[perihelions]

> "before their current term expires"

> "This mirrors the political, prestige, and technology triumph of the Kennedy administration"

Trump may have said "before my term ends"; what JFK said was "before this decade is out".

IMHO, this is like a diametric opposite of Richard M. Nixon landing on the moon, two presidencies after Kennedy (and of opposite party); acting for Americans' obvious shared interests (not personal vanity); being the final link in an unbroken chain of sustained, stable governance. We've lost the capacity for greatness of that era. We don't have that, that chain of stable governance in service of national interests; what we have is an attention-deficient narcissist, capriciously destroying every great American thing that exists which doesn't have name attached.

(Ironically, the thing Kennedy so fervently competed against no longer exists today. That fearsome adversary, the triumph of Sputnik and Gagarin, was also demolished in this century by a Trump-like figure, spouting vapid promises of greatness as he vandaled and looted it to the ground).

[lostmsu]

> a Trump-like figure, spouting vapid promises of greatness

Can't pinpoint who you are referring to. Gemini thinks Yeltsin? But neither it nor I remember any "greatness" promises from the guy.

[perihelions]

Putin made a number of incredibly grandiose promises about Russia's progress in space (and in technology and engineering generally), as he dismantled and looted Roscosmos over the past twenty years—gifting away its wealth to oligarch allies. The Russian space capability is a shadow of its former self, barely able to maintain its old Soviet rocket production. Their ISS modules, if you've been following, are quite literally falling apart from negligence—leaking toxic gases and such.

Here's a generic example of the flavor of Russia's non-credible space propaganda—stuff their government says, like Trump, that's an enormous lie, that everyone knows is a lie:

https://web.archive.org/web/20120204103104/http://english.pr... (Pravda: "Russia to send cosmonauts to the Moon this decade" (2012))

[lostmsu]

To be fair, Russian space stagnated since before him. The current fallout is caused by somebody actually bothering to move forward.

[asacrowflies]

Putin you idiot.