The interests that gave him the mission and the fleet did not have to really answer to the populace and was unlikely the majority would have even heard about it much less gotten a chance to comment to a newspaper or poll about it.
Today that is politically impossible. Even the few apollo missions got funded to "beat the russians" I highly doubt there are Russian or Chinese plans to colonize mars anytime soon and you wont be able to tell a mom her child gets to go without school budget and take classes packed more together in order to colonize mars much less remove social security. Welfare. Budget for law enforcement and fire and all medical and more.
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