A new Pew Research poll finds the share of Republicans who say the effect of science on society has been positive is down 13 points since 2019 — from 70% to 57%.

Vox: “There is reason to think that many so-called ‘skeptics’ aren’t experiencing doubt at all. Instead, says Robbie Sutton, a social psychologist at the University of Kent who studies belief in conspiracy theories, studies have shown that people who question scientific conclusions are often motivated by a range of religious, economic, political, and personal convictions.”

“Evolution skepticism, for example, is more common among people who have strong beliefs about the relationship between God and humans. Climate change skepticism, by contrast, may be camouflaging resistance to climate action: In one 2014 study, Republicans expressed less skepticism about climate change when they were presented with free market solutions like technological innovation compared to traditionally liberal solutions like emissions restrictions. This wasn’t climate skepticism, the researchers concluded, but ‘solution aversion.’”

The Perseverance rover is expected to set down on Mars at 3:55 pm ET.

Fox Orlando: “It will take the rover seven minutes to get through the atmosphere, speeding at 12,000 miles per hour, before touching down on the Red Planet. Astronomers call that the ‘seven minutes of terror.’ Officials believe those minutes will be excruciating as they await confirmation of a safe landing.”

NASA has a live video feed.

“This week’s remarkable character assault by some top White House advisers on Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious-disease expert, signified President Trump’s hostility toward medical expertise and has produced a chilling effect among the government scientists and public health professionals laboring to end the pandemic, according to administration officials and health experts,” the Washington Post reports.

“As novel coronavirus cases surge out of control coast to coast, the open rancor between the scientific community and a White House determined above all to resuscitate the economy and secure a second term for Trump threatens to further undermine the U.S. response, which already lags behind those of many other developed nations.”

In a long-awaited report, an investigation conducted on behalf of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found that agency leadership violated its scientific integrity policy through actions that led to the release of a statement that backed President Trump’s false statement about the path of Hurricane Dorian, the Washington Post reports.

The scandal over the forecast for Hurricane Dorian has come to be known as “Sharpiegate,” after President Trump modified a NOAA forecast map shown in an Oval Office briefing to depict the storm threatening Alabama.

The United States opened a new era of human space travel on Saturday as a private company for the first time launched astronauts into orbit, nearly a decade after the government retired the storied space shuttle program in the aftermath of national tragedy, the New York Times reports.

Today at 4:33 ET — but only if the weather in Florida cooperates — two NASA astronauts plan to strap themselves into a capsule atop a SpaceX rocket and travel to space, Nature reports.

“If the launch succeeds, it will mark a number of firsts in human spaceflight. It will be the first time a private company has flown humans to orbit, and the first time astronauts have launched from US soil since NASA retired the Space Shuttle in 2011. Perhaps most significantly, it is the first time in 17 years that anyone has launched a new type of spaceship to carry humans to Earth orbit.”

You can watch live streams now from both NASA and Space X.

Update: The launch was scrubbed until May 30.