"It would be nice to see that budget doubled and spent on space exploration. The manned stuff is still, I contend, not a waste of money but not productive in any meaningful sense. I'd rather know if there is or was life on Mars, or one of the farther moons, and what that life's DNA was like relative to ours than see more people hanging out on the ISS with all it's toilet, water and power problems sucking up available resources.

I think manned space projects should continue, but be a relatively low priority. Finding out what's there is more important."

One difference in regard to NASA between robotic and manned, is that for robotics, NASA does not build launch vehicles and for Manned, NASA does build launch vehicles.

The launch vehicles of the manned program are the vast majority of NASA costs on Manned programs. If NASA felt it was necessary to build it's launch vehicles for robotic missions, than the cost of robotic mission would be much higher than it currently is.

So the manned program is mostly about NASA building and operating the infrastructure considered by NASA that it needs to do the manned program, and I would agree that NASA's building the infrastructure they claim is needed for manned program should be a lower priority than "Finding out what's there" [space exploration].

Now, if priority can be translated to dollars spent per year, NASA's priority has always been manned programs- or all the infrastructure costs considered necessary for Manned exploration has always consumed most of NASA's budget.

And the dollar amount of NASA's budget is reflected by the number of employees it has- NASA's manned programs has always had more NASA employee than compared to the robotic programs.

If one wants to make big changes in NASA in the short term [say less than 5 years] in terms of it's budget priority
you are going to need to fire and hired a significant amount of people at NASA. Any significant amount of hiring and firing has significant costs associated with it- without including the emotional feeling of employees and the costs you will probably add to their individual bottom lines.
One could also do things like increase hiring on robotic programs and reduce hiring on Manned program- as sort of a general policy. Or start fewer manned projects and start more robotic projects. This is would result in less change in terms the first couple years, but it could have significance in 4 to 5 years. But one shouldn't think that hiring freezes are anything new to NASA- the average age of NASA work force is proof of how much this has been done.
And one could say there are numerous "butterfly effects" or "side effects" related to this sort of thing which can occur and have occurred, which are not good.

But the general effect of lowering the budget for manned program will be the increase of the total cost of the manned program. In other words if you have manned program which suppose get to the Moon within 10 year, if you don't give enough money to the program for that 10 years, it will result in it taking 15 or 20 years and basically costing 50% or twice as much as it was planned on costing.

One could say that if the Manned program was considered as a high priority, the plan to get to the Moon by 2020 does not reflect this. Or by planning to get to the moon by 2020, allows for the fact that manned programs and NASA in general are not a priority for Congress.

So, essentially the plan at the moment is for manned program is the acceptance it does not have a high priority or it has a lower priority- unless congress changes it's mind.

If you want it lower priority than it is now, you would need to do something about what it's presently spending money on and what it plans on doing.
Right now NASA is spending money on the Shuttle program and ISS [which is related to the shuttle program] and preparing to make launch vehicles to get to the Moon and beyond.
The launch vehicles to go to the Moon, etc are sort of way of extending the shuttle program in regard to NASA's workforce.

One way to do this would be to limit the total amount of Shuttle flights. They are sort of doing this already, but you could be more clear and definite about the number permitted, or even lower the number currently allowed. In addition to total number one also should have a time limit- which they already have: 2010 is suppose to be last year the Shuttle operates.

It's unlikely that shuttle last year will be 2010- there is some talk of extending it, and I don't think Obama has made it clear that he is completely on board with this time limit as being solid deadline.
But I would still be happy if say only one Shuttle flight occurs in 2011 and then no more.
Because of political forces, it won't end this year, nor by the summer of next year, it's a slim possibility it will end by Dec 31 2010- say a launch in December and landing in Jan 2011.

Of course if the last flight of the Shuttle is on or before Dec 31 2010, the entire workforce involved in the shuttle program will not be layoff before Jan 31 2011. The people involved will have made plans of some kind, because that day has been known for a number of years. and there will a certain amount wind down connected with ending any program.

But the news will no doubt be dramatizing the event in some fashion in Jan 2011- and btw perhaps stories building 6 month before this.
Politically though you probably would not want this "same event" occuring near the 2012 election, nor in terms of politics do you want a possibility of shuttle accident occuring in 2011- space exploration is generally not main issue in election, but if you had something like that, it could be.

Anyways the shuttle program is already planned to end by 2010. So wanting a lower priority in Manned space can only mean, canceling or delaying significantly a program designed to make ending the Shuttle program "easier" on it's workforce.

As far as I can see, you could argue [assuming you had some evidence] that this program that uses shuttle program people, is not using enough shuttle people to be significant and/or that it's that such idea in general terms is a wrong thing to do.

But one thing you should keep in mind, NASA has been and probably always will be a job program more than it's something interested in space exploration- for NASA, space exploration has always been of secondary importance.