This post seems questionable to me. Why do these people consider that the program was "horrifically expensive" when it only consumed 4% of the budget?
In fact, before his death in November of 1963, he had been giving serious consideration to ending the race, and negotiating with the Soviets to do a joint mission, to reduce its horrific costs (at its peak in the mid-sixties, Apollo was consuming 4% of the federal budget).Considering what might have been gained if the program had continued, it seemed to me to be a bargain. If space is worth doing at all, 4% of the budget is really not that much. Servicing the debt takes more than twice that. The defense budget is far greater still. Four percent of the budget today would be about 160 billion dollars. That's almost ten times what we spend today. If that much was spent, the solar system could be claimed for mankind. The amount that could be worth is hard to even calculate.
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