At the time of the landings, more than 1/2 of Americans polled wanted to cut NASA funding That is a link to a long document showing American support for NASA. Note the high negatives among 20-25 year olds in those charts from the 1970's; those are the Baby Boomers. The same people who really did not support space exploration during their whole run.The only point at which the opinion surveys demonstrate that more than 50 percent of the public believed Apollo was worth its expense came in 1969at the time of the Apollo 11 lunar landing, as shown in Fig. 6. And even then only a measly 53 percent agreed that the result justified the expense, despite the fact that the landing was perhaps the most momentous event in human history since it became the first instance in which the human race became bi-planetary.
While I'm reading the document - any idea why such a situation came to be? People born in the fifties - I would expect them to be charged with the Kennedy momentum that mane people quote as setting off the major successes of the US in the space race.Note the high negatives among 20-25 year olds in those charts from the 1970's; those are the Baby Boomers. The same people who really did not support space exploration during their whole run.
Remember that the Baby Boomers are the hippies who went to Woodstock, protested the war etc. My parents for example are not fans of space and exploration and hate government spending until they get their Medicare and SSI benefits, or go yell at the city to fix roads.
So these are the Baby Boomers. I must admit not to have known that prior to you telling me. Did they oppose space exploration because it's space, because it's hard science or because it's government? I feel like I'm getting the wind of it but would like to make sure.