50% Say Space Shuttle Program Worth What It Cost Taxpayers

With the last planned U.S. space shuttle currently circling the globe, Americans are slightly more supportive of the NASA program than they were a year-and-a-half ago.

Still, the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that just 50% of American Adults believe the 30-year-old Space Shuttle program has been worth the expense to taxpayers. Twenty-seven percent (27%) do not believe the program has been worth the cost, while another 23% are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

These findings are little changed from a survey conducted last October, but the number who says the program has been worth the cost is up from 40% in January 2010.

Looking ahead, 38% of adults believe the government should fund future space programs, but 33% say such programs should be funded by the private sector. Twenty-nine percent (29%) are not sure. While those sentiments are little changed from October, voters were more evenly divided on the question last April. 

Only 18% of adults believe the government should spend more money on space exploration in the future, while 30% say the government should spend less. A plurality (40%) thinks the government should spend about the same amount of money on space exploration as it did before.

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The survey of 1,000 Adults was conducted on July 9-10, 2011 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. Seemethodology.