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CannaCosmonaut t1_itua1gk wrote

Reply to comment by djamp42 in Maine astronaut Dr. Jessica Meir practices walking on the moon by Pure_Candidate_3831

Leveraging the cold war for quick cash and public support was obviously a mistake in hindsight. NASA had a whole program planned called "Apollo Applications". Michael Collins talked about it in his book "Carrying the Fire", he was part of the group selecting the astronauts for that program. The general public, thinking the only goal was to beat the Soviets to the lunar surface, would not have allowed it and congress didn't fund it. They went on to build Skylab. Better than nothing, I suppose.

I wish the soviets had beat NASA.

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[deleted] t1_ituvoa9 wrote

[deleted]

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CannaCosmonaut t1_ituwgpz wrote

Had the Soviets beat us to the moon, more money would have been poured into NASA to catch up and one-up. It's pretty simple, but I guess so are you

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skaterrj t1_itwoggo wrote

They did best the US to orbit, so there's some logic to what you're saying. I just don't think we have enough attention span to keep anything of that scale going. Or money.

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