From space.com - once again protection from impact was not included in the poll questions - undoubtedly this ommission was just accidental (yeah, and cows fly).

The exact wording of the manned Mars flight question was not provided along with the results - Is this manned Mars flith "someday" or "right now"?.
That noted, the opposition is definetely firm (strong) opposition...

"While support for the space program and the shuttle consistently at two-thirds or more, people are more divided on the question of sending a human to Mars. Support for that proposal was at 49 percent, while 42 percent opposed it. Men were almost twice as likely as women to think that sending someone to Mars was a good idea.

"We can go there after all the things wrong on Earth are fixed," said Betty Collatrella, a retiree from Caldwell, N.J. ``I'm totally against any of it. It's a total waste of money we need for our kids, for illnesses, could put somebody's kids through college, could cure so many diseases."

The poll of 1,034 adults was taken July 11-15 and carries an error margin of plus or minus 3 percentage points."

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