NASA

In an amazing shift, in my eyes, from being total buffoons, it appears that both Congress and the House are showing their support for NASA, thumbing their noses at Obama's attempt to cut the program.

Please, everyone collectively applaud now. Sometimes they have a few moments of lucid thought in Washington.

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.

Please note the lack of a Space Shuttle in the attached photo - that program has already been cancelled, and they're trying to pull the budget for the replacement.

The current argument is that NASA expenditures and exploration are a drain on an already hurting economy. In Barney Frank's words “Space exploration is very important and has great scientific and practical results, but sending human beings to Mars and back will cost hundreds of billions of dollars for very little scientific worth.” In a recent interview with Dan Rather, Frank was asked "What if Lewis and Clark had made it to the Louisiana Purchase and turned back?" Frank's answer (to paraphrase): "Well if they got there and said it was a desert we wouldn't have been all that interested in rushing out there!" Forgive me, but I think the fact we DID rush across the deserts to found California kind of negates the argument.

The end of an era has been announced by NASA. May 31st, 2010 is set to be the date of the last space shuttle mission before the fleet is retired and we return to rockets.

Does anyone else not think this is a huge step backwards? Of all the things that President Bush has done that I can possibly forgive him for, mucking around with the Space Shuttle program is not one of them. It's by his order that the fleet is to be retired.

Will the Ares rocket be able to accomplish similar missions? With it's higher payload capacity and design built on lessons learned from the Shuttle, I'm sure it will do just fine, but it still feels a step backwards to have astronauts splashing down in the ocean again like they did in cold war days.

The trouble is the premature cancellation of the Shuttle flights by the government rather than NASA. When will the Orion capsule be ready to sit on top of the Ares rocket to take astronauts back into space? Not until 2014. Essentially we're grounded for 7 years. Thank you Mr. Bush.

Why should the average public care? Why indeed, when the media refuses to provide any reasonable coverage of the Phoenix mission to Mars, or any other NASA accomplishments. All you get to hear is the shock value news about the two shuttle tragedies we've had out of 123 flights (not counting the Shuttle Enterprise test flights.)