alternatehistory.com

In 1972 there was tremendous pressure to end the Apollo program after the flight of Apollo 17. That mission was even reclassified as a "J" mission.

Interesatingly, when Apollo 17 returned with their rock samples and geological core samples, COngress reauthorized the following three Apollo missions and even put aside monies for Galileio Base and Daedalus station.

The fallout from that was a science and technology boom that effectivly handed us the keys to the solar system.

After that, the horse was out of the COrral, Nerva-K engines, the Bussard ramscoop and eventually in 1980, the historic landing on the Valis Maneris on Mars.

Now, the United States is the most powerful nation on Earth as well as the wealthiest due to mineral and precious metal retrievals from the asteroid belt.

This year, President McAuliffe has greenlighted the construction of the first ship to the Jovian system. She wants to know what Europa holds, and I could not agree more.

But what if we stopped?

What if the United States scaled back and, eventually halted manned space exploration?
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