Well, mentioning such things in the context of last night's speech probably would have been considered too far off the main track. Considering all the other things going on, some things like the AIDS effort and the hydrogen car almost sounded like non-sequitors, too.

NASAWatch reports that, although nothing was mentioned by the President, some news may still be in the offing on Monday:

Editor's note: Well, there was no mention of space, nuclear rockets, or Mars in the President's State of the Union address. None the less, this does not mean that interesting news for NASA is not in the offing. Exciting stuff will be announced next Monday. Yes, per earlier rumors, it involves spacecraft using advanced nuclear power sources - and the overall development program for these systems is dubbed "Prometheus". It's just that multiple destinations - other than Mars - are involved.



The announcements made next Monday will show that NASA, at least under this Administration, is no longer incapable of big thinking when it comes to space. Moreover, NASA's other reseach priorities are no longer politically beholdent to the shadow cast by the ISS program. Finally, NASA is now seen as being worthy of big things beyond the ISS - and the ISS itself is finally going to be seen as a stepping stone for things to come.

Would any of this have been forseen a scant 14 months ago? Stay tuned.