Posted: Sun, Aug 31, 2003, 9:09 AM ET (1309 GMT)
A majority of the American public is willing to spend money to build a successor to the space shuttle even as they express concern about the space agency itself, a new opinion poll revealed. The poll, performed last week by Ipsos-Public Affairs and published by the Orlando Sentinel on Sunday, showed that 60 percent of the public was willing to spend taxpayers' money on a successor to the space shuttle; 38 percent were opposed. In addition, 81 percent of those polled thought space exploration was important to America's future, 71 percent considered the International Space Station an important program, and 63 percent thought the shuttle program was worth its cost. However, the respondents were less supportive of NASA itself: 49 percent said they were less confident in NASA in the wake of the Columbia investigation. Fifty-one percent thought NASA was likely to repeat the mistakes that led to the Challenger and Columbia accidents, and 68 percent thought a similar catastrophic accident would take place in the next seven years. The results were based on a poll of 1,002 people conducted August 27 and 28, immediately after the release of the final report of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board.

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