NASA desides to spend a massive chunk of it's funding to build the most complex machine in human history to go 300 miles up.Congress made that decision.
At least this is encouraging to hear - FINALLY - http://www.newscientistspace.com/article.ns?id=dn8735
QUOTE - Letting the human spaceflight programme "atrophy" after Apollo damaged the agency for three decades, he said.
It sucks that the science part will temporarily suffer. But any increases to the OVERALL budget will come from a human presence in space, not from pretty pictures of Pluto.