ADSWNJ t1_j1wsjpn wrote on December 27, 2022 at 11:53 PM

Reply to comment by Liquidwombat in Why don't we plan for more "staging" at orbital platforms? by gbbloom

I guess (seeing your Ukraine flag!) you can blame the Russians for that 1960's Space Race. Couching that goal to get to the Moon (and safely back again) made space a national priority the likes of which it would not have seen on a pure-science budget. Arguably the Apollo-Soyuz era, leading to the ISS era was critical in the detante between the US and the USSR back then.