This is the most important statement in the article. Why our government is not hell-bent on eliminating oil usage with a "Man on the moon" stated policy and program is beyond me. End the oil, end the islamic threat.
Take the moon landing -- The entire space race costs the US hundreds of billions of dollars (in 1960s dollars) and resulted in a nice piece of propaganda to use against the Soviets. And the argument that technological bleed-over from NASA to private industry was worth it are unfounded. If the US government didn't claim a monopoly on space travel, perhaps private industry would have been more active, and we would be even better off now.
The moon wasn't kicking dollars into election campaigns.