Richard Nixon him for doing little to help the ERA or their cause after his election. Nevertheless, he appointed more women to administration positions than Lyndon Johnson had. After a nearly decade-long national effort, the United States won the race to land astronauts on the Moon on July 20, 1969, with the flight of Apollo 11. Nixon spoke with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin during their moonwalk. He called the conversation "the most historic phone call ever made from the White House". Nixon was unwilling to keep funding for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) at the high level seen during
Presidency of Richard Nixon the ninth sitting president who did not complete a term that he had been elected to, but the first to leave office for a reason other than death. To date, Nixon remains the only president to have resigned. One month after Nixon left office, President Ford granted Nixon an unconditional pardon for all federal crimes he "committed or may have committed or taken part in" while president. Polls of historians and political scientists generally rank Nixon as a below average president. In a 2018 poll of the American Political Science Association's Presidents and Executive Politics section, Nixon was ranked as