Yesterday Exposed A Major Lie

Thursday, April 2, 2026

It would be difficult to describe just how important America’s early manned space program was in my youth.  I remember taking what then passed for a “portable” TV to my second grade class so we could watch John Glenn’s first orbital mission.  I remember staying up very, very late to watch Neil Armstrong’s “one small step” and a hour or so later my parents emerging from their bedroom to force me to go to bed despite a couple hours of time walking about the moon remaining.  I recall my heavy disappointment when I learned my eyesight prevented me from ever reaching military flight status, let alone the astronaut program.  I know my studies in science were inspired by those programs.  I proposed experiments in a NASA-run student program for Skylab and got my name in the paper for the very first time.  Last evening it all returned in a rush as the United States once again launched people into space, headed for the moon.

The Apollo program, our first attempts at moon travel, died on a petard of social welfare.  The cry across the nation was “It is so expensive – we need that money here on the planet.”  At the time it was argued that the manned space program was an economic engine – and it was, but no one listened.  They just thought those dollars belonged in social welfare programs. And so one of our nation’s greatest achievements died and frankly is neither remembered or celebrated as it should be.  The Apollo program, and the Gemini and Mercury programs that proceeded it, rank as the second greatest engineering/logistical feats of any government, anywhere, anytime – bettered only by the Manhattan Project, but with far less destructive and far more socially beneficial results.

Also yesterday, Christopher Rufo and team produced a prodigious piece behind the registration wall at The City Journal on the depth of fraud rooted in the social welfare programs in California.  John Sexton excerpted and summarized it at HotAir.  The losses to fraud in California are well over $20B – which was roughly the cost of the Apollo program in 1973 dollars (about $200B in current dollars.)  Now, think about the fraud losses in social welfare programs in other states – most notably in Minnesota.  It’s going to add up in a hurry.  It is not much of a stretch to estimate that we are losing as much to fraud in social welfare programs as the old manned space programs cost us.  One must wonder if the entire debate about the manned space program in the 1970’s really was about social welfare, or just an excuse to create opportunities for fraud?

I am sure there are those out there that want to lecture that space exploration ought to be private.  The private commercialization of space is continuing apace, with companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin and others.  But commercialization and exploration are different things.  The continent on which I sit was discovered by a government funded exploratory program.  The mapping of the western portions of the continent – again, a government sponsored exploration program.  The history of government sponsored exploration is rich.  It makes sense in terms of growth and development and it makes sense in terms of national pride.

And what did we give that up for?  Massive social welfare fraud?!

The President gave a major speech yesterday – it is yesterday’s biggest headline.  Today is Maundy Thursday and Holy Week kicks into high gear.  I should have bigger and better things on my mind.  And I guess in a way I do.

What the descent of an achievement like putting men on the moon into the abyss of fraud that in our social welfare system illustrates is just how corrupt mankind actually is – just how much we are in need of Holy Week and all it represents.  As I celebrate the Last Supper this evening, I can think that there are people on their way to the moon and that, as a nation we are once again trying to reach for what is best, even if it is out of the mire of the worst of us.

Artemis II is hope.  Holy Week is the ultimate hope.