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America's heading back to the Moon, but what does the public really think? This week, we talk with former NASA Chief Historian and Smithsonian Curator Dr. Roger Launius, who has studied, among many other things, public perceptions of NASA and spaceflight. Some spoilers: no, there was no "Golden Age" in the 1960s when the public was hugely behind the Apollo Moon landings; being a space historian is a lot of fun; and it probably doesn't really matter if China lands people on the Moon before the US does so *again*. Join us.

Headlines:
\n\u2022 Successful first flight of ULA's new Vulcan Centaur rocket with engines from Blue Origin
\n\u2022 Payload - Astrobotic's Peregrine commercial lunar lander suffers propulsion leak en route to the Moon
\n\u2022 NASA engineers finally open stuck cover on OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample capsule

Main Topic: Public Perceptions of Space Exploration
\n\u2022 Common perception of widespread public support and national unity around Apollo program is a myth\xa0
\n\u2022 Polls at the time showed concerns about cost and other spending priorities
\n\u2022 Support depended heavily on Cold War context; would not have happened otherwise
\n\u2022 Public support and approval polling for space exploration has remained fairly consistent over decades
\n\u2022 But support drops when funds are weighed against other priorities like social programs
\n\u2022 JFK tried multiple times to make Apollo a joint U.S.-Soviet program to save money
\n\u2022 His assassination allowed NASA to leverage his legacy to maintain support and funding
\n\u2022 Presidential bold visions for space require an urgent political problem to address
\n\u2022 Competition with China lacks the existential threat of the Cold War space race

Additional Topics:\xa0
\n\u2022 NASA is now doing business with more private-public and commercial partnerships
\n\u2022 But political factors and election cycles still hamper long-term continuity
\n\u2022 Preserving history and archives from the digital era will be extremely difficult
\n\u2022 Predictions: Boots on the Moon again within 10-15 years, Mars by 2040s

Hosts: Rod Pyle and Tariq Malik

Guest: Roger Launius

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• rocketmoney.com/twis
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