We went to the moon the year I graduated from high school. I thought, for sure, we be on Mars by now.

Now we can't even get out of low earth orbit without help from other nations and Obama wants NASA to "reach out and touch" the muslim world so they can feel better about themselves.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/obama-s-new-mission-nasa-reach-out-muslim-world

A sad state of affairs, indeed.

Heinlein wrote "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", and indeed that is the ultimate high ground. Chairman Obamao, who envies the government of China, would have them control it. He is the most anti American treasonous president we have ever had the misfortune to elect. His every action weakens our country. His defeat is paramount to our survival, and the next Constitutional Congress should dismantle all the unconstitutional agencies: education, environment, energy, and that would easily fund NASA. That is what is constituional, take the high ground, before our enemies get it.

We hear the MSM tout Obama`s huge intellect. The truth is, the man, if you want to call him that, has a very small mind and no imagination. Unfortunately there are a great many in this country who have the same qualities and will proceed to vote for this traitor again.

Richard Ryan

Lamar,Missouri - Birthplace of Harry S Truman

Our American exceptionalism raises our heads high. It makes us feel good in a positive way. Not only are these particulars important to the health of our culture and our collective psyche, space exploration holds the promise of future resource gains. But these are not the realities of importance to the anti American, pro socialist pro Islamic POTUS, one Mr. BHO.

To him money spent on space exploration, like money spent on the military is simply wasted money. This money could be better spent on more socialist programs ensuring maximum votes for himself and other democrats, in turn keeping him and them in power, fame and fortune. These of course would be the good sheppards, alone capable of leading the minion flock.

In my lifetime, LBJ, Jimmy Carter and BHO, holy smoly, if I were a democrat I`d quit.

Nobama 2012, vote republican. Thank you.

Beg to differ.

Backgroud: I grew up "space-happy" (as well as "aviation happy" a related disease.) My parents both worked at NACA, which became NASA. My dad retired from there. (My mom used to laugh at the phrase, "it's not rocket science." She said "rocket science" is not that tough. YMMV) I knew all the flights, astronouts, and missions, Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo, the way kids used to know baseball players and statistics. They were my heros, and my dad was part of that! That was a "can do" organization. Then, like all beauracracies, it became hidebound and self-promoting and potecting.

Space advocay led to enlightenment. There is a lot of data and ideas about what was done, how thing could be done, etc. There is lots of material about possibilities, about frontiers and free enterprise. Also, NASA was lost after its great success landing on the moon. Funding was cut. Some genius (sarcasm alert) decided that a resuable space access system to do everything was The Thing To Do. Shuttle was born, an attempt to have a satellite launch vehicle, and research lab, and cargo hauler, and passenger vehicle, and a military mission vehicle, and this and that and all things possible all in one. Much like trying to build one vehicle to haul your family, pick up the garbage, and deliver gas to the local station, a wrecker, an RV, etc. This really did not make sense, having one vehicle do everything resulted in a very complex and expensive swiss-army-knife "solution." The shuttle is an amazing outrageous vehicle and we are so good the darn thing sorta works! Then of course the Challenger disaster did not help at all; there went frequent access to space and the pursuit of a rapid turn around. NASA just became more insular and self-protecting. Also,somewhere along the way someone decided that since NASA "has the expertise" etc., they should have the final decision on space flight. That is to say, they could authorize or deny access to anyone in this country who wanted to launch. Recall that NASA was funding shuttle partly as a satelite-deployment vehicle. Well, guess what that meant? All those attempts of private enterprise became =competitors= of NASA, who had the power to deny their launches. Guess what happened? Yup, they killed a lot of promising private-enterprise attempts to build launch vehicles, both expendable and reusable.

NACA was the "National Advisory Committee on Aernotics." There was an important idea there,

"Advisory." They were a research outfit. NASA recently (last 10-15 years?) recalled the "Aeronotics" part of their name and has been doing good work, ie., research and some development (using lots of contractors, btw.) THAT is where I think NASA should live and work: research and science.

Access to space? Let them hire it done. Hey, the XPrize was won in 2004. Private enterprise! Get NASA out of the way. Imagine that.

The government body I think should be flying in space is the US Air Force, until a US Space Force spins off, like USAF calved from US Army Air Force.

BTW, for all you Constitutionalists out there, I can see how the Commerce Clause can enable the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board. But how do you authorize NASA, even just for research and science? Or any of the other research and science spending, for that matter?

Mike Schuerger Sr., Well put and entirely on target. I was thrilled with the Space program in the 60's but my head was screwed on straight and so the thought occurred to me that there is absolutely no moral or ethical or constitutional justification for the U.S. government to put its tax collector's gun to the head of every taxpayer and require them to fund an unconstitutional program that has not even been agreed to by the American public. Washington never asked the citizens of America if they wanted to pay extra taxes to fund a space race. Instead we just did what we learned to do in WWII, we just put it on our national tab. Why pay for it when we can stick the bill on the future? Along with it was the funding for the Vietnam War. It's still unpaid for. 15 Trillion dollars in debt!!! And dreamers call for us to go even deeper in debt just so we can have our egos massaged by camping on the dust of a dead moon? We need to wake up and smell the coffee. There's nothing there that we should or can pay to obtain, -same with China. They want to go there for the same unjustified reason that we did, -national pride. Why not ask the Greeks if there is any limit on how much a nation should waste for national pride? Why ask them? Because we are roaring full-speed down the tracks to becoming them. BANKRUPT!! BANKRUPT!! Get that word seared into you head because it is our present and future thanks to dreamers who don't care about reality or the constitution, or fiscal responsibility. The reason young people admire Ron Paul is because he points out the absurdity of such pie-in-the-sky thinking, along with the fact that it has very negative consequences that are only mildly mitigated by its benefits. Space is a bad joke and the international space station can't be expected to even begin to pay for a small fraction of the cost of its construction. Just another government program of waste. But it's been a great social welfare program for the techno-engineering class. They're the ones reaping the benefit while the rest of the country suffers the cost of an ever greater burden of inescapable debt.

P.S. Long exposure to zero gravity is bad for the skeleton, the heart, and the eyes and no solutions are known, so forget about long distance space travel.

A.R. Nash,

Actually there are lots of good reasons to go into space. It's just that a government body should not be doing them, except for military/defense use.

There's lots more involved than "national pride."

Free enterprise can and will do it, if we don't crash altogether beforehand. As Yogi said, "you can look it up ..."