-=> Quoting Paul Andinach to Charles Daniels <=-
 CD> I was wonder what the precise reason was stated for cancelling
 CD> all planned future manned missions to The Moon and Mars.
 PA> I read somewhere that the Man on the Moon project was largely a
 PA> political/national-morale exercise anyway. The Moon was chosen as
 PA> being sufficiently inspiring without being as costly as, say, Mars.
 
And that it was.
 PA> The Americans put the first two men on the moon, then put the next
 PA> five or ten as well to make sure the Soviets noticed. Then, because
 PA> nobody had planned past that point, the whole program collapsed and
 PA> they went back to near-Earth stuff. 
 
There were solid plans to go to Mars.  NASA was casting about for the 
Next Step, and had decided on Mars; the goal was 1980, as I recall.  
They sent to me (and thousands of other subscribers to NASA publications) 
detailed plans for the Mars trip.
The alternatives to the Mars trip were colonization of the Moon and a
space station in higher orbit.
The budgets were cut at the end of the Vietnam War, when the costs of the
Great Society were overwhelming.  I've always suspected that the Moon 
colony was cancelled when the term "colony" became politically dangerous.
And the space station has never had as much romance as a long trip to an
unknown place.
So it can be said that the American space program was a victim of American
fears and doubts.
Michael
... I have a decaffeinated coffee table.  You'd never know it to look at
--- FMail 0.98
---------------