Are politicians averse to leaving LEO?

All the talk about the possiblity of Orion being "shrunk" to fit on an
EELV and with that, the possible scuttling of Moon flights by the (yet
to be inaugurated!) Obama administration leaves me with a question:
Do politicians have an aversion to sending manned missions beyond LEO?

This isn't the first time this has happened since the end of Apollo.
The Space shuttle was originally conceived as assembling and servicing
space stations which would be the launching point for manned missions
back to the Moon and on to Mars --- basically the architecture
envisioned in the 1950s by von Braun and his contemporaries. All but
the shuttle was scrapped, and even though a space station has FINALLY
been built, it still seems like running up to LEO and back is the only
thing politicians will pay for, as if that is the destination and not
just a stop on the way there.

And it is not just the US. The Soviets got stuck in a similar rut
with their Salyut space stations. Although there were proposals for
using ENergia to go to Mars, they came to nothing, and crews were sent
back and forth the their space stations for decades. We, of course,
joined them with Shuttle/Mir, and they joined in the ISS, and one
justification for this is to do research prior to a manned misison to
Mars. That's fine ..... but at some point, you have to decide enough
preparation has been done and take the plunge! That doesn't seem to
be happening. Why not?

Sticker shock is one possility, but why would politicians who shelve
ouy $1 trillion in bailouts shirk at $50 billion or $500 billion
spread out over decades to actually go someplace in space? Is there
something else going on, some psycholigical aversion to goint to far
from "mother Earth"? Did they just watch ALIEN a few times too many?
What?

Probably just being deep and philosphical about something that isn't
deep and philosophichal at all, but when you figure we've been stuck
in LEO when we hanve't had to be for years -- under one plan we could
have landed on Mars the first time in 1984! -- one has to wonder if
sticker shock is the only road block or if there are other factors.

Then again, maybe the cold weather is freezing my brains.

==

"I am not A big, fat panda. I am THE big, fat panda." -- Po, KUNG FU
PANDA




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