[Reily]

NASA was poisoned when it stopped looking out into space and started focusing on earth.
I remember in grad school taking grad physics and space science classes and it seemed all they were excited about was this new NASA earth observation program. I finally got to grad school in physics so I could inspired by early NASA, the moonwalk, Star Trek (yes as silly as that was!) and to these profs space stopped and ended in low earth orbit with all attention turned toward terra firma.
I much later find out it was all because of funding.

[rlmorel]

Nothing silly about that at all. How many people entered the sciences over the years because of Jules Verne?

Nothing silly there. I recently watched some episodes of Star Trek on Netflix, and it was hard to watch without observing with chagrin the liberal-speak that was in much of the campy script, but that was back when it was still okay to be principled about something, and to use force to defend those principles when circumstances required it.

I watched several episodes and smiled with nostaligia at the campiness...:)

Now, my tastes go more towards something like “GalaxyQuest”!

[Calvin Locke]

I much later find out it was all because of funding.

NASA's big mistake? Not finding a way to launch rockets fueled with with milk & cheese.

An old joke aimed at the agricultural types at the time, such as Proxmire and Mondale.