One cheer for the President's space plan

After having read the full text of his speech, I belive that the question that the President was trying to answer is "Why are we spending $15 Billion a year on NASA?". He wasn't trying to start a new national crash priority program. NASA was between projects which is a very bad time for NASA. It is difficult to justify their spending when there is not a current project underway. (The International Space Station development is winding down or is complete and it was dreamed up during the last between project period.) So I see this as nothing more than providing a reason for NASA's existence. Nothing to get excited about. It was mostly to keep the congress from cutting the current budget.

The most interesting part of the address was the reference to using lunar resources. It maybe that all the organizations pushing this are having some effect.
Mitchell James

The goals and ambitions are laudable, leading to one cheer. The timetable is a joke, and the funding is a joke. This plan could touch off a space race, and in that case, the plan is one of how to lose a space race. (A serious version of this plan would say, "Mars by 2020. NASA gets an immediate 60% raise in funding, with two more raises in 2010 and 2015.") The President, while getting deserved credit for vision, should fix the timetable and funding in his plan. Absent that, we might conclude that the first human on Mars will be Chinese or Russian. Under this plan, they could beat us to Mars with 15 years to spare!
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John Kusumi
Email: john@...