[Vaquero]

Nixon did scrap the program after Apollo 17...he came in in January and let it coast through the July launch, which was already scheduled when he came into office....he used up the stuff that was already built.

He did NOTHING for the space program...

he wasnt even a conservative...he was a statist, and elitist and a crony capitalist who implimented wage and price freezes.

[jboot]

Nixon was sworn in in Jan '69. All 7 (6+1 failed) Apollo moon landing missions happened during his first term, with the final one occurring just after his re-election in Dec '72.

That said, you are right, Nixon was no fan of old NASA. He was committed to the oinking pork Shuttle from the start, and starting with his very first budget in '69 he redirected significant funds to it. (The funding of the Shuttle program was first announced publically while the Apollo 11 astronauts were still on the moon.) By 1972 Apollo was a dead letter, and America was committed to a 40-year dead end in space.

[hopespringseternal]

he wasnt even a conservative...he was a statist, and elitist and a crony capitalist who implimented wage and price freezes

Nixon aborted space in favor of entitlements. LBJ may have brought them into existence, but Nixon should have killed them or at least reigned them in and we wouldn't be in the situation we are now.

Back to the point, I have no doubt at all that Obama's hand was forced on bin Laden. He knew he couldn't go into the next election with the news that he let bin Laden get away.

[GonzoGOP]

he came in in January and let it coast through the July launch, which was already scheduled when he came into office....he used up the stuff that was already built.

He didn't even do that. There were three Saturn V rockets already built paid for and ready to go. One got used for skylab and the other two ended up in museums. While the Saturn V's are impressive in the Florida and Texas they would have been a lot more impressive boosting payload into orbit as intended.

Just to show what could have been done, Skylab had a usable volume of 368 cubic meters. So if they had used the other two Saturn Vs to throw up space station components they could have built a space station with a usable volume of 1,104 cubic meters for the cost of only three launches using equipment that had already been paid for. For comparison the ISS has a usable volume of 837 cubic meters and required 40 assembly flights.