At Your first poll post you stated "Over that time period, support for setting aside money to support an attempt to land an astronaut on Mars has been relatively flat (39% in '69, 40% in '05), opposition has steadily increased (53% in '69, 58% in '05), .."

Now when we include the 99 data we see that over 30 years the opposition increased by a statistically dubious 1%. Then over a mere six years it jumps just enough to clearly beat the 3% margin of error. That may represent a "steady increase" in the world of business and marketing majors, but I doubt many scientists engineers or statisticians would consider it so.

In that same post you stated "So on the face of it, it appears that people are more aware of the idea of a Mars mission (as indicated by the drop in "No opinion"), and as they become more aware, the opposition grows., especially amongst older folks and women"

Now when we include the 99 data we see that in 99 support for Mars had actually grown at the expense of the undecided over a 30 year period. This is the exact opposite of what you would expect if your conclusion was correct. Now I can see this being an honest error for someone working in a field that has to rely on gut feels and quick decisions a lot, but if a scientist, engineer, or statistician were to make such a claim on that data I would think they were incompetent or just plain lying.

In your second poll post" You said first of all that you were trying to be nice in your title. Where I come from we don't consider it "nice" to hide data contrary to your personal opinions.

Then you stated "With the '99 data the story is even worse for Mars".
I disagree. The up and down data indicates public opinion is flexible. Without a more detailed set of questions and answers it is impossible to tell the reasons for these swings and how much they are due to mistaken impressions.

You went on to claim "As you mention policy, this was likely attributable at least in part to the Mars Sojourner mission and the publication of Zubrin's "The Case for Mars". It can be inferred from this that perhaps the rise in support from 39% to 43% in favor of a manned Mars mission wasn't a sustained rise over that thirty years, but may have been a bump fueled by the Mars propaganda machine in full production mode in the last half of the 1990s."

What propaganda? Everyone I know of who is firmly in the Mars camp and argues rationally for it does so on the basis of the Delta V and resource arguments. You certainly made no mention of these arguments as you stated later, after all they are based on reason. Instead you site propaganda. What is it you had in mind? I believed in Moon first until I was in my late 30's and expected to poke holes in the case for Mars when I read it. I can check the math and know the delta V argument is correct and as a chemical engineer I certainly can understand the processes of self sufficiency outlined in the "Case for Mars and why they beat the stew out of what's available on the Moon. Your propaganda statement is nothing but a dismissive hand wave for which you gave 0 basis for support.

Now for my own conjectures which I know aren't rigorous because the poll data you gave don't include the questions needed to evaluate them. I agree with you that the 99 data probably show a bump due to pathfinder and "The Case for Mars", but I wouldn't call either propaganda. You left out all the publicity the Mars Society got after its founding in 1998. There were a lot of articles about how to get to Mars cheap in teh late nineties, but it still wasn't a conversation at the typical water cooler. One thing I know is that the general public has a short memory of events outside their personal sphere of impact and that those not highly interested in space are quite likely to have forgotten anything they heard about getting to Mars cheap over a year or two later and for many even after a few months. I should also mention that we were running a surplus then so a very modest increase in NASA funding would not have represented any increase in burden on the taxpayer or decrease in funding for another supported program.

With the recent announcement of Bush's plans for going to Mars has had a much higher visibility. Along with that visibility comes a trillion dollar price tag with a high frequency. Of course you didn't mention that either. Why would you? It's a very reasonable basis for drop in public support compared to being told they could do it for 20 to 50 billion. Similarly why would you mention the War on terror which has played a big part in us going from surplus to deficit not to mention a change in attitude towards our country from confident and capable to self doubting in the case of many people.

This is exactly why I think these polls are nearly useless. They don't ask enough questions to determine whether changes in poll numbers are truly do to a change in in intinsic value of a certain outcome, perception of its cost, or changing priorities due to external factors.

I'd really like to know how well the public understands the issues and what they think it will cost. You need to know that to truly evaluate the changes in poll numbers.

Regards,
Mark