The universl assumption here
is that resources would then have been put to use on manned flight to Mars or the Moon.
Everyone here always projects their own desires and priorities on the general population and their representatives.
Instead NASA would most likely have simply been shut down.
THe preomise of cheap launches with the shuttle is likely he only thing tha kept NASA alive during Nixon's time. Instead, it is beyond question that the shuttle is a very expensive and inefficient launch system.
If the station had of been shut down, then the shuttles would have been shut down. It would have been the end of NASA, not the beginning of manned Mars flight.
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