Let's refocus our energy on Bush the Lesser

[funky_bug]

Just a little snippet from that random junk mail that shows up in my inbox everyday from Slate - Florida voters, this is Bush the Lesser's plan for his bubbies' constituents:

"A NYT front pager consults space experts who estimate that NASA could achieve President Bush's proposed moon and Mars landings without large budget increases. To do this, politicians would have to end the shuttle program and the international space station. But such a policy shift would come with a political price: The shuttle program employs 14,000 people in Florida. As if responding to the analysts, the Post's lead reports that Bush plans to replace the shuttles with a "crew exploration vehicle," which could simultaneously travel to the moon, space station, and Mars. Meanwhile, a Post editorial mocks the financial recklessness of Bush's plan--in 1989 NASA estimated a Mars mission would cost $400 billion--but calls it no surprise: "Mr. Bush's contempt for the constraints of fiscal prudence has been evident for a long while." (The Post and NYT report Bush will request a five percent increase--$750 million--to NASA's budget next year.) On the Post's "Style" page, Hank Stuever imagines Bush's moon colony as yet another reality-television program: "Eventually, people on Earth won't watch the moon show anymore, and the settlers will become the loneliest people not in the world, forgotten and living in a lunar trailer park."

[Webster Green]

1. Junking the space station is a really stupid idea.

The station should be the departuture point for further exploration. Once you get enough stuff up there, and out of the earth's gravitational pull, everything becomes easier, and cheaper. What is chimpy's plan? Build a bunch of Saturn 5 rockets?