President Obama and NASA's new mission ...

[small axe]

There's been troubling buzz about NASA being gutted, lately, and the USA falling behind China and other nations in space exploration and exploitation in coming decades.

So hopefully the President's words today are laying the groundwork for a more positive future for NASA!

"Exploration will once more inspire wonder in a new generation," he said. "If we fail to press forward in the pursuit of discovery, we are ceding our future." He said that by 2025 he expects the U.S. to be reaching beyond the moon.
http://content.usatoday.com/communit...w-nasa-plans/1

and

"By 2025 we expect new spacecraft designed for long journeys to allow us to begin the first ever missions beyond the moon into deep space," Obama said. Such journeys, the President argued, would pave the way for missions to Mars. Obama's plan also calls for the construction of an advanced space telescope to replace the aging Hubble, a $3 billion investment in new, heavy-lift rockets, and the building of a new space capsule.
http://www.informationweek.com/news/...leID=224400444

How do we feel about it?

Will this be enough to advance our goals in space ... or are they merely a well-decorated retreat?

Personally, I'm probably one of the folks who would like to see us go wild and starry-eyed with more (but far less-expensive and life-risky) MACHINES exploring more places for now ... than just putting shoeprints in planets' dust.

[efkelley]

Well, I know what he's getting at. Simply, widespread exploitation of space will only become possible when private enterprise figures out how to make money from it. And they're working on that.

However, abandoning the Moon and the possibility of a base there seems backward to me. Why not learn about living, working, and exploiting other worlds on the closest one? I know that Buzz Aldrin is a big opponent of it. He's called it 'reaching for past glories'. To him I would say 'No, sir, that's reaching for YOUR past glory. We haven't done this in decades. Let's figure out how to do it cheaper and better, and then reach further.'

I'm not the one who makes the decisions. That's for Mr. Obama. He's made some claims, so I look forward to seeing if he comes through. I think he's done well so far, but I'm going to have to remain skeptical while giving my support.