[Alberta's Child]

There was an absolute failure of political will by the Nixon administration.

And by the Ford administration?

And by the Carter administration?

And by the Reagan administration?

And by the first Bush administration?

And by the Clinton administration?

And by the second Bush administration?

And by the Obama administration?

There was no "failure" here at all. By the early 1970s it was obvious that manned exploration of the moon and other planets had enormous obstacles (including financial ones) that made it very impractical for the foreseeable future. For one thing, there is almost nothing accomplished with manned missions that cannot also be accomplished with unmanned spacecraft.

More importantly, the U.S. government made a prudent decision in the 1970s to focus NASA's efforts in an area that had far more practical benefits at a fraction of the cost: the permanent presence of manned and unmanned hardware in low Earth orbit.

[PIF]

More hokum. The manned space program (Apollo) was over and done before Nixon two years before he left office. None of the others had the will to restart the closed program as the huge expense of restarting a program Americans had been programed to believe was solely about international competition and also the reflection on Nixon and the people who supported shuttering Apollo would have been too much, too negative, too career ending.

There is also the power factor - the only putative escape valve (into space) was now closed, making way for the creation of the ‘New World Order’ and the ever deepening swamp in DC. A trapped people means and needs greater control, more central planning, more regulations. This is great jobs program for career politicians and central planners and other bureaucrats.

There is a lot that cannot be done by unmanned space probes - to believe other wise is foolish. Read Buzz (https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_2_9?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=buzz+aldrin&sprefix=Buzz+aldr%2Caps%2C678&crid=1N0OXRAQ0QLS8) before continuing this futile discussion about something which will never again be done by the US, despite the DJT administration.

[TomasUSMC]

We have fallen behind in Space Technology and exploration because we stopped going to the moon. Now we can’t even launch a large enough rocket when half a century ago the biggest rocket on earth was ours.

And when we see the Russians and Chinese up there....well it will be obvious how terrible our error was. Hopefully Trump can figure out how to get us in first place in the Space Race ....AGAIN.