Just for reference NASA's Budget for 2008 & 2009 is running in the neighborhood of $17 Billion.JLawson wrote: ...and we're shaving $600 million off of NASA's budget of $4 bil this year. (I guess the theory is that you've got to economize somewhere... God knows it seems they're not economizing anywhere else.)
$4 billion budget for NASA? WTF? What would happen if we bumped that up to $10 bil/year for the next decade? What would we have at the end of that time?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Budget
The $600 Million you are talking about is directely related to funding in 2010 for heading back to the Moon during the next decade or so. Also, this money is only on 'hold' pending Obama's review of this specific NASA project. Congress can reinstate this funding later in the year if so chosen.
http://www.space.com/news/090608-nasa-budget.html