Space funding was one of the things offered up on the altar of the benighted Vietnam war, police action. The programs were allowed to wind down once the infrastructure and technology to land on the moon was formalized. The last few Apollo missions were lackluster, blunted in enthusiasm and overshadowed by the understanding, backed by layoffs and budget cuts, that there were no major goals left on the agenda announced by Kennedy and no political will or vision to establish more.

Vietnam was financed by printing money. Which inevitably led to inflation, recession, stagnation and deflation. Iraq has been financed by taking out loans from the rest of the world. This may be better. We owe the rest of the world about three trillion dollars. So much in fact that they can't afford to call it in for fear of triggering our collapse. Which would trigger theirs. The answer, so far, has been a great collective, world wide, whistling in unison past the graveyard.

Vietnam was also largely the reason why if you buy anything electronic it is produced in Asia. Japan was dumping TVs in the US and making good their losses by keeping US TVs out of Japan while overpricing Japanese made TVs. The US electronics producers were about to take the Japanese to the world court. It was a case that was about impossible for us to lose.

Of course there was another case advancing through the UN. That was a call for US withdrawal from Vietnam on the basis that the war was illegal. The opponents to the Vietnam war were going to win that one. The US couldn't must the votes to stop it.

What happened was that a deal was made. The US government would block the case against the Japanese electronics industry and the Japanese would vote our way so we could continue with our fun and games in SE Asia. It is a case of 'be careful what you ask for' and a stand for political expediency over principle.

Had we lost the UN vote we might have gotten out of Vietnam a few years earlier. We wouldn't have had to print so much money to finance the war. there would have been less of a chance we would have run away inflation. More available cash would have meant a better chance NASA wouldn't have its budget cut. And the US electronics industry would have won their case, kept Japanese consumer electronics out of the US and killed the newborn Japanese electronics industry in its cradle.

Of course most Americans don't really understand what Vietnam cost us. That it would hobble our economy for a decade and we still are paying a price now.

The moon landings and our trips into space were real and tangible evidence that we were the good guys striving in a huge and challenging national goal. A goal no other nation could accomplish. We went out unarmed in the name of mankind and openly published what we saw. When the astronauts were in trouble the world prayed for them. The moon landings were watched world-wide. One of the first events to be seen live across the globe.

Even if there were no financial benefit; even if there were no practical benefit for doing such things; I still think having a large national goal to focus our peaceful and benevolent energies on would would be reason enough to justify the expense.