[Cincinatus' Wife]

I may be wrong, but I do not think this can be laid at the feet of Obama. I’m pretty sure the end of the shuttle program has been planned since 2005 (possibly even earlier).

It was scheduled to be ended, as a new system was being built. The workforce would transition and there would have been a gap that was doable. But that program was canceled by Obama and handed off. We have nothing now and Russia is already raising their "hitch-hiking" prices.

[WayneS]

You make a good point, but it’s not like Obama’s predessessor exactly ‘tore up the galaxy’ working on a successor to the shuttle in the eight years he was in office.

[NikkiB]

On the other hand, Project Constellation was estimated to cost $230 billion. With the current debt issues, how is adding another program for NASA to mismanage is helpful?

It was also the House, not Obama, who cancelled the James Webb Telescope for being grossly over budget at $6.5 billion.

[napscoordinator]

As hard as I tried to find the right to a space program in the Constitution, I cannot find it anywhere.....why does this have to be the governments responsibility? I say privatize it and be done. Are you one of those pesky big government types?