His plan to spend billions of dollars to manned mission to the moon and eventually to Mars drew opposition from 61 percent of the 1,003 adults surveyed January 14-15.

Bush called late Wednesday for a new space vessel capable of traveling to the moon as early as 2015. He would give the US space agency NASA an additional billion dollars over five years, in addition to its annual budget of 15.4 billion dollars.

Even among members of Bush's own Republican party, 48 percent opposed the plan against the 42 percent who supported it.

About nine percent of the people questioned in the Time/CNN poll said they would spend billions of dollars on space exploration. Some 40 percent they would rather improve education, 27 percent would balance the federal budget, and 13 percent would clean up the environment. Only seven percent said they would enlarge the military.

The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

SPACE.WIRE