Obama to give NASA an extra $1B?

The Science magazine blog is quoting unnamed sources who say that Obama, after a meeting with NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, has pledged $1 billion to NASA in 2011 to work on a heavy lift rocket to take astronauts to the Moon and Mars. If this is true, that's very interesting news indeed. I'll stress that I personally look at this as unconfirmed leaked info, so take it with a grain of salt. Science is saying it'll be announced officially as early as next week, or as late as the State of the Union address in January. If it is true, it comes on top of a more than $900 million bump by Congress for next year (which is official). The report is unclear about some things, like what happens to the Constellation program to build Ares rockets. A lot of people in the space business (but outside of NASA) say ...