20 years ago was the beginning of the George W Bush administration which lasted 8 years or the same amount of time the US went from its first manned space flight to landing on the moon in the 1960’s. Apparently the Bush admin was unable to develop and deploy the hypersonic technology in 8 years.
NASA was well on the way to being toast by the 1970s:
He was too busy squandering our patrimony and our stratgic hegemony in the middle east desert.