Obama Backs New Launcher and Bigger NASA Budget

The AAAS's ScienceInsider confidently reports that NASA is in line to receive $1 billion more next year. Reader coop0030 sends this quote: "President Barack Obama will ask Congress next year to fund a new heavy-lift launcher to take humans to the Moon, asteroids, and the moons of Mars... The president chose the new direction for the US human space flight program Wednesday at a White House meeting with NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, according to officials familiar with the discussion. NASA would receive an additional $1 billion in 2011 both to get the new launcher on track and to bolster the agency's fleet of robotic Earth-monitoring spacecraft."

Re:MORE FUNDS?!

[jedidiah]

Are you kidding? They have more change in the couch cushions over at the Pentagon.

Re:Smaller budgets

[Thoreauly Nuts]

Has Obama supported anything with a smaller budget?

Yeah. Your budget. It's now smaller.

Re:I've seen too many web ads

[skine]

that last one was from my daughter's Teabagger boyfriend, sry.

Looks like you and your daughter are very open about her sex life.

Public Option?

[neurogeneticist]

I can only hope that this heavy-lift launch system will support a public option with early buy-in and that none of this NASA budget will be appropriated to state-supported abortions. Otherwise, it will apparently have a hard time getting through the senate.

Re:WHAT FUCKING MIDDLE?

[Shakrai]

I'm not a Republican, but since you are trolling allow me to respond in kind:

Good luck with that, you guys don't believe in gun ownership ;)

Re:MORE FUNDS?!

[Kohath]

The Iraq war is only 1/15th as expensive as everything else the government does. Someone who only spends 1/15th of their budget on an activity has a hobby, not an addiction.

It's not the cause of the bankruptcy.

Anyway, you can relax. We won the war and the combat troops are coming home. We may keep a (relatively inexpensive) forward force there like we have in Korea and Germany, but the combat is essentially over.

Re:This isn't about science.

[ColdWetDog]

As long as this involves building a moonbase and getting some sharks with friggin' lasers on their friggin' heads... you won't hear me complain.

Sorry to rain on your parade, but 1 billion isn't going to give you sharks. It's not going to give you mutant sea bass.

I'd be pleasantly surprised if you get a goldfish with a laser pointer duct taped to it's head.

Re:This isn't about science.

[Zarf]

As long as this involves building a moonbase and getting some sharks with friggin' lasers on their friggin' heads... you won't hear me complain.

Sorry to rain on your parade, but 1 billion isn't going to give you sharks. It's not going to give you mutant sea bass.

I'd be pleasantly surprised if you get a goldfish with a laser pointer duct taped to it's head.

You have no idea how low my expectations are right now... I'm totally on board with the gold-fish laser pointer. This will rock so hard!

Re:-1: Strawman

[Chris Burke]

Would this "cost accounting" thing tell me that I can't apportion blame however I wish?

Because if so, I'm not sure I want to learn it.