BOULDER, COLORADO -- A new report on what the federal government should consider top priorities has placed the nation's space program at near rock bottom of a low priority list.

The Brookings Institute, an influential Washington, D.C. think tank that studies economics, foreign policy and government, did the study. The assessment -- Government's 50 Greatest Priorities of the Next Half-Century -- is based on a survey of 550 historians, political scientists, sociologists, and economists carried out from July through October 2001.

The sampling of experts believe arms control, increasing health care access for poor Americans, and improving kindergarten through 12^th grade education should be among the federal government's top priorities during the coming decades.

These same academics generally agreed as well on the federal government's ten least important priorities for the future.

Paul Light, vice president and director of Governmental Studies at the Brookings Institution authored the report.

Those surveyed have led to a social top-ten list of priorities for the federal government:

1. Increase Arms Control and Disarmament
2. Increase Health-Care Access for Low-Income Americans
3. Expand and Protect the Right to Vote
4. Promote Financial Security in Retirement
5. Provide Assistance for the Working Poor
6. Tie: Improve Air Quality and (7) Increase Health Care Access for Older Americans

8. Improve Elementary and Secondary Education
9. Reduce Workplace Discrimination
10. Strengthen the National Defense

According to Light, whether the priorities pinpointed in the survey will become the federal government's greatest achievements during the next half-century depends largely on a choice between two very different futures.

"The first future," Light said, "is one in which the nation's leaders are able to maintain the bipartisan spirit that marks so much of government's past achievement." A second future, he added, "is one in which Congress and presidents worry so much about their reelections and popularity that they demand immediate success or none at all, young Americans continue to avoid government service for fear of dead-end careers and bureaucratic red-tape, and the nation's leaders continue to demean government and its civic partners for not being able to do more with less and less."

In addition to ranking the future endeavors that should be top priorities, respondents were also asked which of the greatest endeavors of the last 50 years the federal government should continue to pursue.

The highest percentage of those surveyed indicated the federal government should continue to work toward improving air quality. Also, reducing disease and ensuring safe food and drinking water should continue to be high on the federal government's agenda.

On the federal government's ten least important priorities for the future, promoting space exploration was listed along with:

• Improve Government Performance
• Reduce Dependency Among Welfare Recipients
• Strengthen the Nation's Highway System
• Help Victims of Disaster
• Devolve Responsibility to the States
• Increase Market Competition
• Reduce Illegal Drug Use
• Support Veterans Readjustment and Training
• Expand Home Ownership
• Stabilize Agricultural Prices.

Paradoxically, in a Brookings study done by Light in 2000, Promote Space Exploration was singled out as one of the government's greatest endeavors in the past half century. That survey polled 450 historians and political scientists to pick the 50 greatest endeavors of the U.S. government over the past 50 years.

Rebuilding Europe after World War II gained top billing.

Ranked as number 25 in the 50 top achievement list is government action to develop the technology for a lunar landing and further space exploration, including a go-ahead in 1984 to support building a permanently occupied space station.

"American plans for a lunar landing came together in 1961 when Congress approved a substantial increase in appropriations to NASA. The agency's budget almost doubled from fiscal year 1961 to fiscal year 1962," the Brookings 2000 study notes.

"Specific authorizations within the package included $160 million for the Apollo space flight and exploration program, the initiative charged with making moon exploration a reality, as well as $159.8 million specifically earmarked for lunar and planetary exploration. Appropriations doubled again for fiscal year 1963 and reached a high point of $5.25 billion before tapering off in the late 1960s. These huge outlays were rewarded when the United States put the first humans on the moon in 1969," the study explains.