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How President Nixon Saved/Wrecked the American Space Program
MarkWhittington writes John Callahan posted an accountof a talk given by space historian John Logsdon on the Planetary Society blog in which he described how President Richard Nixon changed space policy. The talk covered the subject of an upcoming book, After Apollo: Richard Nixon and the American Space Program. Logsdon argued that Nixon had a far more lasting effect on NASA and the American space program than did President Kennedy, most famous for starting the Apollo project that landed men on the moon.
Nixon came to office just in time to preside over the Apollo 11 lunar mission. At that time, the space program was a national priority due to the Kennedy goal of landing a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s. However by the time Neil Armstrong made that first footstep, public support for large-scale space projects had diminished. Nixon, therefore, made a number of policy decisions that redound to this very day.
Nixon came to office just in time to preside over the Apollo 11 lunar mission. At that time, the space program was a national priority due to the Kennedy goal of landing a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s. However by the time Neil Armstrong made that first footstep, public support for large-scale space projects had diminished. Nixon, therefore, made a number of policy decisions that redound to this very day.
Read the article. They don't credit Nixon with starting Apollo. They don't even credit him with ending Apollo though he had some say in what final missions flew or didn't. What they credit him with is the basic policies and strategies NASA has followed for the last forty years as well as it's current status as yet another domestic program.
But his support of a puppet in Iran led to a overthrow by an extremist regime that will be in power for decades more.
That particular one goes back a bit further than Reagan by a couple of decades itself. 1953 Iranian coup d'état IMHO Putting the puppet dictator in power in the first place is the root cause of a hell of a lot of radical islamic behavior.
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it's a word. Look it up.
Stop calling it that. The bill to repeal Glass-Steagall was written by three Republicans. Clinton only got on board because he had his mind on his dork and his treasury secretary was a wall street asshole who had promised his pals that he'd look out for them in a big big way.
The initial votes for the Gramm-Leach-Bliley act were along party lines with all but one Democrat voting No. But the banks, smelling blood in the water, smoothed all the objections over with money and the rest is the ugly history of the 21st century so far.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Nixon was the first U.S. President to see a human space launch (Apollo 12).
Someone forgot Project Mercury.
President Kennedy - Jan 20 1961 to Nov 22 1963
Freedom 7 (May 5 1961), Liberty Bell 7 (July 21, 1961), Friendship 7 (February 20, 1962), Aurora 7 (May 24, 1962), Sigman 7 (October 3, 1962), and Faith 7 (May 15, 1963). Kennedy, as president, saw ALL the manned Mercury spaceflights. Here's a pic of Kennedy watching the Shepherd launch on TV in the White House, same as millions of other people.
And Project Gemini.
President Johnson - Nov 22 1963 to Jan 20 1969
Gemini 3 (23 Mar 1965) through 12 (11-15 Nov 1966), all manned. Apollo 1 (fatal fire), Apollo 7 (11 October 1968), Apollo 8 (21 December 1968) - the "around the moon mission". Here's a pic of Johnson watching the launch of Gemini 3
And there were the other flights, Apollo 9 through 11 - the first moon landing, all observed by Nixon as president.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
He couldn't have been traitorous as president, the president himself decides who our enemies are and are not.
Except:
1) Reagan wasn't president at the time of the supposed deal that GP mentioned
2) Iran was subject to an arms embargo at the time the administration sold it arms
3) The profits from arms sales to Iran were then funneled to the Nicaraguan Contras, further violating the law
In defense of Reagan - a phrase I never thought I'd write - there's no proof that he actually knew about (3), at least. So, a dupe, but not necessarily a traitor.
Yeah, we get it. In the era of Obummer, EVERYTHING is "the dog ate my homework" (as "The Republicans did it")
Clinton's very well publicized efforts to force the banks to lend to people who were otherwise unqualified (as a typical liberal "fairness" play) were at the core of all of this. While, yes, the Glass-Steagall act ultimately helped the banks dump all that bad paper onto the taxpayer when things went down, the FACT is that the bad paper was only an issue because government-imposed "fairness" policies, which were financially unrealistic, were jammed into the banking sector. This effect of Glass-Steagall was not by design, but rather because very smart big bankers with lots of money on the line will always outsmart stupid public sector bureaucrats who get payed and promoted no matter how badly they perform. The guys in the big banks employ the best lawyers and accountants money can buy and they are always probing for ways to maximize profits and minimize risks; when they are ordered to do something stupid, they will look for a way around it, but if they cannot find such a path, then they will look for a way to shift the down-side risks onto somebody else - because they're SMART and they have money on the line!.
As a matter of basic fairness, if the voters are going to elect officials who insist on making banks lose money, then its only fair for the bankers to comb through the laws and find a way to shift those losses onto the idiot voters who want the losses to occur. In this case, the stupid taxpayers/voters who voted for the Clinton "fairness" agenda and its airheaded impossible economic schemes got exactly what they voted for - and NO, if you vote to ignore the basic laws of the universe you do not get an automatic escape from the consequences (consegeunces are part of a "package deal" when dealing with universal laws). The basic laws of economics are like the law of gravity; you can elect a guy who promises to help you jump off the skyscraper, BUT he cannot keep you from the subsequent impact with the ground. Similarly, you can vote for the guy who will help everybody get home loans (or college loans) as an act of fairness BUT you cannot then avoid the economic crunch when people fail to repay those loans (as will happen again in a few years, probably when a Republican is in office, when all the Obama-era college loans default). When the people DEMAND economic disaster (through the ballot box) then they deserve the disaster they get.
The thing that angers ME is that I did NOT vote for Mr. "I feel your PAIN" and yet I am left paying the bills anyway - TWICE. Clinton's economic "prosperity" also was an economically-unrealistic internet (Pets.com ring any bells?) bubble that burst in 2000 during the presidential cycle so that Bush(43) inherited a recession (the one everybody was already starting to feel before the planes hit the towers but whose economic impact immediately merged with those of 9-11 so that Clinton dodges any significant blame)
I am NOT a big Bush fan (not EITHER of them - that whole gene pool is toxic), I just like my history as it happened and NOT as it is rewritten by partisan ideologues.