...then I disagree completely.

When you said: Every last dollar in the Federal budget has its own constituency, loudly bleating that cuts (or, far more often, a simple failure to increase the budget as much as they'd like), would mean absolute disaster.

Did you mean that if all the constituencies "loudly bleated" it would mean disaster? If that was not your meaning then disregard this response.

If that was your meaning then jeez, why should Boeing and Morton and Lockmart be the only voices that get heard in federal government??? Ours are the opinions that matter and should be heard - it is our country. Either that or we need a new bill of rights to specify the rights of the corporations. And the jerks like me need to move to Canada.

Sounds like you are ready to do away with NASA. I'm not.