On Mar 12, 8:52*am, wrote:
On Mar 12, 8:28 am, wrote:

The Shuttle got funded,
but not without getting a huge makeover by the Airforce that
dramatically increased development cost with wings engines and tiles
it didn't really need and the Army, that mandated SRBs which were
dangerous and low performing, in lieu of a fully reusable first stage,
increased operating costs.

Among with the other crazy non existent crap in your rant,


Eisenhower was described at the time 'lukewarm' to Sputnik. Kennedy
took a different tack and gain popular support. Specialists thought
the public reaction irrational and emotionally driven and felt a more
rational approach would be to ignore Sputnik and secretly pursue
military applications.

The Fuchs case weighed heavily on the President's mind and the fact
that he though the Russians were up to no good with the publicity they
were getting with this Sputnik thing. Its all in the declassified
documents..

http://www.eisenhower.archives.gov/d...documents.html

A Civilian agency that was superior to military agencies in terms of
having access to all scientific and technical capabilities for
civilian use, a civilian agency that had a steady level of funding
each year, administered by a chief executive (vonBraun would have been
a good first candidate) and advised by a board of directors, would
remove NASA from much of the political wrangling. The same way the
National Science Foundation works. It is not up to individual
politicians or the President to decide on each research program or
activity. To put such power in the hands of politicians politicizes
the process. Overall funding, general direction, sure. But to fund
each program as a political process - turns NASA into a nightmare and
makes it impossible to function strategically. EISENHOWER KNEW THIS -
that's why he put it in the hands of the President to decide the role
of NASA - not a board of specialists who would inflame and exploit
public enthusiasm, perhaps with the help of space stunts from our
enemies. Kennedy represented the everything Eisenhower feared -
winning an election over a non-existant missile gap and plunging the
nation into a race for the moon and a long-term commitment to manned
solar system exploration.

LBJ reduced Kennedy's vision to landing a man on the moon.
Nixon reduced Kennedy's vision to man in space - which mean man on
orbit.
Ford and Carter ignored space
Reagan accentuated space again with SDI - until the Challenger
explosion.

Bush asked NASA what it would cost to return to the moon or go to Mars
-NASA said $100 billion - and Bush quietly forgot space - excepting as
VP he developed many connections to military uses of space -

Clinton ignored space - excepting Gore wanted a mission to Earth to
study the environment - Clinton declassified GPS.