"Why?" isn't even a question that makes sense to me, in that context.

the sensible economic decision that there's no good reason to go into space

Except I don't think staying here is a sensible economic decision. If you go by the most rapacious free market thought out there, there's always a need for more resources and more space to develop. If you go by less rapacious free market thinking, this chunk of exploration stimulated the development of so much technology. Heck, if it weren't for the space program, this place might have been a ginormous agricultural region instead of a corporate masturbatory fantasy. I really feel our decision to abandon the space program falls into the category of "for all we scream about how capitalism is better than socialism, Americans are crummy at actual capitalism."

Also, I keep seeing America's push into space fueled by economic prosperity, followed by an intentional decision to abandon the attempt, as being pretty much identical to the Ming dynasty's initial push to explore Asia and Africa fueled by their economic prosperity, then their intentional decision to ( ... )

Just as a note, I was looking at the chart and noticed that there were 3 'steps down' , meaning three deaths. I had only heard of two, and so I looked up the list of MoonWalkers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Apollo_astronauts#Apollo_astronauts_who_walked_on_the_Moon

Somehow, Conrads death had slipped by without me hearing about it. Just goes to show you, even a space nut like myself doesn't know everything....