I dare say that Space enthusiasts are made up of all political persuasions. It does not help for one to lay claim to being the only ones who support space. There are probably as many liberals that are pro space, as conservatives who are anti space. It seems terribly disingenuous for the republicans to kill Triana, just because it had Gores name associated with it. Personally I wouldn’t care if it did nothing but send back beautiful high-resolution images of the earth to the Internet. It would have been worth it for me.

It didn’t help the Apollo program that Richard Nixon was president at that time. He had no enthusiasm for it because of its association with President Kennedy. The result of course was it was shut down after only 6 flights.