IOTL, President Richard Nixon discontinued the Apollo Program and approved the development of what would become the Space Shuttle. However, assuming that Bobby Kennedy either enters the presidential race earlier or survives his assassination, and goes on to win both the primary and the general elections, what kind of decisions would President Bobby Kennedy have made in regards to NASA? Would he have made the same decision that Nixon made and ended the Moon landings at 17? Would he have continued the moon landings in his brother’s honor, such as going ahead with the scheduled Apollo 18 mission, or perhaps even going on to approve a future Mars landing or Venus flyby (something that was considered in the Apollo applications program)? What do you guys think?
I suspect that the odds are that the US space program would have shrunk even more. That may be a good thing, depending on how you view the Shuttle Program.
But Mars landings and Venus flybys would be laughed right out of Congress. Congress wanted a space program that didn't cost as much as a small war and with the technology of the 70s, there was just no way that NASA could put together an interplanetary space program that would fit inside the funding box that Congress would allow. A continued moon program, with a Saturn V being launched once every two years to the moon would be possible, but I don't see anyone being very interested in it since given the money available NASA can EITHER do interesting things with space stations and better launch vehicles OR it can keep going to the moon - and more moon landings just don't offer the same benefits as the revolution that might happen if NASA succeeded in dropping launch costs by an appreciable amount.
Nixon was a genuine fan of the space program, and while he bent with the political and economic winds of the time, he still spent some of his limited political capital to back a big NASA shuttle. Under Bobby Kennedy... Well, to an extent, he has credit from his brother's legacy, and he can spend that credit killing Apollo earlier/shrinking the space program further and announce "mission accomplished". Also, so far as I know, Bobby did not show the same close interest in the space program that Nixon did. And cutting the space program down would free up money in a tight time to be spent on other programs.
So we may have no shuttle at all, or a much smaller shuttle.
On the other hand, in the early 70s, the US aerospace industry was in a painful recession and there was alot of space industry in some important states. As Nixon was thinking about votes in California when he approved the shuttle, Bobby Kennedy might be thinking that he needs an expensive R&D program to keep those important companies and states happy and in business.
There's a possibility that Congress would have funded the US space program a little better with a more politically astute NASA and an executive branch that made space a higher priority, but I have difficulty seeing NASA being more politically astute and I don't see why any president's team would fight harder than Nixon's team when there were so many other fires to worry about. So funding might be a few hundred million dollars higher, but no more. That's maybe enough to fund a small shuttle AND a space station in the 70s. Or enough to fund a better big shuttle. Or enough to fund a space station AND NERVA derived upper stages. It's not enough money to fund anything really big though.
fasquardon