The Wikipedia page for Apollo 8 says that Low et al eventually persuaded
Webb to approve the mission, but that doesn't jibe with my previous
research. I thought that he was resistant, and resigned in October (in
part because he disapproved?), and then Paine approved it in November as
acting administrator?
On 2018-12-22 11:48, Henry Spencer wrote:
On Fri, 21 Dec 2018, Rand Simberg wrote:
Unfortunately, four years less two days later, the last one came home
(Apollo 17 splashdown 19 Dec 1972).
Because it didn't have much to do with space, and was being done in an economically (and thus politically) unsustainable way.
And if NASA's proposal for a followon had been a low-key continuation
of the same, with efforts to reduce costs and move gradually toward
reusability... they just might have gotten it. Yes, Apollo was too
far too fast, due to ephemeral politics, but once it was there,
despite its drawbacks there *was* considerable political sentiment
that it shouldn't just be thrown away.
Instead NASA asked for a space shuttle *and* a space station *and* a
Moon base *and* Mars expeditions. This proposal was so hopelessly out
of touch with political reality that it wasn't just dead on arrival --
it was dead, rotting, and covered with flies. No sane politician
wanted to be seen anywhere near it. NASA needed years to recover from
that train wreck, and all hope of continuity and preservation of
investment died meanwhile.
Henry