Obama is Coming Around on NASA

The Orlando Sentinel (which clearly has a dog in this fight) is reporting that Obama is backing off of plans to cut NASA's budget. The article is somewhat brief on details, but it seems clear that Obama is now willing to continue shuttle flights until 2010 and to continue the Constellation program (which he was originally going to freeze for 5 years to save money for education). I'm all for more money for education, but one just can't stop and restart projects that require major intellectual infrastructure. When highly trained aeronautical engineers are laid off, they're not necessarily around 5 years later. Re-starting from scratch 5 years later is not cost effective, and may not even be possible after all the relevant expertise has dispersed. In the speech, Obama also acknowledged the mismatch between plans for Constellation and its funding level, and recognized that the disparity has led NASA to ...