>>14150947After the landings, Nixon told NASA to come up with options for what to do next. They put forward two plans - a bold, exciting, expensive plan for a fast-track mission to Mars using stations as an orbital staging ground for deep space vehicles using nuclear propulsion... and a safe, boring, plan to build a low-orbit truck that would drop off a few satellites and maybe build a space station at some point. Congress chose the latter.
I can't say for certain, but I suspect it was an attempt to try and mindgame Congress into taking the option they obviously wanted (the Mars mission), sort of like giving a kid the option between a fucking awesome ice cream cake or a kale salad.
I would love to have been a fly on the wall of the conference room when the Administrator of NASA came back to tell everyone the news.
