While the regulation has long been a fan favorite for its moral implications, data from a recent YouGov poll suggests that The Prime Directive might not hold up so well in real life.

Participants were asked to imagine a scenario in which, hundreds of years from now, humans become a spacefaring race and encounter aliens on another planet whose technology is not as advanced as their own. When asked how humans of the future should respond to such a discovery, around a third of individuals (34%) agreed that we should befriend the aliens since it is our duty to help them advance. Only 29% of US adults thought that it was wrong to affect the alien’s development by making contact.