American children remain fans of space projects—poll

Press, 3 February 1986, Page 6

American children remain fans of space projects—poll

NZPA-NYT Washington

American children, although pained by the space shuttle explosion that killed a teacher who reminded them of one of their own, seem resiliently enthusiastic about the space programme, according to the latest "New York Times”-C.B.S. News poll. Two-thirds of the children who were asked said they would like to travel in space, compared with only half their parents. More l children than adults want to go on sending civilians into space, the poll indicates, and even those children who say the accident has made them think worse of the shuttle programme overwhelmingly favour continuing it. It was clear the Dres-

ence of the teacher, Christa McAuliffe, in the shuttle crew had heightened the impact of the accident

Many of those polled mentioned her directly, and 73 per cent said they knew before the launching that a teacher was going into space. Sixty-nine per cent of the children — 63 per cent of the boys and 74 per cent of the girls — said Mrs McAuliffe had seemed like one of their own teachers.

Adult enthusiasm for future space travel was also clear.

Among the 1120 adults interviewed, 80 per cent said the shuttle programme should continue, although only 46 per cent said they would be willing to pay more in taxes if

that proved necessary to keep it going. Sixty-eight per cent said an accident was bound to happen "sooner or later,” and only 16 per cent thought there was too much emphasis on manned rather than unmanned flights. For adults, the margin of sampling error was plus or minus three percentage points.

Because of concern at the National Aeronautics

and Space Administration and among experts on children that the explosion might have a deep impact on American children, the “Times” and C.B.S. News interviewed 224 children aged nine through 17 years. The poll also asked 158 adults about younger ■ children aged five through eight. The telephone interviews were conducted on Friday and Saturday and the children were inter-

1 viewed when parents 1 '..-.agreed.’? . Three-quarters of the 1 adults interviewed said * they had talked to their I- children about the acci1 dent, and just over half of ! the children interviewed 1 said their schools had 1 done programmes or dis--1 cussions about the accident Such steps, recom1 mended by psychologists, might have affected the children’s reactions.

Several children said they felt better after such discussions.

For example, a 10-year-old Indiana girl said, "I felt very sad. I talked to my parents about it. It made me feel better to talk.”

A 13-year-old New York City girl said, “I was sad and shocked. We talked about it a lot in school and it helped.” About one-fifth of the

children said they thought worse of the shuttle programme after the accident than they had before.

But even that group overwhelmingly favoured the programme and said they wanted civilians included.

A clear majority of them said they would take a trip in space if they could.