IMHO, there are many interesting facets to this discussion. Not to say NASA has not been a hellofagood thing. But it shows what happens in the long-term when government gets too involved in free market enterprise. Different people have different values and ideas on what is important. This discussion proves that.

The letter, signed by 27 people, including 21 former astronauts, veterans of the Apollo, Mercury, Gemini, and space shuttle programs saying the president is “throwing away” America’s dominance in human spaceflight after “50 years of unparalleled achievement" shows this. Support of Obama's plans by Sally Ride and Buzz Aldrin shows this.

It is what happens when a federal government, which produces nothing on it's own, instead controls and is put in charge of "running something" instead of keeping it's place established by the US Constitution. A new President and representatives are elected, things can change. When the government representatives control monies for enterprises like NASA, this too can change.

I'm afraid of Obama's socialist leanings and his eagerness for a one world government nanny system and what his changes to NASA may mean. I don't like that he is wanting to give more funding for NASA's Earth Science Division. Not that there is anything wrong that division, unless it is to study global warming and carbon changes. We know where that is headed.

In 1915, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics was formed as a government agency by President Woodrow Wilson. It purpose, "to supervise and direct the scientific study of the problems of flight with a view to their practical solution, and to determine the problems which should be experimentally attacked and to discuss their solution and their application to practical questions."

Looking at history, which we must do, Orville Wright was appointed to the board of this agency. I love the fact that two private citizens, publishers of their own newspaper, without any government assistance, got us where we are today.