A meaningful goal for NASA

[Happy Monkey]

Originally posted by SteveDallas
... and partly because there was genuine concern (concern that may look silly in hindsight) about military advantages of having a foothold in space.

Well, it's actually not all that silly. One reason that low Earth orbit isn't brisling with weapon satellites is because a treaty was signed to prevent it. If the USSR had been able to take control of space, that treaty would probably have been similar to all of our nuclear weapons treaties - the first ones there get to keep making them, but the johnny-come-latelys get none.