http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/SP-4209/toc.htm

But then these people also miss a lot of this as well. How quickly we forget.

(A Special Note for Mars Nuts) Probably the most important parts that eveyone leaves out is that the race for Mars stopped after Mariner IV. While the race for the Moon was going on, both nations had seriously worked (spent real money) on systems for manned flight to Mars. But guess what, Mars was not Earth-like, and neither was Venus. Our ideas about where we were going had suddenly changed. (If you Mars Nuts want to throw your tantrums now, please go on ahead.)

By the time the initial negotiation had taken place, all of Apollo past the initial landings had already been cancelled, and further production of the Saturn V had been stopped. The US tax paying public had had enough with manned space programs - they weren't worth the price. Mars was simply not Earth-like. The US had developed its engine technologies and electronic control systems to the point where its nuclear weapons launchers were the best in the world, and the public's fear of being second best here was gone.

The US was involved in a costly colonial war in Vietnam, and stood diplomatically isolated. As Nixon had not anticipated the costs of the war, or wished to shield them from the US public, the US economy was under pressure, and further large expenditures would be difficult. Large lossses of troops had led to popular resentment against the war. Nixon was seeking victory through diplomacy, and it was certain that more military aid to Vietnam from either China or the Soviet Union could lead to a massive and humiliating military defeat.

China and the Soviet Union had gone to war a few years earlier, and were at a nuclear standoff, and China viewed Soviet involvement in Vietnam as part of its hopes for the encirclement of China. Mao, the man with his finger on the button, had gone nuts years before and was in the process of killing a large number of his own people. Further, different efforts by other Chinese leaders to remove him from power were constantly afoot.

Both the US and USSR had enough nuclear warheads to blow each other off the face of the Earth several times over, and the leaders of both nations faced the question of whether they should try to develop full anti-ballistic missile systems, or whether the best course would be to try to enter into some kind of arms limitation agreements. Would ABM systems make them safer, or less safe? Could their nations afford them, or would their peoples revolt against the costs?

Thes other nations on the planet did not want to get caught in the middle. Agreements had been reached concerning atmospheric testing and in other areas. Not only the peoples of both nations, but evryone on the planet, welcomed moves that reduced the danger they faced.

This is the environment in which the co-operative space agreements were reached.

As it turned out, by the time the program was implemented, it had been discovered that an "exchange" of nuclear weapons would not only blow both nations off the face of the Earth, it was more than likely that it would make the entire planet relatively uninhabitable. Alvarez had documented the ecological effects of extremely large explosions by demonstrating the effects of the KT impact, even though at this time only the iridium layer had been found, and not the impact crater itself.

Also as it turned out, the ties strengthened by the Apollo-Soyuz Program later helped in preventing the flare up of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in 1973 from becoming a nuclear war.

Jim leaves the cancelled US Moon flights out of his account. The astronauts involved in the ASTP did their jobs in a thoroughly professional manner, as did the engineers.

Perhaps Jim's suggestion that the Columbia disaster was a result of current international cooperation may appeal to those who do not want to face up to their own responsibilities for it, but it is not likely to find many supporters elsewhere.

The same fate likely awaits all calls for a go it alone US manned Mars program.

EP