Editing Space Race (section)

==== Post-Apollo NASA: Shifting goals and budget cuts ====
NASA had ambitious follow-on human spaceflight plans as it reached its lunar goal but soon discovered it had expended most of its political capital to do so.{{sfn|Hepplewhite|1999|p=186}} A victim of its own success, Apollo had achieved its first landing goal with enough spacecraft and Saturn V launchers left for a total of ten lunar landings through Apollo 20, conducting extended-duration missions and transporting the landing crews in [[Lunar Roving Vehicle]]s on the last five. NASA also planned an [[Apollo Applications Program]] (AAP) to develop a longer-duration Earth orbital workshop (later named ''[[Skylab]]'') from a spent [[S-IVB]] upper stage, to be constructed in orbit using several launches of the smaller [[Saturn IB]] launch vehicle.

In February 1969, President [[Richard M. Nixon]] convened a "[[National Space Council|space task group]]" to set recommendations for the future US civilian space program, headed by his vice president, [[Spiro T. Agnew]].{{sfn|Hepplewhite|1999|p=123}} Agnew was an enthusiastic proponent of NASA's follow-up plans for permanent [[space station]]s in Earth and lunar orbit, perhaps a base on the lunar surface, and the first human flight to Mars as early as 1986 or as late as 2000.{{sfn|Hepplewhite|1999|pp=136–50}} These would be serviced by an infrastructure of a reusable [[Space Transportation System]], including an Earth-to-orbit [[Space Shuttle]]. Nixon had a 'better sense' of the declining political support in Congress for new Apollo-style programs, which had disappeared with the achievement of the landing, and he intended to pursue détente with the USSR and China, which he hoped might ease Cold War tensions. He cut the spending proposal he sent to Congress to include funding for only the Space Shuttle, with perhaps an option to pursue the Earth orbital space station for the foreseeable future.{{sfn|Hepplewhite|1999|pp=150–77}}

AAP planners decided the Earth orbital workshop could be accomplished more efficiently by prefabricating it on the ground and launching it with a single Saturn V, which immediately eliminated Apollo 20. Budget cuts soon led NASA to cut Apollo 18 and 19 as well. [[Apollo 13]] had to abort its lunar landing in April 1970 due to an in-flight spacecraft failure but returned its crew safely to Earth. The Apollo program made its [[Apollo 17|final]] lunar landing in December 1972; the two unused Saturn Vs were used as outdoor visitor displays and allowed to deteriorate due to the effects of weathering.

The USSR continued trying to develop its N1 rocket, after two more launch failures in 1971 and 1972, finally canceling it in May 1974, without achieving a single successful uncrewed test flight.{{sfn|Portree|1995|p=5}}