One expensive playhouse

In 2004, Bush announced his "Space Vision." At the time, I was in a planetary geology class and we had an assignment to review the proposal and give our opinions on it.

In short, the entire class found it pretty short sighted, mainly due to massive under funding. Sure enough, within months, experts from many places agreed that the goals were unattainable with current levels of funding. Bush did increase the funding by a good amount, but not nearly what experts predicted NASA would need to accomplish the goals.

Unless other cuts were made. But to where?

Science of course! Since then, several science missions have been shelved or scrapped all together. Many grants (including the Missouri Space Grant Consortium which one of my friends does research thanks to), were threatened. Although NASA denied it, many people thought the sudden cancellation of servicing the Hubble was in large part due to budget strains.

So while I have no problem with going back to the Moon or Mars, I would just like to see things properly funded. Perhaps not to the 1% of the national budget that it recieved during the hay day of the Apollo program, but definately to a better extent than it currently is.

This topic came up recently on one of the internet forums I frequent, and just as I posted my opinions this article comes out as if too add an exclamation point to all of my statements.

In short, NASA is considering suspending American science research on the ISS in order to save money while they finish building another module.

My question is, without science, what good is the ISS? Suddenly, it's a gigantic, $100 billion, 360km high tree house. What a waste.