[Flag_This]

"And, I guess my point for bringing that up, at all ... is ... it's mighty hard to support a program like NASA and the manned space program, when a good chunk of conservatives themselves don't even support it."

It seems to me that NASA lost "that vision thing" and, in so doing, it lost a lot of popular support. It's too bad, really. Manned space exploration is important for a host of reasons - just ask the Chinese.

[The_Victor]

It seems to me that NASA lost "that vision thing" and, in so doing, it lost a lot of popular support. It's too bad, really. Manned space exploration is important for a host of reasons - just ask the Chinese.

NASA's "vision" is always that of the president and/or his administration. The problem is that NASA's projects always necessarily transcend presidential terms, so the vision shifts with every election. If we want NASA to have a vision, then we should insist (as Congress did when they wrote into the law that funded Constellation, a limitation on the president's ability to cancel it) the president stop playing politics with the agency.