Homer Hickam, on Bush's coming announcement for NASA's new objectives, in the Wall Street Journal:
All I've got to say is please, for pity's sake, stop worrying about NASA stealing money from your favorite federal program and adding to the deficit. Out of a $2 trillion-plus budget in 2004, human resources programs (Education, Health and Human Services, HUD, Labor, Social Security, etc.) will get an astonishing 34%! In contrast, NASA has the smallest budget of all the major agencies in the federal government. In fact, its budget has represented less than 1% of the total budget each year since 1977 and it will probably never get more than a fraction above that, even with this new plan....If the president's space proposals seem overly bold, it's because no president has ever thought it important enough to spend any political capital to see a cogent plan in space all the way through. I don't agree with President Bush about everything but he's starting to remind me of Harry S. Truman. He gets with the program. You can argue with him about what he does and you might even be right, but you can't fault the man for getting out front and leading. That is, after all, what we hire our presidents to do.
Emphasis mine. Were the respondents for a recent poll that illustrates a public ambivalence to space programs told of the infintesimal size of NASA's treasury cut? Of course not. People tend to think a government is spending too much when they haven't the faintest idea how much money is being allocated or where. NASA is doubly cursed: For those that do have an inkling, the intangibles of science frontiers might not stimulate their imaginations as much as frustrate an expectation of money being used for good, solid, concrete things that sit very much on planet Earth, thank you kindly.
Although regulated privatization would, like aviation, produce the best results, the scale of successes achieved by NASA's comparatively small, dedicated staff against its resources, scope of work and inherently dangerous occupation is awing. And its funding remains less than one percent of the budget. Unfortunately, that miracle of public works doesn't make for good politics. So the matter will be hotly debated, occasionally mocked, and for the time being space exploration will - moon/Mars mission or not - stay on the bottom shelf.
SHE BLINDED ME WITH SCIENCE: If NASA is busy sending men to the moon and Mars, it won't be throwing money at the rattletrap space shuttle.