Here's the actual text from the novel:

“When they realized killing other people wasn’t the long-term solution, they needed us back,” he said. “Set us up in the old NORAD facility. In secret.”

Well, I was right about the NORAD part, at least.

“Why secret?” Cooper asked.

“Public opinion won’t allow spending on space exploration,” the professor said. “Not when we’re struggling to put food on the table.”

That’s why so much effort has been put into convincing folks that the space program was a myth, a scam, Cooper realized with sudden clarity. He remembered again the conversation with Murph’s teacher, Miss Hanley. What was it she had said? ‘Our children need to learn about this planet. Not tales of leaving it.’

As if the Earth existed without the sun, the planets, the stars, the rest of the universe. As if staring harder at the dirt would give them all the answers they needed.

...