American planetary exploration is in grave danger, say scientists

When Obama took office, a gallon of Gas averaged $1.78 a gallon. Now look at it. He has no interest in space. No interest in doing things that benefit us. No interest other than taking from people and giving it to his cronies. You can bet if one of his cronies ran a space oriented company, then NASA would be funding them and NASA's budget wouldn't be cut.

A disappointing bit of news. But when big projects like the JWST are 3-4x over budget, and way behind schedule, who would want to keep writing checks to NASA. Sadly, NASA's lack of credibility hurts us all.

Obama should mind his own business and let
Nasa Explore the universe as much as they want.
It's for this countries own good and keep our lead
in exploring the universe. It's about time we put this
country first and don't worry about what others do.

"If the NASA budget is passed in its current form, American leadership in planetary sciences will be endangered," said Dan Britt, chair of Division for Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society (AAS).

Of course it will. Our president does not believe in America being a leader in anything.

The scientists would be upset, as would I, if that were my profession. They may not have noticed that the US National debt is now about $15,000,000,000,000. That is kind of a lot of money, especially when you remember that the GDP is about $14,000,000,000,000. We are adding about a trillion a year to the debt. The economy isn't growing NEARLY that fast. The unfunded present value of the obligations of the Federal government (that would be YOU) for the next 50 years, is estimated to be at least $50 TRILLION, unless legislative changes occur. So, unless we cause VERY high inflation to reduce the value of the debt, budgets must be cut and taxes increased, or we will find ourselves in the same boat with Greece in about 8 years. Growth would increase tax revenues, but high growth is very difficult to achieve with such a high level of government and private debt.
The GDP of the entire European Union is larger than that of the USA. It is roughly $16 trillion. China is at about $6 trillion. We need to cooperate with Europe on planetary exploration. But for the USA, manned space exploration is far more important. Two things fascinate most children, dinosaurs, and people in space. Norm Augustine, one of the smartest men in the USA, said that on the NASA committee charged with studying the future course for NASA. If we are to maintain our standard of living by being able to compete with China and Europe, we must develop as much advanced technology as we can. The best way to do that is to interest young people with extraordinary intelligence, in science and engineering, not finance, law, or sociology. Such professions are necessary and important, but they don't create vast new wealth for society as a whole. Invention of new technology does. Knowing what type of gas is on Neptune is of far less use to society than knowing how to make a better battery, or computer. That is why we need to direct most, but certainly not all, of our limited funds for space exploration to astronauts, rather than robots to Titan.
Sorry scientists, we're going broke. We can't keep borrowing more and more money forever. The word is 'unsustainable'. I would love to see a rover running around on every moon out there, but we can't afford it. Better to cut a little, than to look uncooperative, and get cut a LOT. Congress could eliminate NASA funding completely, and only a few would not get reelected for doing so. A lot of ignorant people would probably view it as a good thing! Millions of Americans think all space spending is a waste of money. They think it is a huge portion of the Federal budget, along with the 'earmarks'. Their vote counts the same as the scientists'.

Planetary exploration is critical to a new generation of American scientists. I rememer John Glenn's mission in Friendship 7 50 years ago and how the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs inspired a whole generation of scientists. By not funding these programs, we as a nation are doomed to mediocrity.