SDAI-Tech1, the way you dodged the question of your age tells me you were very young at the time. Your soft-focus memory of love beads and incense sounds like a very young childhood impression, a recording of sensory impression untarnished by understanding.

The point is germane, because, in print, the phrase "If we can go to the Moon, why can't we ..." doesn't convey the rueful humor with which it was usually nuanced. You literally had to be there, and you weren't. The phrase is so obvious that it seemed to emerge spontaneously from many sources, most often from the mouths of comedians. It was comic relief from the deep angst of the times, and like most such humor, it was a backhanded expression of admiration. "We can be so good at times, why can't we consistently achieve great things like Apollo?" That glass can be half full...

Not universally, of course--things are never that simple. But it wasn't a political rallying cry that energized millions. Mostly it was used in a political context as a sound bite by activists to emphasize their argument, but it was never the primary theme and politicians didn't originate it.

It's dangerous to focus on one snapshot in time like that Time editorial. It sang Nixon's praises, because at the time it may have seemed like he was a strong supporter of the space program. But the reality is that while Nixon exploited Apollo 11 for political gain--he had the gall to inject himself into the moonwalk itself, wasting precious surface time with his "congratulatory call"--he was never a supporter of space flight. He hated Kennedy and wanted to trash his reputation, and ultimately killing off Apollo circa 1970 must have been sweet revenge. At one point, he was so chickenshit about it that he ordered the name of the Kennedy Space Center changed back to "Cape Canaveral".

Things aren't always as they seem from reading those old historical documents. It takes context to properly interpret what's said and written in the heat of the moment and the fog of battle.

--Robert