http://www.space.com/news/050512_nasa_prometheus.html
NASA sent Congress a revised spending plan for 2005 that would significantly cut the Project Prometheus nuclear power and propulsion program, cancel a host of international space station-based biological and physical research activities, and postpone some space science missions, including two advanced space telescopes and a Mars science lander slated to launch in 2009.
The cuts were necessary, according to NASA, to pay the remaining $287 million tab for preparing the space shuttle for its return to flight, to make a substantial down payment on a potential Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission, to accommodate $400 million worth of special projects that lawmakers added to NASA’s budget last year, and to cover larger than predicted bills for a variety satellite projects being prepared for launch.
I'd like to say that NASA should be receiving more money, but that's stating the obvious.
OTOH, that space station seems silly.
I think most of the projects look silly. :>
Except for the Hubble and other telescopes, and the satellites (maybe - depends what they are used for).
The shuttle is real old technology(and not in a good way, like the good old Russian launchers), and has been showing its flaws again and again.
NASA are a bunch a elitist cliquey bastards. They deserve to die a slowwwww death.
http://www.kltv.com/Global/story.asp?S=3339785
NASA's new boss has made an impassioned case for speeding up development of a new spacecraft.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4543611.stm
"The shuttle is inherently flawed. It does not have an escape system for its crew," Nasa chief Michael Griffin told a Senate oversight committee.
"The expense of maintaining the shuttle fleet year after year is so great that in order to move effectively ahead on the Crew Exploration Vehicle systems, we must retire the shuttle."
The price for doing so, however, is likely to spark howls of protests. Griffin told senators he is prepared to use money earmarked for space station science as well as technology development programs and planetary exploration missions.
>>4
It's true that NASA has become a big fat bureaucracy, ripe with corruption. Hopefully Griffin will put it back in shape.
From the outside NASA does seem to have stagnated. Maybe it's because it's a fat bureaucracy, or maybe because there's no money to go around. Doing fancy things takes mucho $$$.
It's probably a bit of both.