This study tests the congruence between public opinion toward funding US space exploration and previously theorized rationales to justify space activities and examines how those motivations differ by political party and how they vary from 1973 to 2016. General Social Survey data are used to measure correlations between space spending preferences and other spending categories that proxy proposed rationales, with mixed effects and ordinal logit regressions. Consistent with the scientific discovery rationale, support for funding space correlates with positive attitudes toward science. During the Cold War, a national security frame prevailed: Space and military preferences were correlated, with “hawks” supporting defense and space spending and “doves” opposing both. After the Cold War, Republicans continue to show strong space-military correlation, but for Democrats, space funding support now correlates with environmental protection preferences and not their military spending views. Both parties show slight negative correlations between space and social welfare spending. Overall partisan differences in funding preferences have not greatly increased, but diverging motivations have implications for future space politics.

这项研究测试了公众舆论对资助美国太空探索的资助与先前为太空活动辩护的理论依据之间的一致性，并研究了各政党动机之间的差异以及从1973年到2016年的动机之间的差异。一般社会调查数据用于衡量太空之间的相关性支出偏好和其他可以替代提议的基本原理的支出类别，具有混合效应和有序logit回归。与科学发现的原理一致，对资助空间的支持与对科学的积极态度相关。在冷战期间，国家安全框架占上风：太空和军事偏好相互关联，“鹰派”支持国防和太空开支，“鸽子”反对两者。冷战结束后，共和党人继续表现出强烈的时空关系，但是对于民主党人而言，太空资金支持现在与环境保护偏好相关，而与他们的军事支出观点无关。双方都显示出空间与社会福利支出之间的轻微负相关。党派在资金偏好上的总体差异并未大大增加，但动机的差异对未来的太空政治产生了影响。