It would be easy to blame Obama and that be the end of it, but the fact is that we haven't had a President who gives a damn about NASA since President Johnson. As for the shuttle, you can blame Nixon. Oh don't get me wrong, the shuttle is a wonderful marvel of technology but the benefits never outweighed the costs. Constellation, which isn't dead yet by the way (You have Representatives from Florida, Texas, Alabama, etc who aren't going to want those jobs to go away. At least not without a fight), anyway Constellation may have had its problems but they have proven to be timid compared to the development of the space shuttle.

Again don't get me wrong, the Space Shuttle is a remarkable piece of technology but it was oversold as what it wasn't and as the results it has set us back considerably in capability.

Back to the previous Presidents though, they are as much to blame as anyone because simply they stuck to the status quo. We didn't have to be here with five shuttle launches to go and no real idea what we're going to do afterwards.

As for Bush, he may have given us Constellation but he didn't secure funding for the program and as a result left it up to the next President to set the future of the agency. Constellation becomes a 11 billion dollar pipe dream if this new policy passes (Well, more or less. I believe we've spent 9 billion so far, and its going to be an extra 2 billion for closeout costs).

Theres quite a lot of dollars on the Moon actually, and billions around mars right now. Some is out of the solar system even.

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"To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his father has acquired too much, in order to spare to others who (or whose fathers) have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, "to guarantee to everyone a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it."

-Thomas Jefferson

Those spacecraft do no run on dollars, they run on solar or nuclear power, all of it devised, designed, build, launched, and flown from Earth by people who get paid, and then turn around and by stuff from other people, fueling the economy.

Given the choice of having your dollars "launching it into space" or having it "redistributed to the disadvantaged" which really means "buy beer and hookers", and make no mistake, that is the choice at this point, where would you rather have it sent?

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January 21, 2013: The End of an ERROR.

"Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become more corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters."
"When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic."
"The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself."
---Benjamin Franklin

Neither. I would rather it never have been taken from my paycheck in the first place. I never chose to employ NASA.

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"To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his father has acquired too much, in order to spare to others who (or whose fathers) have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, "to guarantee to everyone a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it."

-Thomas Jefferson

But you continuously benefit from their efforts.

Whether you like the actual science or not, access to space and other points, and living in/on those points within it is vital to both national security and our survival as a species, putting it well within Constitutional mandates.

Whether you poke at a rock to understand the origin life, or to determine how move it out of a dangerous orbit, or to get resources to live and study other potentially dangerous rock, your still getting the same info.

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January 21, 2013: The End of an ERROR.

"Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become more corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters."
"When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic."
"The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself."
---Benjamin Franklin

If they paid someone $500,000 per hammer and then let citizens borrow those hammers for Do-It-Yourself assignments, I would technically benefit from that as well. However, that is an incredibly inefficient way of doing it and the benefits are questionable.Saying that living on other planets is reasonably vital to our survival and that it is a serious matter of national security is absurd. We may as well fund a project to launch random rockets out to sea just in case they happen to hit an enemy nuclear bomb. Almost anything can be argued to be somewhat good for the people of the US. However, the claim that it's a reasonable investment is downright moronic.

How about this. Let's draft every single able-bodied person into the military for national security. We might end up with a ridiculous percentage of people in the military (like say 50% of the population), but we'll be well-defended! Hey, it makes more sense than spending billions launching shit into space just so we can occasionally stumble over a breakthrough...maybe.Let's hire everyone in the US to perform such research. I mean hey, more people = more national security = more survivability, right? Fuck the actual well-being of our people that's going to go down the toilet due to extreme levels of taxation, it's for SCIENCE!

No, it's the false dilemma and logical fallacy you made up in order to make your ridiculous proposal appear reasonable.

I would be ok with cuts to NASA if the focus was to bring our nuclear technology out of the 20th century and get busy building up our arsenal. I'd even support breaking ground on a dozen or so nuclear power plants. I think the space program is important but other things are much more so. Right now we need fighter pilots; not astronauts. If the plan is to give the money to hookers and alcohol vendors(arguably good for the economy btw) I'd rather keep those jobs right here in Houston where they belong. I'm just sayin'.

I dont see survival of the species in the constitution. Sure, you can argue national security, but you arent, youre arguing material benefit, which isnt in the constitution either. And the military has their own space program, so we dont need NASA. Either we live according to the law, and this is a free country, or we dont. Pick one. If you want NASA, you need my permission. Pass a constitutional amendment.

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"To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his father has acquired too much, in order to spare to others who (or whose fathers) have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, "to guarantee to everyone a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it."

-Thomas Jefferson

Looks like some Congresscritters are working to save the Constellation program:

Matt

Well, there IS a vital national security interest in being at the cutting edge of space technology and exploration. That there are also tremendous benefits aside from national security does not therefor render it unconstitutional. In fact, the best spending there is are those which clearly pursue a national interest clearly provided for in the constitution (defense) AND as additional external benefits. NASA has long worked in tandem with the military (which usually rely's heavily on NASA infrastructure for its own work). That is an organizational distinction, not a constitutional one.

It is clearly not in our national security interests to be dependent upon other's (who have no reciprocal interest...and in fact may have an interest in denying us access) technology to put Americans in space.

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"It's a good feeling to shoot a bad guy. Something you democrats would never understand. Americans are homesteaders, we want a safe home, keep the money we make, and shoot bad guys!"

----Denny Crane

For fuck's sake. We'll still be on the cutting edge. Nobody is proposing that we discard NASA. This is just cutting a program that isn't the best direction for it to be going.

Just a couple Republican congressmen want their special brand of socialism intact.

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Nothing to see here.

What is the cutting edge we will have in putting Americans in space? Once we retire the shuttle, we won't BE FUCKING ABLE TO! We will be utterly dependent upon other nations (primarily Russia and China...strategic adversaries) to get us into orbit.

One of my earliest and most consistent criticisms of Bush (and now of Obama) was a failure to make a Kennedyesque commitment to a date-certain for putting Americans on Mars. Establishing our superiority and dominance in space as a matter of national interest and security, as well as the incalculable external benefits that would undoubtedly flow from the effort.

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"It's a good feeling to shoot a bad guy. Something you democrats would never understand. Americans are homesteaders, we want a safe home, keep the money we make, and shoot bad guys!"

----Denny Crane

Fortunately scientists apparently don't feel the need to beat their chests.

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Nothing to see here.

Scientists are not driven by, nor particularly well suited to make judgements from a national security perspective. (same reason we shouldn't be relying on 'scientific consensus' on what are fundamentally economic considerations vis-a-vis global warming/climate change/whatever they are calling it these days)

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"It's a good feeling to shoot a bad guy. Something you democrats would never understand. Americans are homesteaders, we want a safe home, keep the money we make, and shoot bad guys!"

----Denny Crane