Quote:
Originally Posted by BroncoMan4ever
And then 43 years later cut funding to that program.
|
Nixon started cutting funding after Apollo 11, which as I told Titan offline wasn't all bad. They weren't sure how many times they would have to test to get a good landing. Hell without doing the Apollo 8 all up test flight around the moon it could have taken up to Apollo 13-15 before our 1st true landing depending how safe they played it.
The thing I am mad about is that there should have been a replacement to the Shuttle program by the mid 90's, they never expected the Shuttle fleet as we knew it to be in production for so long without having something newer/better replacing/updating it.
I think the USA got complacent and there were no new challenges and the program atrophied.
Now there is a new NASA director who wants to send manned deep space missions and we are working on the new SLS platform. In a way it is an exciting time, kinda like the downtime between Apollo (including Skylab) and the shuttle. Here is to hoping we have enough support for a full on deep spaced manned mission further out than our back yard!