I've been looking at polls about Mars since Ed's contention that interest in manned Mars Explortaion goes down with the more we know about Mars...

He seems slightly wrong...

I have no link for this one only the front end of the poll seems to still exist not the results...
The first week of Pathfinder and Sojourner being on Mars there was an online poll conducted by CNN which asked is "Do you think Mars exploration is a worthwhile investment?" and when I took it the numbers were something like 16% NO and 84% YES this was during July 6, 1997...

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Public Supports Exploration

Sixty-eight percent of the public believe it was "worth it" to send humans to explore the Moon in the Apollo Program, according to a July 1997 poll by CBS News. Fifty-four percent favor "sending astronauts to explore Mars." In a Roper poll (7/11/97), 62 percent of the public said they would support "the United States sending astronauts to explore Mars."

"Clearly, a human Mars mission on some time scale is a goal backed by a large majority of Americans," Friedman said.

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http://www.google.com/groups?q=mars+poll+1998&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&safe=off&scoring=r&selm=22APR199816294307%40kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov&rnum=1

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POLL: 72 Percent of Americans Want Mars Mission
By Daniel Sorid

Staff Writer
posted: 12:14 pm ET
25 July 2000

Seventy-two percent of Americans want some kind of Mars-exploration program, a new SPACE.com/Harris Interactive Poll has found.

According to the poll, 43 percent of the American public wants NASA to work toward a mission to send humans to Mars and 30 percent believe NASA should receive additional funding to complete such a mission. Thirteen percent said NASA should divert funds from other NASA programs.

As NASA deliberates on how best to proceed with a program to explore the Red Planet in light of two high-profile failures, only 8 percent want Mars exploration to play no role in NASA's activities. A sizable minority of Americans, 30 percent, said NASA's current Mars-exploration program should include only robotic craft.

The poll, which was conducted online, surveyed 2,353 people that are a part of the Harris Interactive online database. The figures were weighted by age, region, gender and race to represent the U.S. The poll has a 2-percent margin of error, according to Harris.

Half of Americans would be interested in traveling to Mars, the poll found. The vast majority of the country -- 84 percent -- believes that space exploration is either very important or somewhat important to society.

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http://www.space.com/news/Harris_interactive_poll_000724.html

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Poll: Kids look forward to rock climbing on Mars

May 2, 2002 Posted: 3:05 PM EDT (1905 GMT)

By Richard Stenger
CNN

(CNN) -- Most think humans will reach Mars within their lifetimes. Many expect to make the trip themselves. And rock climbing will be tops among recreational activities. Such are the aspirations of thousands of U.S. schoolchildren.

More than 2,600 youngsters took part in the online poll, released Thursday by the organizers of Space Day, an annual event designed to bolster interest in science, math and space among youths.

"It's exciting and encouraging that the spirit of exploration is alive and that students see it occurring in their lifetime," said Orlando Figueroa, director of NASA's Mars Exploration program. "These may well be the children that make it a reality."

Among the findings of the 2002 survey:

Seventy percent of respondents thought a manned mission would reach Mars within the next 10 or 20 years.

Nearly 25 percent plan to visit the red planet personally.

More than 50 percent anticipated rock climbing as the most fun activity.

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http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/space/05/02/space.day/

Gallup poll shows strong public support for NASA
Posted: Tue, Feb 18, 2003, 7:04 PM ET (0004 GMT)

A poll published this week by the Gallup Organization shows that the American public is still strongly supportive of NASA and the shuttle program despite the Columbia tragedy. The poll, commissioned by CNN and USA Today, found that 25% of respondents wanted NASA's funding increase, while 49% believe the agency's funding should remain at currently levels. Only 17% said the agency's budget should be cut. That level of support was somewhat higher than the last poll conducted by Gallup in December 1999, after the failures of the Mars Polar Lander and Mars Climate Orbiter spacecraft. The same poll showed that 52% of people believed that NASA should concentrate on manned missions, versus 37% who preferred unmanned missions; those figures were similar to the last poll from November 1998. Seven percent of people said NASA should concentrate on both, even though that was not one of the options given in the poll question. The poll also revealed that 31% of people would be interested in flying on the shuttle, down only slightly from when the question was last asked in 1991. Men were more likely to support increased funding for NASA or be willing to fly on the shuttle than women. The poll results were based on a survey of 1,000 adults in the US February 7-9.

http://www.spacetoday.net/Summary/1510