Donna2: Give this a read and tell me what you think:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04..._space_vision/

Obama was speaking at the KSC yesterday (this was planned for some time - but critics of what was leaked of Obama's plan haven't had a chance to respond)

Some points:

1) $6B increase in NASA's budget.

2) Elimination of Ares I and Ares V

3) Reprive for Orion - it's back in the plan.

4) Vision - "What we're looking for is not just to continue on the same path; we want to leap into the future. We want major breakthroughs, a transformative agenda for NASA."

5) Private ventures - having companies like SpaceX and the Falcon 9 take over lifting duties. After all, isn't it a tenet of conservatism that private industry can do things better and more efficiently for less money? (Elon Musk, head of SpaceX, as one would expect, heartily agrees (http://www.floridatoday.com/article/...e-right-choice)

6) Extends the ISS to at least 2020.

7) Lays out rough timeframes for sending astronauts to Mars and asteroids.

Personally, I've been waiting for this talk ever since the Augustine Comission came out with their report which said, of the Ares program, that even if "Santa Claus delivered it tomorrow", we couldn't afford to run it since it was 50% more expensive and carried 50% less payload that what private industry could deliver.

*IF* this (Obamas stated agenda) is real, then we have a major turning point - for the better, I believe. For once, someone's thinking long-term. I was *very* skeptical at first (believing that we should have funded Constellation properly) but this COULD be the start of something better.