a mostly good job limiting debris, compared with 26% who rated their performance poorly. More than half, 53%, were unsure. Democrats were more negative on this subject than Republicans, although uncertainty remained high in both partisan groups.

Familiarity changes the pattern substantially. Roughly two-in-ten Americans said they had heard or read a lot about private companies developing space capabilities, 54% had heard a little, and 24% had heard nothing. Among people who had heard a lot, 72% rated private companies positively for making important contributions to exploration. Pew found familiarity with commercial space had increased from 2018, but uncertainty remained an important element of public opinion.

The polling cannot establish that familiarity causes positive opinion. People who already like space activities may be more inclined to follow commercial companies closely. Greater knowledge may improve opinions, greater interest may produce greater knowledge, or both processes may operate together.

One result does offer a strong institutional message. Asked whether NASA remained necessary as private companies became more capable, 65% said continued NASA involvement was essential. Only 32% thought private companies could ensure sufficient progress without NASA. The percentages were almost unchanged from Pew’s 2018 survey.

Public opinion consequently fits the mixed public-private model that has developed in American spaceflight better than a complete transfer to private enterprise. NASA increasingly purchases commercial transportation, research services, lunar deliveries, and other capabilities, yet government financing and procurement continue to shape markets.

New Space Economy’s examination of NASA commercial space strategy describes that shift from government ownership toward purchasing services from private providers. Its examination of the post-ISS commercial economy also addresses the unresolved question of how much government demand will be needed to sustain privately operated orbital infrastructure.

Pew’s findings suggest that such mixed arrangements are unlikely to conflict with public sentiment simply because private companies participate. The more sensitive question is whether commercial activity remains safe, produces recognizable benefits, controls debris, and complements rather than eliminates public capability.

Where Political and Demographic Divisions Appear

Partisan division is less pronounced on many space questions than it is on numerous other national-policy issues. In the 2023 Pew survey, 72% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents said continued U.S. leadership in space was essential. Among Democrats and Democratic leaners, the figure was 69%.

Asteroid monitoring also received support from both coalitions. Some 57% of Republicans and 64% of Democrats called detecting potentially hazardous asteroids a top NASA priority. Moon and Mars exploration produced almost no partisan separation, with top-priority percentages clustered between 10% and 13%.

Earth climate monitoring was the clear exception. About seven-in-ten Democrats ranked monitoring important parts of Earth’s climate system as a top NASA priority, compared with 30% of Republicans. Pew connected this gap with the much broader partisan division surrounding climate change. Basic scientific research also attracted somewhat more support as a top priority among Democrats, at 47%, than Republicans, at 35%.

A wider partisan gap appeared when respondents considered NASA’s institutional necessity. Some 76% of Democrats said NASA’s continuing involvement in space exploration was essential, compared with 56% of Republicans. Both numbers constitute majorities, but the 20-percentage-point difference shows that bipartisan support does not imply identical views of government participation.

Gender differences appeared in several areas. Men were more likely than women to rank basic scientific space research as a top priority, at 47% compared with 35%. Yet men and women were almost identical on asteroid monitoring, at 61% and 60%. That contrast shows why demographic findings should be examined mission by mission rather than generalized into a single measure of interest in space.

Personal space travel generates much larger differences. In 2023, 46% of men said they would be interested in traveling in a private spacecraft to orbit Earth, compared with 25% of women. Roughly half of adults ages 18 to 29 expressed interest, compared with 17% among people ages 65 and older. Even among younger adults, interest had fallen from Pew’s 2018 measurement.

Age produces a very different result when the question concerns NASA rather than personal travel. Pew found 65% of adults ages 18 to 29 and 67% of adults 65 and older said continued NASA involvement was essential. Younger people may be much more interested in becoming passengers without being more committed to NASA as an institution.

That distinction reinforces a recurring pattern. Public opinion toward space cannot be reduced to enthusiasm or opposition. Americans differentiate between government capability, personal travel, science, exploration destinations, environmental monitoring, commercial operators, and risk reduction.

What Pew’s Findings Mean for U.S. Space Policy in 2026

Nearly half of Americans reported direct engagement with at least one space-related activity during the year before Pew’s 2023 survey. Some 26% had viewed an image from a space telescope, 23% had observed an astronomical event such as an eclipse or meteor shower, 19% had watched a space launch, and 11% had visited a planetarium or space museum. In total, 47% had participated in at least one of those activities.

Exposure is associated with stronger opinions about several space activities. Americans who had heard or read a great deal about NASA were considerably more likely to rate basic scientific research as a top priority. Pew found 59% of those most familiar with NASA gave basic research top status, compared with 28% among people who had heard nothing about the agency. Health research related to spaceflight showed a similar association, at 44% compared with 24%.

Again, those associations do not demonstrate causation. They do suggest that public attitudes toward space programs are formed within an information environment in which a large part of the population has limited direct knowledge of NASA programs, commercial projects, technical tradeoffs, or budget structures.

That matters for policymakers because a phrase such as “support for space exploration” hides several separate public judgments. Pew’s data indicate strong acceptance of American leadership in space, strong acceptance of NASA as an institution, high priority for planetary defense, substantial support for Earth observation and scientific research, low top-priority ratings for crewed Moon and Mars missions, conditional confidence in private companies, and limited personal interest in becoming a space tourist.

Space tourism demonstrates the difference between expectations and preferences. Some 55% of Americans in 2023 expected routine tourist travel to space within 50 years, yet only 35% said they personally wanted to orbit Earth. Sixty-five percent did not. Americans can believe a market will exist without wanting to participate in it themselves.

Debris presents the reverse problem. Americans expect the commercial space economy to grow, but 69% also anticipated that human-made space debris would become a substantial problem over the next 50 years. The uncertainty surrounding company performance on debris control indicates that expansion alone does not guarantee public confidence.

Those findings have implications for commercial operators. Arguments based exclusively on exploration excitement or entrepreneurial achievement may reach only part of the public. Safety, reliability, scientific benefits, protection of Earth, responsible orbital operations, national capability, and economic value connect more closely with the priorities revealed in Pew’s surveys.

NASA faces a related communications issue. Crewed lunar missions attract immense public attention but rank poorly as top priorities compared with asteroid monitoring and Earth science. Explaining how lunar missions connect with science, technology, industrial capability, international partnerships, astronaut health research, or later Mars missions may be more relevant to public understanding than treating a Moon landing as self-evidently valuable.

No polling result requires NASA to allocate its budget according to a public ranking. Space policy combines scientific assessments, national-security considerations, treaty commitments, congressional decisions, presidential policy, engineering requirements, industrial capacity, and long development timelines. Public opinion is one input into that system.

The absence of a comprehensive post-Artemis II Pew survey is now an important limitation. The April 2026 crewed lunar flyby gave Americans a real human deep-space mission to evaluate rather than a proposed one. NASA has also restructured subsequent Artemis missions, with Artemis III planned as a 2027 low Earth orbit demonstration and Artemis IV targeted for a 2028 lunar landing.

Pew’s 2025 federal-agency data show NASA remained broadly popular immediately before those events, but agency favorability cannot answer whether Americans now place greater priority on lunar exploration. A new mission-priority survey would be required to establish that.

Summary

Pew Research Center’s polling depicts an American public that is more supportive of the U.S. space program than simplistic arguments about either enthusiasm or skepticism would suggest. The strongest recurring finding is institutional: large majorities want the United States to retain leadership in space, and NASA continues to receive favorable public ratings even in a politically divided era.

Mission priorities are much more selective. Americans place asteroid detection and Earth-focused science above crewed exploration of the Moon and Mars. They generally approve of private space companies in areas such as spacecraft development and contributions to exploration, but many lack enough information to evaluate them, and assessments become less positive around orbital debris.

Human spaceflight occupies an unusual middle position. Majorities have repeatedly said astronauts belong in the U.S. space program, yet only small minorities rank specific Moon or Mars missions as top NASA priorities. That difference helps explain why public approval of NASA cannot be treated as automatic approval of every exploration program attached to it.

The long-running pattern amounts to broad permission for the United States to remain a spacefaring power, paired with public expectations about what government space activity should accomplish. Protection from hazards, scientific knowledge, Earth observation, technological benefits, responsible commercial development, and sustained national capability repeatedly perform well. Prestige-driven interpretations of human exploration receive less direct support.

As of September 2, 2026, the newest comprehensive Pew polling devoted to space remains the 2023 survey, supplemented by the 2025 finding that 64% of Americans viewed NASA favorably. Artemis II has since carried astronauts around the Moon, NASA has altered the architecture of later Artemis missions, and commercial activity continues to expand. Those developments create a new public-opinion question that existing Pew data cannot answer: whether actual progress in human lunar exploration has changed the ranking Americans assign to the missions themselves.