While I share your stated concerns regarding Bush’s profligate government spending, I feel that your comments against the moon and Mars program are unjustified. As with Iraq, Bush is again exhibiting strong leadership with this bold initiative. When you look at incremental real dollars, they are miniscule compared to the cost of Boston’s Big Dig or the recent prescription drugs entitlement. Mainstream press pronouncements of expenditures are ill founded statements by numerically challenged reporters. Much of the expense comes from discontinuing other alternative NASA expenditures, e.g. shuttle and ISS. I believe that the current NASA Administrator O’Keefe has a reasonable fiscal program handle on the organization. For Western culture to continue its pre-eminence, we first need to survive (the anti-terror programs) and better yet we need to give our children the stars. Other cultures in the past have turned their backs on the frontiers and entered the footnotes of history.

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People - NOW is the time to write whomever and ensure that we do not end up stuck on this rock