Nor did President Obama wait until the Shuttle extension study to decide to terminate the Shuttle in 2010, though candidate Obama promised to wait on whether to extend the Shuttle based on that eval. Unless I’m missed this (I haven’t), the Shuttle extension eval has not been finished.

What NASA did get was a modest increase in its budget. And 0.127% of the Stimulus Bill, of which 0.05% was for Constellation and a firm decision to kill the Shuttle program before we even know how much it will cost to keep it going until Orion flies. And now thousands of skilled aerospace workers will be laid-off by the President who “gets it”, raising unemployment and loosing an important skill-set and experience base. Meantime, get ready to write checks to the Russians for five very long years.

This is spectacular! Bravo to all of you who worked to see President Obama in the White House. Great job.

Anonymouspace, it doesn’t matter than Rep. Frank is/isn’t on the committees that affect NASA’s budget directly; he is one of the most powerful members of the House and if you think his views don’t weigh heavily on the Speaker and her minions, you don’t know what you are talking about.

Good point — an oversight on my part. Thanks for correcting.

FWIW…

While I agree with your wider argument, Pelosi does or should have a parochial interest in NASA. While she does not represent them directly, NASA Ames, Lockheed Martin’s military satellite factory, and Space Systems Loral are all based in the immediate region around San Francisco and are important contributors to the local economy. Likewise, numerous smaller companies, often in the Earth observation business, are based here, as is Globalstar. Pelosi may be expected to hear from her region if she overtly opposes NASA, especially research of the type that NASA Ames does.

— Donald

It’s too bad that NASA’s centerpiece plan for its future doesn’t better emphasize issues that would stand up a lot better in that environment, like the economy (encouraging new innovative space businesses and infrastructure, using space to help businesses on Earth), national security (encouraging new, more economical commercial launchers and satellites and suborbital vehicles, or making better use of existing national security launchers and satellite vendors), energy/environment (launchers, satellites, and suborbital vehicles again), education (student participation in suborbital or smallsat projects, university participation), or health (medical and pharmaceutical research on ISS and commercial stations).

Building 2 big government rockets for 15 years just doesn’t stack up.

Given the overall federal budget picture, I agree and think this will prove to be a pretty accurate assessment of what NASA is facing after the election, regardless of who wins. In fact, I’d argue that a declining NASA budget is somewhat more likely than a static one over the first term of the next Presidency.

The magnitude of the nation’s economic and budget problems are historic and will force a lot of campaign promises to fall by the wayside. In the absence of some external event that raises NASA’s priority, it’s hard to see NASA’s budget, especially human space flight, competing well against other priorities in that environment. We don’t need to resort to accusations of dishonesty and flip-flopping to make this argument — the situation is going to force it on either candidate.

“I do feel that John McCain has been far more honest to us – that is how he has been in decades of public service.”

Absolutely nothing wrong — and a lot right — with that. If McCain loses, I for one will find it a bittersweet coda to a political career that was more principled than most in Washington for the vast majority of its tenure.

FWIW…

And anonymous has a good point that Rep Frank may get some enjoyment out of forbidding the US to spend money on a manned Mars mission – he could easily add the other planets to the restriction as well. We don’t have a program so the restriction doesn’t affect us. And we won’t have a program for several years at the best.

Hopefully we can restrict most of our comments on this site to reasonable discourse.

Regardless of who gets elected – we have begun a program that is predicated on increasing budgets, but we have a static budget at best. And now everyone is promising to not lay off employees – while giving them a lot less to do. We are going to maintain the work force while reducing the flight rate.

I do feel that John McCain has been far more honest to us – that is how he has been in decades of public service.