How old am I?

Old enough to know better than answering that one.

;-)

I was around too and I remember the love beads hanging on doorways as you walk through them (remember those?) and the smell of incense in shops run by "groovy" folks who were wearing bell bottom jeans that looked like heck.

The counter-culture had slowly grown from the "beatnik" crowd around '58 (that term pre-dates the Beatles) on to the swingers and counter-culture types of the late sixties.

Yes, this article is not the first putting the idea in the heads of the leftists out there - but it was the first news article to quote "If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we (insert socialist agenda item of choice here)!" This become a popular phrase and still can be heard now and then.

The article points out that most the professors were already elitist leftists too and heaping scorn on middle America. The last cool conservative professors were the "longhairs" who worked on radar and the a-bomb in the 40's and early 50's.

The point is still valid - why were the liberals so anti-space? Because it was a government activity? "The man" was calling the shots?

Tom is giving Kennedy more credit than he's due. Von Braun had been working with Ike and Dulles long before Kennedy made the moon speech. The Russian's and Sputnik made Ike's decision final.

Lindy's point that space is a military venture has merit - but the street liberal is not so well-versed in NASA lore to condemn space based upon military ties.

How is it that the average folks that fought the Germans and Nazis, supported the war against Germany were the quickest to embrace von Braun and his rocket ship dreams?

Fox would say it's because the WWII generation was a better generation of the four, the movers and world builders, than the boomers which followed.

It may have some basis in truth - but the boomers embraced many things, it's just on the whole, space was something they never warmed up to.

Yes, I know the issue is much broader than a left/right debate, but the left/right factor in my mind accounts for about 10-15% of the "space" problem.

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