#1 Extend ISS
No Problem, good use of existing resources/investments no increase in costs, just maintain current funding.Not visionary but doesnt need to be.

#2 Develope and BUY COMMERCIAL manned access to LEO
Again no problem, use existing resources/investments (Atlas/Delta) and maybe Falcon/Dragon. MIGHT reduce costs, shuttle was supposed to, too.

#5 Develope BEO deep space mission tech. Again, not only “no problem”
(with 1 and 2 it starts to be doable in 3-5 years) its just that funding
is left for a nebulous future in “out year” budgets.

From there things get a little slippery…

#3 Keep Orion-ultra-lite as a down only CRV. What a total waste in duplicating (very poorly) an already existing reliable asset (Soyuz)
Even I, a right wing, gun toting, fox news and limbaugh addicted, rascist sexist biggoted teabagger can’t believe he pulled this one out of his hat.

#4 Spend ANOTHER 3 BILLION on ANOTHER HLV STUDY!!! Ever hear of Shuttle C, NLS, Ares 5, Jupiter. The stacks of paper studies from the last 40 years are tall enough to CLIMB them to orbit. How the hell did nasa come up with the Saturn V that fast that good way back then?!?

#6, #7, #8, #9, are all so far in future years and future dollars with no inkling or funding of an inkling as to be meaningless.

#10 I just can’t wait for anti gravity, transporters, matter/antimatter warp
drive, orbital towers or Pixie Dust technology to be developed either but again see #s 6,7,8,and 9

As for heavy lift, even the Augustine Commission came to the conclusion that an Ares V lite was the preferred heavy-lift option in the near term. Talk of on-orbit refueling is that-talk-at the present time. There’s still many unknowns to solve before orbtial refueling can prove viable, such as propellant storage and transfer, replenishment (I presume the depots will be replenished), safety on orbit, and so forth.

Destinations: while the Moon was left out, no doubt the first BEO mission or two will be lunar orbit, to test the spacecraft and systems, and give crews experience in BEO before tackling a target beyond the Earth-Moon system. And when it comes time to get ready for Mars, the Moon will be used as the proving ground for Mars (habitats, EVA suits, rovers-both human and robotic, on-site resource exploitation, etc.). A successor administration will probably say “We’re going back to the Moon” at some point. But there’s one question the “Flexible Path” advocates fail to answer: how do you get past the feeling by the Moon first folks that Flexible Path is the “Look, but don’t touch” program, when to the public, exploration is an astronaut getting out of a lander, planting a flag, and bringing stuff back?

Someone brought up the Tea Party and I think its a good question what a Tea Party Congress would do with Nasa in 2011. If Constellation is terminated this year, then I think Nasa gets deeper spending cuts. Should those contracts be terminated in 2010 and the job losses booked his year and next, a Tea Party Congress will have a free ride cutting billions from Nasa’s top line. A Tea Party Congress will want to show its voters they are serious about cutting tens of billions, perhaps hundreds of billions from the USG budget. Nasa, along with a great many federal agencies will get haircuts.

If Constellation isn’t killed this year, then of course it won’t get any funding increases either and Nasa is still going to have to take big cuts.

I take it as a given that if the GOP adopts the Tea Party message and activism, it wins a sweeping victory in November at all levels of government. I see no message more powerful in 2010 than the Tea Party’s, can anyone else find a bigger message? A victory for their message is likely to have a serious impact on Nasa, with real spending cuts and real programs being discarded. Constellation could still be among them in 2011 should it survive 2010.

We don’t “need” a Saturn-V-class vehicle to get back to the moon, even if you capitalize all the letters of the word. It wasn’t terminated because we aren’t going to the moon, it was terminated because it’s horrifically expensive and unnecessary.

In his speech, the President said that Constellation was “underfunded & unsustainable” because of the high costs, but then, he goes ahead and says that he’ll INCREASE NASA’s budget by amounts of billions of dollars per year much higher than that Project ever would’ve cost and required!!

Again, using all caps and multiple exclamation marks doesn’t magically render nonsense true. Ares was not sustainable within the current budget, or the increased one. Go read the Augustine report. And if you’re going to whine about its cancellation, at least learn to spell it.

Yes, there are people like that, and it’s stupid, but it doesn’t make them “teabaggers.” The only teabaggers are, you know, people who actually teabag, and it has nothing to do with politics. And I will persist in calling people who mindlessly call citizens concerned about the growth in government “teabaggers” scumbaggers.

Ah, well, I recognize people that don’t seriously think about space policy and have only leapt into this discussion to bash Obama. I don’t know you you are so I won’t specificlaly insult you. Classy guy.