Here is the original story, from which many sources do not quote from and extremely misuse.
"Beggs was convinced that a successful shuttle would build congressional and public support for the space station. He pressured his managers to make the shuttle a viable commercial rocket system as quickly as possible by vastly expanding its schedule. And he arranged to make a personal pitch to the President--with neither the knowledge nor the approval of Meese or Keyworth.
By the end of the meeting, the President was favorably disposed. And by the end of the year, Beggs was informed that $150 million was included in the fiscal 1985 budget for a space station. In his unpublished memoirs, Beggs' deputy, Hans Mark, wrote that Beggs "would be remembered . . . as one of the NASA administrators who had succeeded in persuading a President to do something brand new." But among Administration conservatives, Beggs would be remembered as the man who had humiliated them on the space station. That lingering bitterness would have dramatic consequences for both the shuttle program and for Beggs.
"Of all the organizations that I have dealt with . . . I have only seen one that lied. It was NASA," science adviser Keyworth says today. "The reason they lie, of course, is because they are wrapped up in a higher calling. In their eyes these are white lies. They tell lies in order to do what has to be done. Because in the end the result will be for the betterment of the public. So they are not lying from evil. But, nevertheless, they are lying."
AN OLD-LINE REPUBLICAN, BEGGS considered people like Keyworth and other hard-line Administration conservatives "right-wing nuts" who had no influence with the President. It was a crucial mistake."
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-01-18-tm-5326-story.htmlIt was pulled from these sources:
Adapted from "Prescription for Disaster: From the Glory of Apollo to the Betrayal of the Shuttle," by Joseph J. Trento with reporting and editing by Susan B. Trento. To be published in February by Crown Publishers Inc. Copyright 1987 by Joseph J. Trento.
So , this isn't about a conspiracy on actual space travel or covering up the true shape of the earth. Its about them trying to fund the space station by lying about their build schedule.