However, I don’t understand how Hollywood can make all these sci-fi films, and yet give money to Democrats like Obama who want to gut the space program.

When I became the NASA administrator, [President Obama] charged me with three things. One, he wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math; he wanted me to expand our international relationships; and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science, math and engineering.”

This is the absolute money quote for the bass-ackward thinking of Obama and the Democrats. Now NASA is supposed to be about making Muslim nations feel better about themselves in math and science, and not space exploration? Huh? Why can’t the Muslim nations make themselves feel better about math and science by educating their people better and achieving more? Why is does this now have to be done by NASA and the American taxpayer?

Yes, decades ago, NASA led a mission to put men on the moon and accomplished their goal of beating the Soviets there. That was then, this is now. Now NASA is, as Mr. Zubin notes, a make work bureaucracy that lives off it’s PR.

The argument for getting the government out of the space cargo infrastructure is well put by Rand Simberg here:

http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-path-not-taken

I would suggest anyone interested in the subject give it a read. If NASA had run the transcontinental rail road, the United States would still lie east of the Mississippi. .