Maybe that's the answer, because being a kid of the 60's I remember the Dems commit to goto the Moon, then Johnson Taking over where Kennedy left off(though I have a sneeky suspicion that the moon landing was more a publicity stunt with the enginnering and space spin-offs a by-product for civillian uses) Nixon rides the momentun of the Apollo program of late 60's, them BOOM, the last 3 or so true science Apollo missions are gone ! (FORD and Carter are hard to figure out and Skylab was cobbled together just to get rid of excess Apollo and Gemani stuff. The Republicans get in in the 80's and Wham!!!!! The ISS development is stalled for 10 yrs or so, The Dems get in with Clinton and the NASA cash taps are flowing again! F/F to Y2k, Bush is back again, this time, we have the gov bean counters logging every gal of LOX on the space shuttle and every nut, bolt and roll of toilet paper on the ISS.. What gives, NASA is at the Whim of whoever is in the WHITE HOUSE, and to make matters worse, the ISS and the Manned space program don't sell well when John Q Public is out of a job and can't make the morgtgage payments...... Ahh, just an early morn rave.....