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Quantitative Research Paper

Alex Slupski

SYA 3450
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Introduction

This research paper will be exploring attitudes towards the United States

government’s spending of taxpayer money on space exploration programs. The National

Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA, is a civilian government agency

responsible for America’s activates in space. Since its inception in 1958, public opinion

towards the agency has fluctuated. Excitement was high through the space race and into

the shuttle era but appears to have waned in recent years. There are many nuances to their

arguments, but generally, supporters and NASA themselves say that space exploration

plays a critical role in inspiring the next generation of scientists and engineers, expands

our horizons as a species, and on a more relatable level, many technological advances

made by the space program have ended up in our everyday lives. Detractors maintain that

it is irresponsible to be spending large sums of money on a seemingly fruitless quest

when we have much more pressing issues to deal with on Earth.

Research on public attitudes towards this issue is critical for policymakers to be

able to make informed decisions on what best represents the wishes of Americans. It’s

also critical for the administrators at NASA to understand what the common citizen

wants out of a program that can seem unrelatable and foreign.

The research that is discussed here will explore the effects that highest year of

school completed, race, religious service attendance, and political leanings have on

attitudes towards spending on American space exploration programs. Some potential

predictors in terms of race could be factors such as a lack of Black representation

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amongst astronauts or higher levels of STEM-focused curriculum in predominantly white

and upper-class schools. Some potential factors for the effects of education level include

that potentially those with a lower highest degree achieved could feel disenfranchised by

the often academically worded news coverage of space exploration, or that those with

college degrees could have had more exposure to more academic studies, increasing

support for the sciences later in life. Increased religious service attendance could correlate

with decreased trust in science and a more negative attitude towards funding of space

programs.

Literature Review

There is a moderately sized base of research and peer-reviewed studies centered

around attitudes towards the funding of space exploration. This could be largely due to

the significant amount of data available, as the relevant question has been asked on the

GSS since 1973.

One of the most relevant studies found that, based on data from the 2006 and 2008

GSS, attitudes towards funding of space exploration programs were largely apolitical and

instead more based on respondent’s knowledge level and opinion on science in general

(Nadeau, 2013). The same study found that the “ultimate” demographic for the most

likely person to support this spending was a white male with a high socio-economic

status and who had a liking for science and a post-secondary education (Nadeau, 2013).

In a study exploring the relationship between respondent’s religion and attitudes towards
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space exploration, researchers found that evangelical protestants were the least supportive

of pro-space public policy (Ambrosius, 2015). While this study did not directly look at

the funding of these programs, the information it gives about general attitudes towards

space exploration could be indicative of attitudes towards their funding.

In an interesting comparison, a study conducted in the UK concluded that

“generating new scientific knowledge and advancing human culture” was the most

important reason that participants stated for the continuation of space research programs

(Entradas and Miller, 2010). In an interesting correlational study, researchers established

the importance that the American public library has in disseminating information to the

public on space exploration (Spencer, 2016)

It’s also important to understand America’s actual space policies since the 1970’s

when exploring people’s perception of spending on these polices. According to Pomeroy

(2018), decades of changing policy has led to an eclectic research agenda. This jumble of

programs and goals could make it harder for the average American to discern what

agencies are currently doing, making them potentially less likely to approve of spending

money on these programs. In a study examining the relationships between major

milestones in space exploration and attitudes towards the funding of the programs,

DeSante (2017) finds that immediately after America’s victory over the Soviet Union in

the race to the moon, citizens were less likely to approve of spending on space

exploration programs, but around the end of the Cold War and near the Challenger

disaster, they were more likely to approve of this spending.

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This research informs the choice of methods to use when examining the data, and

it also lays the groundwork for analysis and potential relationships to focus on.

Hypotheses

Hypothesis 1:

Null: There is no association between highest year of school completed and

attitudes towards funding space exploration programs.

Research: There is an association between highest year of school completed and

attitudes towards funding space exploration programs.

Hypothesis 2:

Null: There is no association between race of respondent and attitudes towards

funding space exploration programs.

Research: There is an association between race of respondent and attitudes

towards funding space exploration programs.

Hypothesis 3:

Null: There is no association between how often the respondent attends religious

services and attitudes towards funding space exploration programs.

Research: There is an association between how often the respondent attends religious

services and attitudes towards funding space exploration programs.

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Hypothesis 4:

Null: There is no association between whether the respondent thinks of self as

liberal of conservative and attitudes towards funding space exploration programs.

Research: There is an association between whether the respondent thinks of self as

liberal of conservative and attitudes towards funding space exploration programs.

Data and Methods

The data used in this research will be sourced from the General Social Survey’s

2018 data set. The data set includes 2348 responses from a nationwide survey of U.S.

adults, the vast majority of which were collected from face-to-face interviews, and some

from computer assisted personal interviewing or by telephone.

This research will involve four independent variables, the first of which is the

respondent’s highest degree. The variable name is DEGREE, and it is a nominal variable.

The response options are Less than high school, High school, Junior college, Bachelor,

Graduate, and Don’t know. The second independent variable is race of the respondent,

titled RACE in the GSS dataset. It is a nominal variable, and the answer choices are

White, Black, and Other. How often the respondent attends religious services is the third

independent variable. Its code name is ATTEND, and it is an ordinal variable. The
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answer choices are Never, Less than once a year, Once a year, Several times a year, Once

a month, 2-3 times a month, Nearly every week, Every week, More than once a week,

and Don’t know/na. The final independent variable is whether the respondent thinks of

themself as liberal or conservative. The name of this variable is POLVIEWS, and it is a

nominal variable. The answer choices are Extremely liberal, Liberal, Slightly liberal,

Moderate, Slightly conservative, Conservative, Extremely conservative, Don’t know, and

N/A.

The dependent variable being used is the variable NATSPAC, which asks, “Are

we spending too much, too little, or about the right amount on space exploration

programs?” This is a nominal variable, and the answer choices are Too little, About right,

Too much, and Don’t know.

No data will need to be recoded, and all Don’t know and N/A responses will be

coded as missing.

Analytical Strategy

Crosstabulations will be run, as well as chi-square tests.

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Results
Table 1. Descriptive Statistics: Means/Proportions, Standard Deviations for factors
predicting
individuals attitudes towards spending on space exploration programs by race, highest degree achieved,
religious service attendance, and political views.

Mean/proportio
Variable n Standard Deviation

NATSPAC - Space exploration program

.
TOO LITTLE 224
.
ABOUT RIGHT 513
.
TOO MUCH 263

DEGREE - R's highest degree (5-point scale)

1.68 1.211

RACE - Race of respondent

.
White 721
.
Black 164
.
Other 115

ATTEND - How often R attends religious services (9-point scale)

3.12 2.811

POLVIEWS - Think of self as liberal or conservative (8-point scale)

4.05 1.500
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Table 2. NATSPAC and DEGREE Crosstabulation Results

Less than HS High School Junior Coll. Bachelor Graduate

Too little 9.80% 21.50% 19.30% 27.80% 30.60%
About right 53.90% 48.50% 51.10% 56.50% 52.80%
Too much 36.30% 30.10% 29.50% 15.80% 16.70%

Table 3. NATSPAC and DEGREE Chi-Square test results

Asymptomatic Sig.
Pearson Chi-Square <.001

Table 4. NATSPAC and RACE Crosstabulation Results

White Black Other

Too little 24.00% 14.10% 22.70%
About right 52.30% 45.50% 52.70%
Too much 23.70% 40.40% 24.50%

Table 5. NATSPAC and RACE Chi-Square results

Asymptomatic Sig.
Pearson Chi-Square <.001
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Table 6. NATSPAC and ATTEND Crosstabulation Results

Never LT ONCE/YR ONCE A YR SVRL TM/YR ONCE A MONTH

Too little 27.60% 27.80% 18.50% 21.60% 23.90%
About right 46.50% 47.20% 52.90% 55.00% 61.20%
Too much 25.90% 25.00% 28.60% 23.40% 14.90%

2-3x A MONTH NRLY EVRY WEEK EVERY WEEK MORE THN ONCE/WEEK
Too little 20.20% 13.60% 17.60% 20.40%
About right 52.40% 59.10% 52.30% 49.00%
Too much 27.40% 27.30% 30.10% 30.60%

Table 7. NATSPAC and ATTEND Chi-Square Results

Asymptomatic Sig.
Pearson Chi-Square <.315

Table 8. NATSPAC and POLVIEWS Crosstabulation Results

Extremely Liberal Liberal Slightly Liberal

Too little 39.20% 36.00% 17.60%
About right 35.30% 48.20% 54.60%
Too much 25.50% 15.80% 27.70%

MODERATE SLIGHTLY CONSERVATIVE CONSERVATIVE EXTREMELY CONSERVATIVE

Too little 17.80% 19.50% 23.20% 24.30%
About right 53.70% 55.50% 50.30% 54.50%
Too much 28.50% 25.00% 26.50% 21.20%

Table 9. NATSPAC and POLVIEWS Chi-Square Results

Asymptomatic Sig.
Pearson Chi-Square <.002
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Discussion

After running a crosstabulation with a Chi-Square test between our dependent

variable, NATSPAC, and our first independent variable, DEGREE, we see that the Chi-

Square test came back with a <.001 asymptomatic significance. This means that there is a

very small chance that the correlation that it found is down to random chance. Looking at

Table 2, we see some interesting results. The percent of respondents who chose “about

right” is relatively consistent across all five levels of educational attainment. The

differences occur in the “too little” and “too much” response categories. In a very

apparent pattern, as the level of education achieved increases, the number of respondents

who answered “too little” increases, and the number of respondents who answered “too

much” decreases. In the two most extreme examples, 9.8% of those who have less than a

high school education say that spending is too little, and 30.6% of those with graduate

degrees say that too little is being spent. Conversely, 36.3% of those with less than a high

school diploma say too much is being spent, and 16.7% of those with a graduate degree

say too much is being spent. In general, it seems that as level of education increases, the

desire to increase funding for space exploration grows. The confirms the research

hypothesis for this independent variable and confirms some of the findings in the

literature review.

The second crosstabulation that was run, comparing NATSPAC and our second

independent variable, RACE, has a <.001 asymptomatic significance according to the

Chi-Square test. Based on Table 4, it appears that the majority of respondents who
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identify as White, Black, and Other believe that the amount being spent on space

exploration programs is about right. Among those who identity as White and don’t

believe that the right amount is being spent, 24.0% believe that too little is being spent

and 23.7% believe that too much is being spent which is very interesting. When you look

at this same comparison among those who identify as Black, a large difference appears.

Among Black respondents who don’t believe that the right amount is being spent, 14.1%

believe that too little is being spent and 40.4% believe that too much is being spent. This

difference signals that respondents who identify as Black appear to generally have a less

positive view of space exploration and believe that too much is being spent on it, when

compared to respondents who identify as White. This matches an possible outcome that

was hypothesized in the Introduction above.

Our third crosstabulation, which was run with our NATSPAC dependent variable

and our third independent variable, ATTEND, resulted in a Chi-Square test asymptomatic

significance of <.315. Since this value is significantly larger that our <.05 baseline for a

correlation to be present, we assume that there is no significant relationship between

attitudes towards funding of space exploration programs and religious service attendance.

This is a bit surprising in the researcher’s opinion and goes against some of the expected

findings. The researcher believed that increased religious service attendance would mean

a more spiritual person and perhaps less of a desire to explore the heavens scientifically,

but it appears to be more complex than that.

The fourth and final crosstabulation was run between NATSPAC and

POLVIEWS. The Chi-Square test resulted in an asymptomatic significance of <.002,

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which signals that there is a statistically significant relationship here. Looking at Table 6,

the first thing that stands out is that the percentage of those who consider themselves

“extremely liberal” and that the amount of spending on space is “about right” is very low.

It is more than 15% lower than all of the other percentages in that row, with the average

of the others hovering around 52.8%. In every category except “extremely liberal,”

“about right” is, by a fair margin, the most popular response. Another interesting outlier

is that respondents who identify as “liberal” are heavily skewed towards believing that

“too little” is being spent. This category has the second highest percentage of “too little”

responses and the lowest percentage of “too much” responses by a 10% margin. A pattern

that emerges is that those who are politically central (“slightly liberal,” “moderate,” and

“slightly conservative”) don’t believe that “too little” is being spent. Those on the farther

ends of the political spectrum appear to be more likely to say that “too little” is being

spent on space exploration programs.

This analysis of data does fill some holes in existing research. This purely data-

driven approach with this robust and large of a data set didn’t appear to exist before this.

It compliments some of the more qualitative-focused research that has already been

conducted.

Conclusions

Research on public attitudes towards this issue is critical for policymakers to be

able to make informed decisions on what best represents the wishes of Americans. It’s
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also critical for the administrators at NASA to understand what the common citizen

wants out of a program that can seem very foreign to them at times.

Limitations could include issues with separating the effects of race on attitudes

towards space exploration funding from the resulting education levels due to race. This

research has not been done, and if these two variables can be isolated, new and

interesting conclusions can be drawn.

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References

Burbach, D. T. (2019). Partisan Rationales for Space: Motivations for Public Support of

Space Exploration Funding, 1973–2016. Space Policy, 50.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.spacepol.2019.08.001

DeSante, C. D. (n.d.). They Chose to Go to the Moon: How Birth Cohorts Shape

Opinions on Funding for Space Exploration*. SOCIAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY, 98(4),

1175–1188. https://doi.org/10.1111/ssqu.12470

Spencer, B. (2016). The book and the rocket: the symbiotic relationship between

American public libraries and the space program, 1950-2015. Information & Culture, (4),

550. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?

direct=true&db=edsglr&AN=edsgcl.468334846&site=eds-live&scope=site

Nadeau, F. (2013). Explaining public support for space exploration funding in America:

A multivariate analysis. Acta Astronautica, 86, 158–166.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actaastro.2013.01.004

Entradas, M., & Miller, S. (2010). Investigating public space exploration support in the

UK. Acta Astronautica, 67(7), 947–953.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actaastro.2010.06.015
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Pomeroy, C. (2018). The Quantitative Analysis of Space Policy: A Review of Current

Methods and Future Directions. Space Policy.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.spacepol.2018.08.001

Ambrosius, J. D. (n.d.). Separation of church and space: Religious influences on public

support for US space exploration policy. SPACE POLICY, 32, 17–31.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.spacepol.2015.02.003

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Syntax/Output
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