Date: Mon, 06 Oct 2014 20:24:03 -0400
From: mark <whitroth@5-cent.us>
To: undisclosed-recipients:;
Subject: [WSFA] I told you so: How Richard Nixon Changed NASA
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist@KeithLynch.net>

Excerpt:
In 1969, the Apollo 11 mission successfully met President John F.
Kennedy\342\200\231s challenge to land a man on the Moon and return him safely to
Earth within the decade. The end of the Moon race raised the question:
what, if anything, was next for NASA? It would be answered by Richard
Nixon's Administration, and the decisions they made altered the nation's
relationship with its space program forever.
<...>
Logsdon points to three key decisions Nixon made regarding the U.S. space
program, which had long-term consequences for NASA. The three decisions
were:

     To treat the space program as one area of domestic policy competing
with other concerns, not as a privileged activity
     To lower U.S. ambitions in space by ending human spaceflight beyond
low Earth orbit for the foreseeable future and not embark on another
space goal requiring a massive investment similar to Apollo
     To build NASA\342\200\231s post-Apollo program around the space shuttle without
establishing a specific goal or long-term strategy the shuttle would
support

Professor Logsdon says that Nixon\342\200\231s lasting imprint on the space program
was an end to human exploration of space beyond low Earth orbit in the
twentieth century, and he sees the Nixon Space Doctrine and more ambitious
human space exploration as incompatible. Under Nixon, NASA became just
another domestic program, and the agency\342\200\231s budget decreased even as it
retained ambitious goals. During this time, however, NASA\342\200\231s efforts did
include increased international participation in U.S. human spaceflight
programs.
--- end excerpt ---

<http://www.planetary.org/blogs/guest-blogs/jason-callahan/20141003-how-richard-nixon-changed-nasa.html>

As I've been saying for decades, the Republican hate civilian space
programs; IMO, because they saw them as a Democratic initiative, and
because they couldn't see the money that came back here....

         mark