Beware, political rant ensues: ;-)
One of the early fixes to the budget that the Democrats pushed through was to, for all practical purposes, kill NASA. The aging space shuttle fleet was already slotted for retirement, in fact they had exceeded their specified "warranty" by several years. NASA had plans for a new "Constellation" rocket that would take payloads and crews into space to maintain our fleet of satellites, conduct research and work with the space station, with an ultimate goal of future manned missions to the moon.
Obama's administration killed the project as part of the budget cuts. I'm all for budget cuts in bad economic times, but let's look at what these cuts have caused.
There's still a large space based infrastructure to maintain between satellites and the space station. Here's a great idea, let's privatize it! There's definitely a call for "capitalism," right?

With the Obama administration attempting to place a stranglehold on NASA funding and prohibit any manned exploration I thought I'd take a few moments of your time and express my views.