Taking funds from NASA programs to support schools is
something I support and I would back Mr Obama's plans
to do that, but the question rapidly becomes which
programs should be cut and which are worthy of being
kept? The Manned Moon program is the one program I
feel is a necessity for America to persue.
It's no secret that I have long derided the Manned
Mars Mission as a one-off, bloated, dangerous,
spacebizcentric monstrosity designed to give the
maximum financial return to NASA and techonology
builders while having a minimum knowledge return to
the public. NASA has tuned its internal program
advancment to the ability of the funding that any
one program can produce, and not to the long term
benefit that a program will have for the American
public. In that respect I have no qualms in seeing
many of NASA's programs .....
...being defunded.
I do have mixed feelings about the current Manned Moon
program and the whole Constellation program in general,
but the Orion-Altair-Ares, though anemic in nature, is a
start to what could be a manned colony on our Moon.
Yes, I've read most of the counter arguments to O-A-A
Constellation and yes, many of the program parts don't
add to make a whole, but it's the program we have and
we are now stuck with it. I doubt anyone will ever know
all the in fighting and political blackmail that went
into getting Constellation this far this fast. (Good book
for someone to work on>
If we do not persue the one-off Manned Mars Mission
and instead we make our Moon the real working science
station and base that was promised by NASA in 1968 we
might yet have a Jamestown in space.