This is one issue I agree with Obama on. We just have different reasons for opposing NASA. His problem with NASA is that the benefactors of this massive bureaucracy and middle class welfare system are simply not the favored class he represents.
I oppose NASA for the same reasons I do for almost everything else the federal government is doing. Someone show me in the constitution where the federal government is empowered to take money from me to give it to a bunch of dead meat bureaucrats to build space rockets? Unlike Pete Olson, Hutchison, and Cornyn from Texas, I’m just not a hypocrite when it comes to pork for my state. I’m against all the pork and all the grand ideas the fickle majority has for the federal government. I want less government, more freedom.
NASA may be a jobs program, but it is number 22,499 on the list of things that should be cut. Start at the top and work your way down Edward Demmings style.
"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;" U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 8, clause 8.
This clause seems pretty straightforward in giving Congress only the power to regulate patents and copyrights, but has been stretched to cover promotion of art and science generally (blame the Smithsonian Institution; Congress wasn't sure whether it had authority to accept Smithson's bequest, but decided to take the money and follow his wishes anyway.)