Why US Government cancelled Apollo Program

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I always wonder why NASA Canceled Apollo while they already have additional two or three Saturn V rocket, they can make three additional Mun Missions, i think that is great loss for science that Apollo program has been canceled.

Because they were busy with a war, keeping up with the Soviets, expanding domestic spending, and they already had inflation presures.

Also, because Kennedy was the driving force, and Nixon was more interested in funding the shuttle to help out Southern California's defense industry, who were his orginial supporters when he was for the US House back in the day.

what if NASA were officially folded into DOD and a new totally civilian space organization with some gov't backing [something like a more privatized version of our post office] took its place? what do you think would be the dynamics of that?

Assuming something approaching a demand-based space program, instead of the absurd mix of interests and platforms we have now, that might work.

X amount of missions with Y weight to support national security objectives, X amount for scientific space missions, X for high altitude missions, X amount for international space station, etc.....

NASA's never had that sort of planning. If you ever read how the Columbia-class orbiter was designed....it was a solution in search of a problem. The thing was upgraded to deliever satilities to orbit....which meant it was too heavy for it's engines, which meant the engines had to re-built, which means it could'nt hit turnaround times, which means it could'nt deliever those satilities to orbit.

Nixon was not a technological man, and NASA did what they could to maintain orbital capacity. If they had another decade of technology, it might have turned out differently.

They accomplished their goal of putting a man on the moon before the Soviets and the public didn't care that much anymore with Vietnam still going on so congress cut the funding. Our focus turned to the International Space Station.

You mean Skylab/Freedom? Congress was shocked at the price estimates when they finally got around to asking for real ones, which is why turning it into a global outreach tool made perfect sense.

Cynically, I think the only reason the ISS survived is because the sub-commitees (Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies) that fund NASA wanted to keep control of that money.

Basically this.

The question to ask is not "Why did we stop the Apollo Program?", but "Why did something as freaky as the Apollo Program happen in the first place?".

Two superpowers were competing. Putting a man on the Moon was a compelling publicity stunt. We were in a cold war, but not yet in the hot war in vietnam. So Kennedy committed the US to the goal of landing a man on the moon within a decade. The public was galvanized.

We did the mercury, gemeni, and finnally the apollo programs, and within the ten years achieved the goal. But once it was achieved the voters lost interest. The old big ticket Nasa of the sixties with its manned missions was gone. The seventies to now nasa is a much tinier part of the budget. But this post apollo nasa still made amazing accomplishments with unmanned probles- from the seventies viking landers up to the Hubble telescope to new planetary probes coming up.

Space enthusiasts complain that we dont have the cities on the moon, and the bases on mars we would have had had we stayed on the same trajectory. But that brief ten year trajectory of the early Nasa was an expensive freak occurance made possible by odd circumstances.

The space race wont start again until some new set of odd circumstances drives some nation into space again.

One was achieved before the Apollo program, the trip to the moon was in many languages synonym for impossibility, after the flight of Neil Armstrong is no longer true

Once an American or 12 was landed on the Moon, we conclusively proved we have bigger dicks than the Soviets. Congress saw no further use for a Moon capable vehicle.

ruveyn

It's a shame that both the Soviets and the Americans landing on the moon have considered only from a political perspective.

Soviet lunar program was not as developed as the American, but, but the Russians could land on the moon, but gave up because they were not the first. I think it's awfully petty.

Americans also saw the Apollo program as a way to show the world that are better than the Soviets, rather than looking at it from a broader perspective.
It's a shame that both America and Russia, no longer carry the lunar program. If both sides continue space exploration, perhaps we'd be on Mars. For science that will did not matter who will did this to the Americans, the Russians or the Chinese


Peaceful conquest of space is what humanity should do.

There's not much reason to go back. There's nothing up there.

There was a proposal that started to gain traction in the eighties for a joint Soviet-American landing on Mars. The idea was that both superpowers would pay their half of the X billions it would take by taking it out of their respective defense budgets. Both sides would reduce their defense by the same amount so niether would have anything to loose. And if you're a space nut it wouldve been money well spent, and if you're indifferent to space- it wouldve been money "well waisted"( to paraphrase the country singer) - no worse than waisting it on defense. So in effect- this Mars program wouldve costed nothing for either superpower. Made sense to me.

But then the Cold War ended and the Soviet Union itsself unraveled so this idea also fizzled.

But it was petty from the begining. The Apollo project was political, and JFK was'nt sure it was possible. He had to calm america down, particuarly after the run of bad news in the early 60s.....the U-2, Bay of Pigs, etc. For a guy who ran on the "Missile Gap", Apollo was a great political gesture.

From a modern political point of view, NASA is a great asset, because it buys parts from so many places. In terms of flexability, it may be right behind DoD in terms of being able to spend money. That's why the sub-commitee that holds NASA will never give up that money, it's just too juicy.

The don't call the chairs of the sub-commitees "Cardinals" for nothing.

To what end? If we are going to spend a trillion dollars to do something, realistically we should see a trillion dollars worth of value for our money.

Putting satellites in orbit? You betcha--the ability to communicate and navigate has provided us with substantial improvements in quality of life and safety. Deep solar system probes? Knowledge of the nature of the solar system--and of the the universe is also enormously valuable. But when we start to look at the really big ticket stuff--like sending human beings to the moon, or to other planets, then what are we getting for our money? These pipe dreams of vast mineral wealth out there in the universe don't really bear up well when the cost of extraction so vastly exceeds the commercial value.



Peaceful conquest? What a lovely oxymoron!

I'm not persuaded that this is the case. This planet will long outlast our species' survival on it. I don't think we need to start planning for some Ark to carry humanity to a new planet when ours becomes uninhabitable, because we must remember that our species evolved to survive on this planet, in the conditions of natural selection that exist here. Whatever other life exists on other planets in the universe, it is as adapted to its environment as we are to ours. And ultimately, here is where we belong.

When you have a rocket that large it's not just the cost of the launch, it's the cost of buliding something worthwhile enough to launch on it. Payloads are more expensive than rockets. Apollo style missions were not going to fit NASA's declining budget so Apollo and the Saturn V were cancelled.

Currenly we are building another Saturn V class rocket. The SLS. It's first unmanned test launch should be in 2017. And the problem, once again, is that the big rocket takes up a large percentage of the budget. So the current mission planning revolves around things that cost as little as possible. There is no money for a moon lander or deep space long duration habitats. So NASA is currently looking for inexpensive mission concepts without coming out and directly saying that.

The lack of manned missions and diminishing budgets at NASA in recent years is unfortunate, but I'm still looking forward to the results of their New Horizons mission. We know so little about the Kuiper Belt and that's all about to change.