Something to consider: Where do you think NASA would be today if the ISS had never been approved? For that mater where would NASA be if the Shuttle had never been approved? Would there even be a manned space program? Would the science programs be much larger without a manned space program? Somehow I think it would be just as difficult to get money for science programs as it is now, if not more so.

The science, as great as it is and as much as I love seeing the Rovers, and the great observatories, and the probes to Jupiter Saturn and Pluto, is just a sideline to the manned space program. It’s my feeling that NASA was created to run a MANNED space program and you can’t ask NASA to abandon that to just send space probes to study the solar system, and satellites to study the Earth. If you do that you might as well break NASA up into a small space agency, and create an independent aeronautics agency.