Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

Blue Origin’s crew capsule – a suborbital six-seater craft.
Credit: Blue Origin

Question: “As you may know, a number of private companies are experimenting with individual space travel. If you could afford it, how likely would you be to travel to space?”

Taking a new public pulse regarding this question is a Sept. 7-11 Morning Consult/POLITICO poll.

Explains Edward Graham, a reporter at Morning Consult covering tech policy: Forty-one percent of registered voters said they were likely to travel to space if they could afford it. A 48-percent plurality said they were not too likely or not at all likely to do so, even if they had the means.

Eleven percent didn’t know or had no opinion, according to the national sample of 1,975 voters. The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.

Sir Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Galactic takes flight. Will public space travel?
Credit: Virgin Galactic

Underwhelming prospect

Graham points out that Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp., Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin and Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic are pursuing expensive private space travel efforts.

Public pulse on space travel – sample page from new poll.
Credit: Morning Consult/POLITICO poll.

“Some Americans seem underwhelmed by the possibility of affordable private-sector space travel,” Graham explains, “even as the industry sets its sights on loftier goals than shepherding wealthy clients into outer space.”

Of those poll respondents with yearly incomes of $100,000 or more, 40 percent said they were likely to travel to space if they could afford it, Graham reports. “Fifty-five percent of respondents in that income bracket said they were unlikely or not too likely to make the journey, even if it was within their budget.”

Resources

For Graham’s full story on the poll findings, go to:

https://morningconsult.com/2017/09/18/voters-not-wooed-by-commercial-space-travel-but-industry-sees-larger-potential/

For the poll questions that were asked, including the public space travel query, go to:

https://morningconsult.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/National-Tracking-Poll-170904.pdf