How President Jimmy Carter Saved The Space Shuttle (blastingnews.com)

MarkWhittington writes: Eric Berger has published an account in Ars Technica about how President Jimmy Carter saved the space shuttle program. The article is well worth reading for its detail. In essence, around 1978 the space shuttle program had undergone a crisis with technical challenges surrounding its heat-resistant tiles and its reusable rocket engines and cost overruns. President Carter was not all that enthused about human space flight to begin with, adhering to the since discredited notion that robotic space probes were adequate for exploring the universe. His vice president, Walter Mondale, was a vehement foe of human space flight programs, maintaining that money spent on them were better used for social programs.

Comments

Re:Well Mondale was the bigger idiot

[Beyond_GoodandEvil]

The US space program is essentially a gigantic playtoy for white males
I liked this better the first time I heard it. As for this bit, Spending on social programs is never wasted as it goes directly to the people who need it most. Yeah, that is an awfully big assumption, no corruption or misdirection of funds?.