That decision was also fairly popular inside of the United States, but it was definitely a complicated situation. During the Cold War, America was gripped by the fear that the Soviet Union would land on the moon first, thereby defeating America in the space race. "When you divorce it from the numbers and you ask people if they like NASA and spaceflight, people say yes, ... 75 to 80 percent are in favor." However, this was only the case in some circumstances. Not all Americans - and usually not even half of Americans - felt that the moonshot was worth the money being put in: "public opinion in favor of continuing human lunar exploration almost never rose above 50 percent during NASA's Apollo program." Despite these favorability numbers, the
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This dislike when also considering the economy may be attributed to the way that most people thought and still think that NASA takes up far more of the Federal budget than in actuality. While "public opinion has wrongly put NASA's budget at about 22 percent of the government's spending over the years," the actual high was around 4.3%, at the peak of the space race. This massive discrepancy suggests that oftentimes, Americans based their opinions about NASA on a fake belief of what NASA received. The Federal government quite possibly concluded the same and decided that NASA and the space program actually was what America wanted. This is especially true since Lyndon B. Johnson was able to get reelected during the moonshot, and if it had been truly unpopular, it would have shut down Johnson's chances of reelection. This demonstrates that many Americans did have a more detailed view of the issue that simply a false budget percentage. A few informed Americans, however, still thought that the space program was not worth it. They often thought that America did not put enough thought into the
This dislike when also considering the economy may be attributed to the way that most people thought and still think that NASA takes up far more of the Federal budget than in actuality. While "public opinion has wrongly put NASA's budget at about 22 percent of the government's spending over the years," the actual high was around 4.3%, at the peak of the space race. This massive discrepancy suggests that oftentimes, Americans based their opinions about NASA on a fake belief of what NASA received. The Federal government quite possibly concluded the same and decided that NASA and the space program actually was what America wanted. This is especially true since Lyndon B. Johnson was able to get reelected during the moonshot, and if it had been truly unpopular, it would have shut down Johnson's chances of reelection. This demonstrates that many Americans did have a more detailed view of the issue that simply a false budget percentage. A few informed Americans, however, still thought that the space program was not worth it. They often thought that America did not put enough thought into the