Crisis is not a reason to cut funding for space exploration program, Russians say.
 

MOSCOW, April 11, 2016.  Russian Public Opinion Research Centre (VCIOM) presents the data of the survey describing Russian opinion on the following questions: whether Russians think that the Russian government should cut funding space programs; what space programs are top-priority for them.  

Despite economic crisis in the country, as a year ago three-quarters of Russians oppose space programs’ budget cuts (73% in 2016 and 76% in 2015). Seventeen percent of them support increase in space budget spending.

At the same time, the share of those who think it is better to cut spending has increased over a year from 15% to 21%. Most of them are supporters of LDPR (33%) and residents of million cities (excepting Moscow and St. Petersburg) – 28%.

Russians are divided in their opinions on whether Russia should strive to be leader in space exploration, or not. Forty-eight percent of Russians think it is important for Russia to be the first country to send mission to Mars (54% of men); 40% do not think it is important.  The initiative to send mission to Venus is not so appreciated. Fifty-four percent of respondents believe that Russians should not compete for the right to be the first Earthmen on this planet.

Respondents are enthusiastic about plans to create Moon bases. Half of them (48%; 58% of those who are aged 18-24) say that Russia should make efforts to be the first country to build a base on the Moon (39% disagree with them).

To celebrate the 55-year anniversary of the first flight, the Medialogia Company has conducted analysis of mentions of events related to Yuri Gagarin in the Russian media over the recent five years. The most discussed topics have been installation of Yuri Gagarin monument at the Lubyanka square, Sochi avtodrom and Air and Space Museum in the United States.

The VCIOM opinion polls were conducted on April 2-3, 2016 in 130 settlements, 46 regions and 9 federal districts of Russia. Sample size for each survey was 1600 persons. The surveys were conducted with multi-stage stratified sample based on general rule of walking and quotas at the final selection stage; the sample is representative of the Russian population aged 18 and over according to sex, age, education, type of settlement.  The margin of error (taking into account the design effect) with 95% confidence interval does not exceed 3.5%. The survey method is community-based formalized face-to-face interviews. Apart from the margin of error, minor changes in question wording and different circumstances arising during the field work should be taken into account.

Russian media monitoring and analysis were carried out by the Medialogia Company from January 2011 to April 2016, using approximately 31000 sources such as television, radio, newspapers, magazines, Information agencies and online media. Event rankings are based on the Medialogia indicator calculated as a sum of event mentions on specific topic in the largest media sources.

Note: Using materials from the site www.wciom.ru or wciom.com, as well as distributed by VCIOM, the reference to the source (or hyperlink for the electronic media) is obligatory.