[chawco]

I toured Kennedy back in 2011 while STS-134 was sitting on the pad. I didn't quite have the impression that NASA of today was a shadow its former self, but I sure walked away from the tour thinking it was.

Learning that the giant VAB sitting there was constructed for one purpose: Building a Saturn V. Learning that the crawler that moved the craft around were built for one purpose: Moving a Saturn V. Then moving on to the most interesting part of the tour, not the shuttle sitting out there on the pad, but a giant warehouse with a Saturn V on its side inside.

Everything seemed to be in a slight state of decay -- not entirely neglected, but definitely from another age. The age of the Saturn V. The biggest impression I got from the whole experience was both awe inspiring, and sad: Apollo was NASA's zenith, and the future doesn't look quite as bright as those days in the 60's.

I'm hopeful that I'm wrong, but every part of the experience reinforced in me the belief that NASA's glory days had come and gone.

[marshray]

Yes, it's a bit sad and Apollo was an incredible set of engineering but let's keep something in mind: the massive budgets of the "space race" were fueled by Cold War tensions. A not-so-subtle implication of the space program was you'd better spend ridiculous levels of resources on rocket research or risk being dominated from above and by the way look how precisely we can land things back on earth.

I'm not going to complain about the result, but neither do I miss all aspects of it.