The End of US Manned Spaceflight?

If Obama is elected, we might as well shut down NASA. In a campaign stop in Wyoming, he was asked the following:

My question is about the human space program. You say you’d delay NASA’s program to build a Space Shuttle replacement for 5 years, in order to increase the education budget a grand total of 7 percent. But everyone knows that this effectively ends the US human space program. Why are you specifically pitting the space program against education, and where’s the vision in shutting down the [human] space program?

Is that enough "change" for you?

Obama's response was some drivel about being a fan of Star Trek; that no one watches Shuttle launches anymore; and that we need to redirect NASA funds to education to get the engineers that NASA needs.

You can appease the NEA all you want, Obama. It will not create more engineers. Young people must have the desire to become engineers. A vibrant program of exploration provides that inspiration. And tell me how you're going to retain the engineers currently working at NASA, with a lifetime of hard-earned knowledge and experience. How will this be passed along to the next generation?

Ahead of us is a future where America has ceded the high frontier to others. For at least half a decade we will have to buy rides to the Space Station from Russia, which will be supplies by Russian Progress tankers and Europe's Autonomous Transfer Vehicle. India will be orbiting the moon, and China may well land there before we even get our Orion capsule flying. Althoguh Obama doesn't see the value of human spaceflight, fortunately for humanity others do.

Obama wants to complete the Ares 1 launcher and Orion capsule, but cancel the reason for building them. This is almost a repeat of the Shuttle program, which was only one part of a Space Transportation System (STS)- the only part to get funded. It shows how clueless Obama is in this area. If all you need is transportation to the Space Station, a smaller capsule on an existing launcher would do. Or you could just buy the service from a commercial carrier, since the COTS program is designed for just that purpose. But no, Obama wants to waste money building just a part of a lunar-capable architecture - a part that is unnecessarily expensive if you only use it in low earth orbit.

NASA's slice of the federal budget is less than six-tenths of one percent, or about 16 billion. The Department of Education's budget is over 68 billion and has grown by 17 billion since 2001. In spite of this, by the Department's own measures, 12th grade Science scores have actually decreased since 1996.

Will taking NASA's funding fix this? Over the past seven years the Department of Education had it's budget increased by more than NASA's entire budget, yet has produced litte or no improvement. Clearly, throwing money at the problem does not work, yet Obama would take resources from one of the few government agencies that actually produces results and throw it down the rat hole.

I tell you, it makes me want to vomit.