{"id":15686,"date":"2013-07-19T00:01:03","date_gmt":"2013-07-19T05:01:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/%year%\/%monthnum%\/%day%\/on-the-44th-anniversary-americans-less-impressed-by-the-first-walk-on-the-moon\/"},"modified":"2024-04-14T03:30:45","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T08:30:45","slug":"on-the-44th-anniversary-americans-less-impressed-by-the-first-walk-on-the-moon","status":"publish","type":"short-read","link":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/2013\/07\/19\/on-the-44th-anniversary-americans-less-impressed-by-the-first-walk-on-the-moon\/","title":{"rendered":"On the 44th anniversary, Americans less impressed by the first walk on the moon"},"content":{"rendered":"

Neil Armstrong took \u201cone giant leap for mankind\u201d when he became the first man to walk on the moon<\/a> on July 20, 1969, ending the space race and drawing the rapt attention of Americans everywhere. (An overwhelming 80% of Americans who were eight or older when Armstrong landed on the moon remember exactly where they were at the time of the event<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"<\/a>
A girl holds The Washington Post on Monday, July 21, 1969 \/ Jack Weir<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/figure>\n\n

But a 2009 survey showed that the moon landing had fallen in the public\u2019s view of top American achievements. Just 12% of Americans think putting a man on the moon was the nation\u2019s greatest achievement<\/a> over the previous half century.<\/p>\n\n

\"manonmoon\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n

In 2009, a Pew Research Center poll asked Americans to name the country\u2019s greatest accomplishment of the past 50 years. About a quarter of Americans (27%) said they viewed feats in science, medicine or technology as the greatest achievement. \u00a0Fully 17% of the public said civil rights or equal rights was the greatest achievement in 50 years and 10% said electing a black president.<\/p>\n\n

These figures represented a decrease in public opinion about the importance of space exploration since 1999, when we polled about the greatest achievement of the 20th<\/sup> century. At that time, almost half of Americans (47%) mentioned accomplishments in science, medicine or technology as America\u2019s greatest achievement and 18% specifically mentioned space exploration and putting a man on the moon.<\/p>\n\n

Notably, the Boomer generation\u2014born between 1946 and 1964\u2014was the only group of Americans to remain consistent in their view of the man-on-the-moon achievement. In 1999, 19% of Boomers cited space exploration as the nation\u2019s greatest accomplishment. Ten years later, 17% of Boomers said the same.<\/p>\n\n

But Americans haven\u2019t become entirely disenchanted with space exploration. In 2010, a\u00a0majority of Americans\u00a0<\/a>(63%) were optimistic that astronauts would land on Mars by 2050. Read more<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A small percentage of Americans still view Armstrong\u2019s walk on the moon as a top American achievement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":167,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"sub_headline":null,"sub_title":"","_prc_public_revisions":[],"_ppp_expiration_hours":0,"_ppp_enabled":false,"ai_generated_summary":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"relatedPosts":[],"datacite_doi":"","datacite_doi_citation":"","_prc_seo_qr_attachment_id":0,"spoken_article_player_enabled":true,"displayBylines":true,"footnotes":"","prc_watchers":[],"_prc_fork_parent":0,"_prc_fork_status":"","_prc_active_fork":0},"categories":[],"bylines":[837],"collection":[],"datasets":[],"_post_visibility":[],"formats":[467],"_fund_pool":[],"languages":[],"regions-countries":[515],"research-teams":[518],"workflow-status":[],"class_list":["post-15686","short-read","type-short-read","status-publish","hentry","bylines-katie-reilly","formats-short-read","regions-countries-united-states","research-teams-science"],"label":"Short 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