I can just see the congressional hearings now:

Chairman – So Mr. Williams, you want to crash the ISS into the ocean as soon as possible, is that right?

Mr. Williams – Yes Chairman

Chairman – And why is that?

Mr. Williams – Well, the we don’t own the whole ISS.

Chairman – I see. And then what do you propose to do after that?

Mr. Williams – Well, spend Billions of $$$ to build a new one that we don’t have to share with anyone.

Chairman – Uh, huh…. NEXT SPEAKER!!

Marcel, if you look into the history of the ISS, it has been a U.S. driven project from the beginning. Taking on international partners has been a way to spread the costs, and would probably never have been built if we had to fund it completely. Certainly without Russian participation, any station we had would have foundered during the Columbia shuttle stand down, so from that standpoint I’m glad we have others participating.

Instead of increasing US funding for the ISS, I’d cut it in half in order to fund a NSS program so that we can utilize for beyond LEO missions.

“Sorry but spending hundreds of billions of dollars invading a country that had absolutely nothing to do with 9-11 is extremely wasteful! But our investment in space has paid the US tax payer back many times over!

Both of these ungrammatical statements are nonsensical, but it would be far beyond the topic of this site to rebut them, particularly since you are impervious to logic or clue.”

The US could have conquered the solar system with those funds giving us access to hundreds of quadrillions of dollars in natural resources in the New Frontier in just the asteroids alone. Spending $10 billion a month in a country that had nothing to do with 9-11 was a huge waste of tax payer dollars! If you want to know one of the reasons why NASA was underfunded during the Bush administration– there’s one of the answers!

The space center Congresscritters may be making a lot of noise, but they’re just pandering for votes. They don’t have enough support within Congress to force the resumption of the unsustainable status quo.

Oh yes, under the POR it was going to last all the way to 2016.

But if you don’t want a manned beyond LEO program to establish a permanent human presence on the Moon and Mars then you don’t need a heavy lift vehicle. In fact, you don’t need a government manned space program at all.”

For all it’s flaws, the ISS is a grand achievement. Not only is it a permanent foothold in space (and a destination), but it brings together many nations to learn many things in space. Instead of dumping it in the ocean, we should be leveraging this huge investment by fully utilizing it, and I see the proposed NASA budget as doing just that.

So, in other words, everyone who currently thinks the budget isn’t a good thing is just going to be *very* disappointed come April 15.

Both of these ungrammatical statements are nonsensical, but it would be far beyond the topic of this site to rebut them, particularly since you are impervious to logic or clue.