The President and DOGE Repeat the Soviet's Big Mistake

America went to the moon. The USSR starved. The difference was that America promoted science over politics.

Getting to the moon remains one of the greatest achievements of American science. But that triumph wasn’t just about rockets and astronauts. It was about making hard decisions: choosing which research to fund, which technologies to pursue, and which risks to take.

Should we invest in developing this material or that one? Try one kind of heat shielding or another? Getting to the moon required thousands of decisions like these. The decisions weren’t obvious calls, even to the brightest minds of the time.