Abstract
President Donald Trump began his presidency in January 2017 by exclaiming, “We stand at the birth of a new millennium, ready to unlock the mysteries of space…” His “Make America Great Again” agenda has included a reinvigorated space policy—spearheaded by the creation of the Space Force military branch and NASA’s Launch America in partnership with the private sector. Prior to this administration, a 2015 study by Ambrosius found that Evangelical Protestants are the least supportive of space exploration when compared with other religious traditions and the public. These findings emerged from the analysis of several national surveys conducted between 2009 and 2011. This present study uses similar methods to revisit these findings in light of Evangelicals’ robust political support for the president and Vice President Mike Pence, the chair of the National Space Council who frequently evokes religious imagery in space-related speeches. Analysis of the General Social Survey conducted between 2004 and 2018 reveals that Trump’s presidency may have modestly altered this wall of separation. Evangelicals in 2018 remain significantly lower than non-Evangelicals in space knowledge, interest, and policy support, but they exhibit greater increases than the non-Evangelical population in space interest and support over levels during the Obama and Bush presidencies.
Highlights
Asks, among other questions, “Do religious traditions differ from the broader public in their space knowledge, interest, policy support, and expectations? In particular, how do Evangelicals differ from society’s views and the views of other traditions’ members?” The answer to those questions, given the findings of Ambrosius’ analysis of 2009–2011 General Social Survey and Pew Research Center data, is that Evangelical Protestants rank significantly lower across the board on most measures of support for space exploration—when compared with the general public and other religious traditions. This present study extends the previous work by asking two empirical questions: (Q1) Do Evangelical Protestants continue to rank below non-Evangelicals in space knowledge, interest, and support for space funding following the narrow cross-section of time analyzed by Ambrosius?
The Trump administration, through the words of space spokesperson Vice President Pence, used religious language to sell the purpose of space exploration throughout 2017–2018 (Koren 2018a)
While it would be desirable to directly measure an impact of Pence’s messages on Evangelicals, as the social networking approach to religion and politics would prefer, this study takes an indirect approach by looking for significant differences in Evangelical space attitudes after at least one year with Trump as commander-in-chief
Summary
Evangelical Protestants express lower levels of support for space exploration than the population as a whole and other religious traditions (Ambrosius 2015, 2016). Ambrosius (2015) referred to this observation as the “separation of church and space.” Interestingly, and perhaps paradoxically, the Trump–Pence administration has emphasized both the priorities of religious conservatives (including Evangelical Protestants) and the promise of space exploration. I leave here today with renewed confidence that with your support, with the efforts of the National Space Council, with the hard work of all who labor across the nation to forge America’s future in space, with the strong leadership of President Donald Trump, the courage of a new generation of explorers, and with God’s help, I know America will once again astonish the world with the heights that we reach and the wonders we achieve, and we will lead the world into space once again. This rhetoric is not an isolated incident—Pence has included similar religious references in speeches to the National Space Council and at the Pentagon ((Pence 2017, 2018b), respectively) It is unclear if these spiritual allusions are a product of Pence’s faith-based public persona or if they are a strategic effort to unite church and space for more hesitant believers (Coppins 2018; Koren 2018a). The paper concludes by cautioning against inferring too much from these indirect findings and exploring implications for future work at the crossroads of religion and space opinions
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