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JFK to Webb - Lacking Justification for Continuing to Fund Apollo



 
 
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  #11  
Old September 23rd 14, 10:36 PM posted to sci.space.history
Stuf4
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Default JFK to Webb - Lacking Justification for Continuing to Fund Apollo

From Fred J. McCall:
Your grasp of history seems somewhat confused.

bob haller wrote:
On Sunday, September 21, 2014 2:48:08 PM UTC-4, Greg (Strider) Moore wrote:
"bob haller" wrote in message
...


if LBJ hadnt screwed up the vietnam war making himself unelectable apollo
might still be in use today.....

Well, if that's true (and it's not) at least something good came out of LBJ
screwing up Vietnam (as you claim).



LBJ mired our country in a unwinnable war that cost so many lives went on far too long and we ultimately lost.....


Kennedy put us into Vietnam (although it really sort of began under
Eisenhower), not Johnson.



The war sucked up lots of bucks that could of kept the apollo saturn production contiuning...


Preposterous. Apollo was killed by the Shuttle and the funding dried
up under Nixon, not Johnson.


Apollo killed by the Shuttle? Apollo's mission was completed in July '69. All flights after that were fluff. To quote Bill Muehlberger, "Science was an afterthought."

As for LBJ's prospects for the '68 election, it is critical to remember these key events of that year:

January 30 - Tet Offensive
March 16 - RFK enters race
March 31 - LBJ quits race
June 6 - RFK dead

I hardly view LBJ as "unelectable". If he had held of his announcement to quit for just two months, it's easy to imagine that he would have decided to stick out the election. And then it's easy to imagine that the Dems would not have split, and that he would have gotten his third term.

....and I actually find it easier to imagine that LBJ would have been *quicker* than Nixon to cancel the latter Moon missions, considering how the Apollo 1 crew was lost under LBJ's watch, and the biggest concern in flying anyone to the Moon after July 69 was that they might not make it back.

Nixon dropped the ax after A12. One might imagine LBJ taking this step after A11. The scare of A13 led to Nixon dropping two more flights while pressing ahead with 4 landings. Can I imagine LBJ greenlighting four missions after A13? I see that as a stretch. I can see him going ahead with A14 in order to end on a high note. And maybe A15 to prove to himself that he's not quitting as a matter of cowardice.

Huge speculations here.

ATL's aside, with RFK out of the picture, the biggest thing that made LBJ unelectable was his own announcement that he was quitting. And the only thing that killed Apollo was its own success. After planting that first flag, there was absolutely no way to justify the outrageous cost and the high risk of continuing to fly out the full plan, let alone extending.

There was even no way to justify Shuttle as a NASA program. The only reason it got built was because it morphed into a NASA+NRO program.

Space is crazy expensive. The only reason we have a commercial human orbital program today is because it is so heavily subsidized by the govt. This is a repeat in how there was a huge govt subsidy for the railroads, and for the airlines after that. I find it very difficult to foresee a time when citizens will be able to fly in space regularly without this major injection of federal funding. I don't see that stage happening until after we're well into the latter half of this century.

The basic reason is that it makes little economic sense. Consider the fact that we've had the technology for supersonic airline transportation for more than half a century, yet that *never* got off the ground without heavy govt subsidy. And once the governments stopped writing those checks, something as simple as supersonic airliners died an immediate death.

Concorde Flight 4590 was the Apollo 13 of SST's. Both missions exposed the fact that the programs were unjustifiable. And STS-107 played the exact same role in terminating Shuttle.

- I feel little lament that Nixon did not fly any Moon missions beyond A17. On the contrary, I am amazed that he flew FOUR times after A13.
- I am not chagrined that we have no SST. I'm amazed that Concorde continued two full years of operation after Flt 4590.
- I'm not disturbed that the Shuttle program got cancelled. I'm astounded that it flew 22 missions after the Columbia mess.

Given the cost/risk vs benefit, none of these programs were justifiable in sustaining.

On top of all that, if ISS did not have Mir to show up as the lingering remnant of Cold War one-upsmanship, I am *certain* that it would not have gotten funded. (That ATL is easy to predict, as its funding came down to a single tie-breaking vote as it was.)

The biggest current question in my mind is how long NASA will keep pretending that the US Congress will fund a mission to Mars! I'm trying to imagine scenarios where that would happen, but I'm coming up way short. Cost/risk vs benefit simply does not add up.

~ CT
  #12  
Old September 24th 14, 12:21 AM posted to sci.space.history
Bob Haller
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Default JFK to Webb - Lacking Justification for Continuing to Fund Apollo

LBJ ramped up the vietnam war At least the costs of that war was paid as it went, not on borrowed bucks like Iraq and afghanistan

the vietnam war sucked up the bucks that could of been spent space

LBJ wouldnt of wanted to cut apollo since much of that spending was in texas...
  #13  
Old September 24th 14, 04:36 AM posted to sci.space.history
Orval Fairbairn
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Default JFK to Webb - Lacking Justification for Continuing to Fund Apollo

In article ,
bob haller wrote:

LBJ ramped up the vietnam war At least the costs of that war was paid as it
went, not on borrowed bucks like Iraq and afghanistan

the vietnam war sucked up the bucks that could of been spent space

LBJ wouldnt of wanted to cut apollo since much of that spending was in
texas...


It was LBJ's ramping up the Vietnam War and his micromanagement of its
operations that turned the public off about him. He had, after all,
campaigned in 1964 against expanding the war, but did so anyway after he
was inaugurated. Remember the chant: "Hey, hey, LBJ -- how many kids did
you kill today"?
  #14  
Old September 25th 14, 03:41 AM posted to sci.space.history
Bob Haller
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Default JFK to Webb - Lacking Justification for Continuing to Fund Apollo

On Wednesday, September 24, 2014 12:24:11 AM UTC-4, Fred J. McCall wrote:
bob haller wrote:



LBJ ramped up the vietnam war At least the costs of that war was paid as it went, not on borrowed bucks like Iraq and afghanistan




Bull****.





--

"Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the

truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong."

-- Thomas Jefferson


cite your position
  #15  
Old September 25th 14, 05:53 PM posted to sci.space.history
OM[_19_]
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Default JFK to Webb - Lacking Justification for Continuing to Fund Apollo

....Thanks for your post, Fred. I hadn't seen one of your posts in so long I was afraid you'd gone and joined Pat in the Great Space History Archive in the Sky or something.

Q: Whatever happened to your normal "Significant Other", Chumpko? Did he finally frack off and die, or just frack off? :P

:OM:
[still hanging in there...barely.]
 




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