>> By 2001, it seemed quite reasonable that there would be giant space-stations in orbit round the Earth and — a little later — manned expeditions to the planets.
>>In an ideal world, that would have been possible: the Vietnam War would have paid for everything that Stanley Kubrick showed on the Cinerama screen. Now we realize that it will take a little longer.
With or without the war, the Left was always against spending money on sending Man into Space when they had demographics to spend money on back here on Earth.
Rev. Jamel & Bob Johnson - Walking on the Moon (Men Are Starving) (1971)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HhjFMse8jM
I remember a growing media drumbeat that Apollo, space travel, etc was immoral spending and a waste of money. We should be shoveling it into urban America. That spending was moral. I remember Ralph Abernathy driving (supposedly!) some covered wagon down to the Cape to protest during one of the last Apollo launches. It got almost as much if not more coverage then the Apollo launch. The media was tired of “space” and wanted to sell that to the public. It also had too many white shirted white geeks on TV, that’s not cool either.
They always wanted the money spent on more and more social programs .... like the War on Poverty. How has that worked out for us?! Think of the benefits that were reaped from the space program. In computer technology alone these benefits far outstripped any costs.