Certainly. Despite those successes however, the political and budget process still has a significant effect on NASA operations. A number of past programs--inclu

Certainly. Despite those successes however, the political and budget process still has a significant effect on NASA operations. A number of past programs--including unmanned ones--have been cancelled or altered due to those pressures. Others have been killed during budget battles while still in the early planning stages. Even during the Apollo era, NASA has had to very carefully pick its battles. And it's not always successful. But it's not a zero sum game: NASA can achieve major successes, while still being tied down by politics. Speaking in very broad terms, unmanned missions tend to have a significantly lower public profile up until the moment they reach their destination. Unmanned missions can die during budget battles, but that's usually the extent of things. Manned missions, on the other hand, have a much higher profile throughout the entire process. They can take longer, are more expensive, and require additional political support from politicians who will in all likelihood not be in office to take credit for the mission's eventual success. There are also far greater PR incentives for an incoming administration to dabble with NASA policy in order to differentiate itself from the previous administration. It's relatively high profile, makes a new POTUS appear "presidential" and forward-thinking, and comes with very little political risk compared to other federal programs they could touch. Explaining that manned spaceflight missions are developed over the course of years, and that bold new policy proclamations are counterproductive is a tricky political argument to make. If someone attacks them for the policy changes, they get to just argue that NASA is still getting money and "working towards the future." Whether the changed goals ever come to fruition is largely secondary. Which sucks, but it's the nature of long-term programs. JFK pushed NASA to the moon, but even if he hadn't been assassinated, he still wouldn't have been in office to for the moon landing. Nixon never once publicly acknowledged JFK's role. When there was a push to name the Apollo 11 craft after JFK, Nixon's congressional relations assistant Bryce Harlow quipped "we have gone far enough in ‘Kennedyizing’ the mission" while another senior advisor, John Ehrlichman noted "such an action would win us neither friends in Congress nor votes in 1972,” suggesting “fall prey to this and the next step will be renaming the moon because NBC thinks it would be a good idea." H.R. Haldeman killed the proposal, literally double underlining the point (Logsdon 14). Despite everything that's been thrown in their way, and how election-oriented thinking can impact its missions, NASA has managed to continue pushing scientific boundaries since the beginning. That's damned impressive. - Logsdon, John. After Apollo? Richard Nixon and the American Space Program.