Liberals ended Apollo moon missions; now, America’s space ambition returns under Trump

OPINION:

Why did we stop going to the moon? Well, the short, most direct and correct answer is liberalism. The early stirrings of wokeism.

The miracle of Apollo, as envisioned by the great American exceptionalist and anti-communist John F. Kennedy, was to beat the Soviets to the moon and then to go on to the planets and the stars. He said so often. That meant not going to the moon just once but rather multiple times.

It has been 50 years since the last Apollo mission — named America for the command module and Challenger for the lunar module — landed, and astronaut Gene Cernan took note by saying, “We leave as we came, and, God willing, as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind.”

Federal budget cutbacks by liberals in Congress eliminated Apollo 18, Apollo 19 and Apollo 20. All missions had audacious plans, including landing on the dark side of the moon.

So liberals, in their borderline wisdom, just as we were perfecting missions into space, including to the moon, canceled our program and severely cut NASA’s budget.

Liberals used, as they always do, the “priorities on Earth” argument. Yet 50 years later, we still have the poor among us, we still have the homeless among us.

NASA then kicked off one of the most inane space programs ever. “Mission to Planet Earth” involved sending Skylab into space, which was essentially a giant grain silo where astronauts took more and more useless pictures of planet Earth, like some weekend tourists visiting the National Mall in Washington.

It was the ultimate in naval gazing.

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They observed ants in space, but in reality, the ants were probably watching the hapless astronauts instead.

The organization also changed its logo from the retro, but also inspirational, blue one representing the best of Americanism to an antiseptic “NASA,” as if it were a sign giving directions in a hospital ward.

Liberals were also to blame for the disastrous Columbia shuttle mission, when super-frozen insulation smashed into the wing of the spacecraft, dooming the astronauts on reentry. Liberals had complained about the previous insulation, which was safe, claiming it polluted the Everglades.

Fifty years of space exploration have been wasted because of liberals and their hatred of American exceptionalism, but that “dark side of the moon” false argument governing our space program is over.

A new dawn is breaking for America, and our space program is finally back on track because of the American exceptionalist President Trump. American patriotism is fashionable again because of Mr. Trump.

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We all feel happier again, having left behind the dyspeptic era of Joseph R. Biden, surely the worst president in American history.

Godspeed America! Godspeed, our new astronauts!

• Craig Shirley is a Ronald Reagan biographer and presidential historian.