No, Barack Obama is not the first president to terminate America’s ability to put people into space. I would also note that while Nixon generally gets the blame, the decision to end Apollo was actually made in the Johnson administration.
6 thoughts on “Pants On Fire”
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“At long last, have you no sense of decency, Charlie Brown?” made me laugh out loud.
Dang–that comment was supposed to have gone on the next post.
It’s an easy mistake. There are those who’ve made the mistake and there are those who are going to eventually.
Rick: Don’t worry, your post seemed extremely apt to me! It ties together historical revisionism, McCarthyism, pop culture, and several Transterrestrial posts all in one….
I don’t think the question of who decided to end Apollo has a simple answer. Didn’t NASA order just 15 Saturn Vs in 1962? It’s true that in 1968, during Johnson’s tenure, NASA terminated contracts for items that would have been needed for Saturns 516 and beyond, but Saturns were still being manufactured into 1970. Nixon’s transition team recommended continuing Apollo, and NASA paid to keep production hardware in mothballs until mid-1972. Had continued Saturn production been approved and funded during the Johnson administration, does not the Nixon administration’s decision to not even fly all of the available hardware indicate that continued production under Johnson would only have resulted in more wasted hardware?
Ditto K Lundermann’s comments. The actual decisions were ones of a cut here, and a cut there. The actual decision to fly any missions beyond Apollo 11 were made in the first year of the Nixon Administration (IIRC and I also remember what documentation I’ve read is correct). Certainly all of AAP and any future planning of any sort was cut under Johnson. I don’t think anyone was asking for any more S-Vs until after Apollo 11 — and as I think is the case, that wasn’t turned down until about the end of 1969, or early 1970. I think Paine was still trying to get some S-Vs ordered up until that point. If you can, um, point me elsewhere on this I’d be much obliged.
In the meantime…I will vote for a encephalitic camel before I vote for Obama. FWIW.