Getting into space, getting to the moon and Mars are all well and good, and I’d much rather see my tax dollars go there than to support illegals and bums- but I think the real reason the space program died, or the main one, is no one being able to figure out how to make a profit. Even the great Robert Heinlein seemed to imply that while the government could provide the initial investment, to sustain the exploitation of space was going to require the ability to make it pay.
I can only reiterate: The democRATs wanted to throw every penny they could beg, borrow, or steal, into social welfare programs. They succeeded. Destroying the space program was easy for them. It was utterly meritocratic, and therefore intolerable.